Fewer than three months after its acquisition by Robinhood, crypto exchange Bitstamp has overtaken its parent company in trading activity, posting a 21% jump in August volumes to $14.4 billion.
Robinhood, meanwhile, reported Thursday that its crypto trading volumes slid 18% month-over-month to $13.7 billion.
The data shows Robinhood’s crypto activity has been on a downward trend since its record quarter in November 2024, with a brief rebound in July before dipping again in August.
Robinhood finalized its $200 million acquisition of Bitstamp on June 2, bringing in more than 5,000 institutional clients and 50,000 retail customers to its platform.
The exchange is expected to play a central role in Robinhood’s push into real-world asset tokenization. Now rebranded as Bitstamp by Robinhood, it has been integrated with Robinhood Legend and the Smart Exchange Routing system, streamlining trading across the two platforms.
Despite the closer integration, combined crypto trading volumes for Robinhood and Bitstamp slipped 2.1% from July. Still, Robinhood’s total assets edged up 2% month-over-month to $304 billion, including roughly $41 million in crypto.
Flat month for crypto markets
The broader crypto market showed little movement in August, with trading volumes up only slightly and prices finishing near where they started.
Commenting on Robinhood’s slowdown in crypto activity, Ryan McMillin, CEO of Australian crypto fund manager Merkle Tree Capital, cited seasonal factors. As a North America–focused platform, Robinhood may have seen reduced activity during the summer holiday period.
More broadly, McMillin noted that market sentiment remains subdued as investors await macroeconomic signals—particularly whether softening jobs and inflation data will lead to interest rate cuts, and how significant those cuts might be.
“Trump has been pushing for lower rates while Jerome Powell has dug his heels in, now that looks to have changed.”
Both McMillin and CK Zheng, co-founder and CIO of ZX Squared Capital, anticipate a rebound in crypto trading activity, projecting fresh record highs before the end of the year.
Zheng added that he doesn’t believe the fourth quarter will mark the peak of the current market cycle under the four-year cycle framework, citing growing institutional participation through crypto ETFs and treasury-focused companies.
Robinhood joins the S&P 500
This week, Robinhood made its debut on the S&P 500, adding another crypto-forward company to the benchmark U.S. stock index.
“This move broadens the index’s exposure to the digital asset economy,” Edwin Mata, CEO of tokenization platform Brickken, told Cointelegraph on Tuesday, as Robinhood’s shares surged more than 16% on the news.
The milestone comes even as Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy was left out of the latest reshuffle.
Robinhood expands in Europe
In early July, Robinhood rolled out a tokenization-focused layer-2 blockchain for its European Union customers, granting access to U.S. equities. It also introduced perpetual futures trading in the region, offering eligible traders derivatives with up to 3x leverage. These transactions are routed through Bitstamp, the crypto exchange Robinhood acquired in June for $200 million.
