Robinhood bought Bitcoin for $25 million and placed it on the balance sheet

Robinhood added US$25 million in Bitcoin positions to its balance sheet, fully deploying its crypto business

Robinhood added US$25 million worth of Bitcoin to its balance sheet. The move marks the trading platform is deeply investing corporate capital into the crypto business covering trading, tokenized stocks, derivatives and blockchain infrastructure.

Strategic Alignment and Market Size

Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood's chief crypto officer, said the purchase is aimed at making the company more aligned with the philosophy of the crypto community. He pointed out: "We are deeply concerned about Bitcoin and its ecosystem. For us, it's more about aligning the company's vision with the crypto community."

Kerbrat believes that given Robinhood's size, the US$25 million position is relatively small. The company's Nasdaq-listed stock fell 1.85% on Tuesday to close at $112, giving it a market value of nearly $100 billion. Kerbrat emphasized: "Robinhood is currently a huge company with a market value in the US$100 billion range. Therefore, this $25 million Bitcoin position will not significantly change the company's established development trajectory."

这一持有行为表明，Robinhood 将其自有资本押注于一个日益成为其交易业务核心组成部分的资产。根据 crypto.news 九月披露的运营数据，Robinhood 八月加密货币名义交易量达 175 亿美元，较七月的 109 亿美元增长 61%。其中，Bitstamp 贡献了 101 亿美元，而通过 Robinhood 主应用处理的交易量约为 74 亿美元。截至八月底，资金账户用户达到 2860 万，平台总资产约为 3840 亿美元。

衍生品扩张与代币化股票

随着公司向符合条件的美国用户提供永续合约做准备，其加密产品已超越现货交易范畴。本月早些时候公布的计划涵盖比特币、以太坊、Solana、XRP、Dogecoin、Cardano、Chainlink 和 Hyperliquid。预计比特币和以太坊的永续合约杠杆最高可达 10 倍，而其他六种资产的杠杆上限为 3 倍。

这些产品将通过 Robinhood Derivatives 运行，并采用 Robinhood 于 2025 年收购的加密货币交易所 Bitstamp 的基础设施。至 2026 年底，交易手续费设定为 0.01%。CEO Vlad Tenev 将此计划描述为面向美国客户的第一个“真正”的永续合约，无到期日，盈亏每 15 分钟结算一次。

At the same time, Robinhood said its tokenized stock trading volume is approaching the limit set by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)'s five-year innovation exemption. Kerbrat revealed that the company plans to add voting rights and physical redemption capabilities to tokenized stocks and is committed to supporting more U.S. stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Robinhood Chain: Building its own cryptographic network

Most of Robinhood's on-chain strategy is now run through Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network built based on Arbitrum technology. The public L2 main network was launched on July 1, simultaneously launching tokenized stocks and decentralized perpetual contracts. Qualified users from more than 120 countries around the world can access tokenized stocks on supported decentralized exchanges through Robinhood Wallet.

Early activities focused mainly on native cryptocurrency transactions. In the first week of launch, Robinhood Chain handled US$570 million in transaction volume, while liquidity was only US$21.68 million, of which meme coin transactions accounted for most of the activity. Subsequently, network usage continued to grow. According to on-chain data shared by MSBIntel and verified by Token Terminal, Robinhood Chain recorded 7.6 million transactions on July 11, compared with 9.2 million transactions on Coinbase's Base network during the same period. By the end of July, the network had processed more than $12 billion in decentralized exchange transactions and more than 150 million transactions, according to Bernstein.

Kerbrat said Robinhood has approximately 27 million funds accounts in the United States and another 1 million overseas. "This may be the first time L2 has been connected to such a large distribution network." he said.

Corporate Bitcoin buyers remain active

Robinhood enters the corporate Bitcoin market with smaller positions, in contrast to companies whose balance sheets are built around cryptocurrencies. Strategy announced on Monday that it had purchased another 334 bitcoins between September 28 and October 4, for a total price of approximately $28.7 million. The company paid an average of $85,838.80 per piece, bringing its total holdings to 848,000 pieces.

Previously, Strategy purchased 1,665 bitcoins for US$142.7 million in the week ended September 27, with an average price of US$85,681, with 847,666 positions held at the time. Strategy funded the September purchase by selling its MSTR common stock, earning a net gain of $246.2 million from 1.47 million shares, of which $142.7 million was used to purchase Bitcoin and another $103.5 million was used to repurchase its STRC preferred shares.

After a two-week suspension, the company resumed Bitcoin purchases by purchasing 950 bitcoins from September 14 to 20 for US$75.7 million at an average price of US$79,670 each. Other listed companies have adopted different strategies in 2026. Sequans Communications sold the remaining 314 bitcoins in September after ending its Bitcoin treasury strategy by using early bitcoin sales to reduce convertible debt.

Bitcoin price outlook focuses on US$82,000 support

On Wednesday, bitcoin trading prices were close to US$84,000, putting pressure on the crypto market due to rising oil prices, higher bond yields and a stronger US dollar. During the sell-off, leveraged long positions of more than $403 million were liquidated within an hour, and Brent crude oil prices exceeded $101. A crypto market update cited according to Sanitation data shows that Bitcoin exchange supply dropped to 6.5% as 24,073 bitcoins left the trading platform.

Price movements have brought BTC close to the range analysts were already focusing on when entering October. Lacie Zhang, head of research at Bitget Wallet, previously set the range of possible fluctuations for Bitcoin in October between US$78,000 and US$95,000, and identified US$82,000 as an important downside support level. Zhang told crypto.news that $87,500 is the main level that Bitcoin must break before achieving a stronger recovery. According to the October Bitcoin Outlook Report, institutional demand needs to absorb sales pressure from long-term holders and miners before the rally can be sustained.

Since then, demand for ETFs has cooled. Bitfinex analysts said that in the week ended October 2, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF inflows fell to $241.1 million from $2.39 billion, while Bitcoin failed to break through $87,722. Analysts placed BTC in the range of US$84,000 to US$87,722, pointing out that in the face of weak spot buying, if trading below US$81,300 continues to be accompanied by ETF withdrawals, the recovery will be at risk.