Vlad Tenev, CEO of the well-known US online broker Robinhood, said in an interview video released today (24th) by top cryptocurrency KOL Anthony Pompliano that discussions about holding Bitcoin on Robinhood's balance sheet "come up from time to time" within the company.
According to The Block report, Tenev pointed out in the interview that cryptocurrencies have become increasingly important to Robinhood, and the idea of holding Bitcoin "comes up from time to time" as the company likes to be more involved in Crypto. However, apart from holding some tokens to meet customer trading needs, the company currently has no plans to hold Bitcoin "for investment purposes" and will not use the narrative of hedging against inflation with Bitcoin to promote the company.
We don't rule out that possibility. So far we haven't done that. We're not in the investment management business.
Robinhood CEO: Company's stock price is highly correlated with Bitcoin
He believes that if Robinhood were to hold Bitcoin for investment purposes, it could "complicate" investors' perception of the company, as investors might view it as a race to hold Bitcoin.
He then pointed out that although Robinhood has not accumulated Bitcoin on its balance sheet for investment purposes like MicroStrategy or Tesla, the company's stock price "is already highly correlated with Bitcoin".
Robinhood (HOOD) stock price has soared along with Bitcoin during the Trump election and Bitcoin's bull run, rising more than 25% since the November election day, closing at $37.5 on Monday, up more than 203% so far this year, while Bitcoin's year-to-date gain is about 113%.
Robinhood holds the third-largest Bitcoin wallet
It is worth mentioning that although Robinhood does not hold Bitcoin for investment purposes, according to Arkham data, one of Robinhood's cold wallets is currently custodying 140,575 BTC, worth $13.2 billion, making it the third-largest Bitcoin wallet holder, behind only Binance and Bitfinex. Robinhood also confirmed last year that this wallet (bc1ql) is the wallet used to custody Bitcoin for its customers.
Further reading: Robinhood confirmed as the third-largest Bitcoin and fifth-largest ETH holder
Bernstein is optimistic about Robinhood's crypto business explosion in 2025
Although Robinhood is currently more conservative in its cryptocurrency trading services compared to its competitors such as Coinbase and Kraken, offering far fewer digital asset investment products and listing fewer tokens for its users. However, analysts expect Robinhood's conservative cryptocurrency business strategy to undergo a major change after Trump's inauguration.
In November last year, top Wall Street investment bank Bernstein analysts predicted that Robinhood would be one of the key stocks that would benefit the most from the positive impact of a potential relaxation of cryptocurrency regulations after Trump's election victory.
They forecast that by the end of 2025, Robinhood's cryptocurrency revenue will grow by 20% and account for 38% of the trading platform's total revenue. Robinhood has also planned to complete the acquisition of the Bitstamp exchange in the first half of 2025.
