Crypto trading on Robinhood dropped by almost half year over year in October, the company said Thursday, with customers trading $17 billion in digital assets even as their wagers on event contracts more than doubled.

The $17 billion total was down 21% from September and 48% from October 2025, when crypto notional volume reached $32.5 billion. The figure spans both the flagship Robinhood app and Bitstamp, the cryptocurrency exchange the company acquired in 2025. Founded in 2011, Bitstamp ranks among the longest-running crypto trading venues in the industry.

Volume within the Robinhood app fell to $6.8 billion, a decline of 24% from September and 51% from a year earlier. Bitstamp processed $10.2 billion, down 18% month over month and 45% year over year.

Average daily crypto volume across the two platforms came to $548 million, compared with $713 million in September and roughly $1.05 billion a year ago. The daily average number of crypto trades slipped to about 700,000, from 900,000 in September and 1.1 million in October 2025.

Event Contracts Surge as Crypto Cools

The contrast with Robinhood's prediction markets business is stark. Customers traded 5.9 billion event contracts in October, an increase of 5% from September and 136% from the 2.5 billion traded a year earlier. Average daily volume reached 190 million contracts.

Robinhood tallies crypto and prediction markets on the same 31-day calendar because both trade every day, making the comparison apples to apples. Event contracts allow users to bet on outcomes such as elections, sports and economic data, and October's tally covered the final weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, which will determine the makeup of the next Congress. Robinhood first offered election-themed event contracts during the 2024 presidential race and has since expanded the product into a year-round lineup.

That growth has attracted scrutiny in Washington. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is set to chair the Senate Banking Committee in January, plans to crack down on prediction markets and election betting platforms. Such contracts trade in the United States as derivatives under Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversight.

The rest of Robinhood's brokerage held up better than crypto. Equity notional volume rose 2% from a year earlier to $325 billion, while options contracts traded climbed 8% to 289 million. Margin balances reached $22.9 billion, up 39% year over year.

Funded customers increased by about 130,000 during the month to 28.9 million, and net deposits totaled $15.1 billion. Total platform assets slipped 3% from September to $383 billion but were up 12% from a year earlier.

Robinhood did not disclose why crypto activity fell. The release, like all of the company's monthly updates, is unaudited and preliminary.

Retail Pullback Follows Bitcoin Slide

The slump in Robinhood's crypto metrics aligns with a broader retreat among retail traders. Bitcoin ended September near $83,500 and has declined since, falling below $70,000 early Friday for the first time since August after a hot inflation report lifted bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike in December.

Institutional demand has cooled in tandem. U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds posted a sixth consecutive day of net outflows on Thursday, and BlackRock's IBIT, the largest such fund, shed about $2 billion over nine sessions through Wednesday. Spot bitcoin ETFs have now erased their net inflows for 2026.

Crypto trading generates transaction-based revenue for Robinhood, so lower volume generally translates into fewer fees even as assets on the platform keep growing. The company will report full fourth-quarter results early next year, and October's figures offer the first glimpse of how the quarter began.

Robinhood has continued to broaden its crypto footprint regardless. In October, the company won a license in Dubai to offer bitcoin and stock trading in the Middle East beginning in 2027.

Robinhood also said cash and deposit balances fell 20% in October to $16.4 billion, mostly because customers were net buyers, and noted that the decline has largely reversed in early November. November's operating data will reveal whether this month's selloff below $70,000 lured crypto traders back or pushed more of them toward event contracts.

This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.