Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev sees a future where crypto prediction markets are no longer a side attraction, but one of the main reasons people open a prediction-market screen in the first place.
Speaking with Jim Cramer on Mad Money, Tenev said crypto contracts are already taking a disproportionate share of Robinhood’s prediction-markets business. His longer-term expectation is even more striking: within a few years, “sports will actually be in the minority.”
For Robinhood, sports have been an easy entry point. They bring users, liquidity and familiar rivalries to a product that can otherwise feel abstract. But Tenev’s comments suggest the company increasingly sees prediction markets as something much broader than a digital sports book.
The numbers help explain the enthusiasm. Revenue from Robinhood’s event contracts climbed more than tenfold year over year to $156 million in the second quarter, making it the company’s fastest-growing business line.
Then came August. Robinhood users traded event contracts 4.7 billion times, roughly 15 times the volume recorded a year earlier. That surge happened even as Robinhood’s revenue from crypto trading declined over the same period.
Why crypto prediction markets are suddenly getting interesting
Robinhood’s prediction-market operation is now built around three pillars. The company initially launched using Kalshi, then added Rothera, its own joint venture with Susquehanna that is licensed by the CFTC.
This month, Robinhood also took minority stakes in Crypto.com and OG.com, the exchange’s prediction-market spinoff, adding another partner to the mix for clearing and settling trades.
There is also a legal calculation behind the shift toward crypto.
Sports contracts remain the category facing the biggest regulatory fight. Last month, the Ninth Circuit ruled that Nevada could regulate Kalshi’s sports contracts, breaking with the Third Circuit. New Jersey has asked the Supreme Court to resolve the disagreement.
States have argued that sports contracts amount to gambling under another name. Crypto contracts do not face the same dispute in the reference article. For Robinhood, moving more activity toward crypto could therefore place a rapidly growing business line on more stable legal footing.
Tenev offered a particularly revealing example of what prediction markets can look like outside sports. He pointed to the Clarity Act, saying Robinhood users with a view on the legislation could trade a market tied to it.
The bill failed cloture last week. Before the Senate vote, Polymarket’s odds of it passing dropped from 35% to 11%, meaning the prediction market moved sharply before the political outcome was officially settled.
Then there is the simplest explanation for why crypto is becoming more interesting again: people have something to talk about.
The reference article describes the previous bear market as a long decline followed by a summer with little volatility. And low volatility creates a problem for markets built around predictions. When nothing moves, there is not much worth predicting.
That changes when crypto prices start moving again.
Users can make calls on where Bitcoin will trade by the end of the year, speculate on how quickly altcoins might return to their all-time highs, or use directional price bets as a way to hedge around an election.
That creates a broader proposition for Robinhood. The same audience that once came for sports can stay for markets tied to legislation, Bitcoin prices and the increasingly unpredictable rhythm of crypto itself.
Crypto prediction markets, in that sense, are not replacing sports so much as expanding what prediction markets can be about. And for Robinhood, that expansion is already showing up in the numbers.