The 61% rebound belongs to the exchange, not the app

Robinhood's crypto volume rose 61% in August to $17.5 billion, Cointelegraph reports from the brokerage's monthly operating report. Split the number by where it came from and the rebound belongs to the exchange it bought, not to the app people download.

August by source:

• Total: $17.5 billion, up 61% on July and down 38% on August last year.
• Bitstamp, the exchange: $10.1 billion, up 53% on the month, down 30% on the year.
• The Robinhood app: $7.4 billion, up 72% on the month, down 46% on the year.

Work the year-on-year figures backwards and the shift is stark. August last year the app did about $13.7 billion and Bitstamp about $14.4 billion, a gap of roughly 5%. Today Bitstamp is 36% larger than the app. The retail side is not just smaller, it has been shrinking at twice the exchange's rate.

The Robinhood crypto volume figure is really two businesses reported as one, and their shares have moved: Bitstamp was 55% of the total in the second quarter and 57.7% in August. Robinhood bought that business in June 2025, and fifteen months later it is the majority of the company's crypto turnover.

A recovery, not a return

The rebound itself is real and worth sizing properly. July, implied by the 61% rise, was about $10.9 billion, the low point. August at $17.5 billion runs 31% above the second quarter's monthly average of $13.3 billion. A month that beats the quarterly pace is a recovery, not a bounce off the floor.

What it is not is a return to last year. Reaching August 2025's $28.2 billion from here needs another 61% on top of the 61% already delivered.

One line in the operating report changes how the whole thing should be read.

“Crypto volume from the Robinhood Chain was not included in the figures.”

— Robinhood, August 2026 operating report

Robinhood August 2026 operating report, published 10 September 2026

The part the report leaves out

The company's own chain is excluded from these figures, and that chain has been the loud part of its crypto story. It set a record $874.8 million DEX day on memecoins at the end of August, and its fees pushed Arbitrum up 23% at the start of September. Whatever is happening there sits outside the $17.5 billion entirely.

The revenue line explains why none of this shook the quarter. Crypto transaction revenue fell 38% year on year to $100 million in the second quarter, which on $40 billion of volume is a take rate of 0.25%. Event contracts, options and equities more than covered the gap, and Robinhood still posted record revenue and earnings. Crypto is now the part of this business that moves without deciding the result.

None of this should be read as personalized investment advice.