Robinhood's talks with Crypto.com show how quickly prediction markets have moved from novelty to core retail finance, and the clearest winner so far is the app that already owns the customer relationship.
The Wall Street Journal reported on July 24 that Robinhood and Crypto.com are discussing a deal that would let Robinhood users trade Crypto.com's event contracts from inside the Robinhood app. No deal is guaranteed. The point is not that one more exchange might join Robinhood's prediction market hub. The point is that Robinhood is turning prediction markets into something that sits beside stocks and crypto on the same screen you already open.
That is not a side business anymore. According to the Journal, Robinhood has already sourced event contracts from Kalshi, Interactive Brokers' ForecastEx and Rothera, the exchange built with Susquehanna International Group. The Block, citing Bernstein, reported that Rothera has processed more than 3.5 billion contracts since going live in late May, with FIFA World Cup markets making up most of that activity. If you're still treating prediction markets as a crypto-adjacent curiosity, you're late.
Robinhood wants more than one pipe
Crypto.com launched OG on February 3, 2026, through Crypto.com Derivatives North America, its CFTC-registered exchange and clearinghouse affiliate. The company said at launch that OG would offer sports, financial, political, cultural and entertainment event contracts. That gives Robinhood a wider catalogue if the talks lead anywhere. It also gives Robinhood leverage.
Distribution is the real asset. Kalshi may have the brand in regulated prediction markets, and Crypto.com may have its own product bench, but Robinhood has the user base and the habit. A person who already checks Robinhood for bitcoin or Nvidia doesn't need to download a new app to buy a contract on the World Cup, an election outcome, the Fed's next move, or what happens in a cultural vote nobody saw coming. That friction matters. It always has.
Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani has put hard numbers behind that shift. The Block reported on July 20 that Bernstein raised its Robinhood price target to $160 from $130 while maintaining an Outperform rating, with the firm modeling roughly $150 million in second-quarter prediction market revenue and expecting that line to overtake crypto revenue for the first time. Bernstein also expects Robinhood's prediction market revenue to reach $1.7 billion by 2028. Frankly, you can see why the stock market paid attention.
That doesn't mean crypto is dead for Robinhood. It means crypto is no longer the only high-volatility product pulling retail users back into the app. Bernstein cut its 2026 crypto trading revenue estimate, according to The Block, after softer industry volumes in the first half of the year. Prediction markets are arriving just as crypto trading looks less reliable as a quarterly growth engine.
Kalshi has a partner problem
Kalshi's relationship with Robinhood now looks awkward in the way good business relationships often become awkward once the money gets big. Kalshi supplies contracts to Robinhood. Robinhood also has Rothera. Now Robinhood is talking to Crypto.com. You don't build that many routes unless you want less dependence on any single one.
Kalshi chief executive Tarek Mansour told Front Office Sports in June that he saw CME Group, Robinhood and DraftKings as bigger threats than Polymarket. That was the correct read. Kalshi's problem is not simply a rival prediction app. It is that brokers and sportsbooks want the same retail flow, and some of them already have customers who open their apps every day. Big exchanges are in the same queue.
The World Cup made the fight visible. Sports Business Journal reported in late June that Bank of America estimated Kalshi's overall prediction market share at about 80%, with Polymarket and Rothera at about 7% each and Crypto.com at about 2%. Kalshi was still far ahead. But Rothera had only just launched, and it was already showing up in the share table. That is the point.
The legal backdrop is still live. On February 17, the CFTC filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit in the Nevada dispute involving North American Derivatives Exchange, doing business as Crypto.com Derivatives North America, and said federally regulated event contracts fall under the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction. State gaming regulators and gambling groups do not agree, and the courts have not made every question disappear. But the federal agency's position gives Robinhood, Crypto.com and Kalshi a cleaner argument than offshore prediction markets had during the last cycle.
Polymarket is no longer easy to describe as simply offshore and outside the U.S. framework. It acquired QCX and QC Clearing in 2025, and several legal trackers now describe its U.S. return as operating through a federally regulated route, though state access and legal challenges remain uneven. That correction matters, because the competitive story is not regulated firms versus one offshore outsider anymore. It is distribution versus distribution.
For you, the useful read is straightforward. Robinhood is not just adding another speculative product. It is testing whether real-world events can become a standing retail trading category inside a mainstream brokerage account. If prediction market revenue does overtake crypto in the second quarter, it won't be a footnote in Robinhood's earnings. It will be the clearest sign yet that retail finance has found a new habit to sell.
Also read: MoonPay acquires Glide to fix crypto's most maddening deposit problem • The EU just put HTX on a crypto blacklist and gave itself the power to cut off entire countries • The EU can now cut off an entire country from crypto with a single decision
