Author: starzq, host of Day1Global Podcast

Robinhood and Coinbase, two leading crypto stocks on the US stock market, were founded and went public in the same year, but their fortunes took completely different turns in 2025—Robinhood steadily rose to become a top-performing stock of the year, while Coinbase experienced a rollercoaster ride:

Robinhood: Its stock price surged over 200% in 2025, soaring from less than $40 at the beginning of the year to a high of $153. It has since fallen back to around $117, with its market capitalization exceeding $100 billion and it being included in the S&P 500 index.
Coinbase: After experiencing a rollercoaster ride, its stock price surged from $250 at the beginning of the year to a record high of $444 in July, but subsequently retreated sharply, currently hovering around $250. Its annual return is nearly break-even, with a market capitalization of approximately $65-68 billion.

Even more interestingly, six months ago (July 2025), Robinhood held a high-profile press conference at the ECC conference in Cannes, France—in a castle similar to the one in Hitchcock's film "To Catch a Thief," announcing that it would put hundreds of US stocks on the blockchain, including even the equity of unlisted companies like OpenAI and SpaceX, and open them to EU users for trading.

At the time, we thought this was a sign of "stealing Coinbase's resources".

Six months have passed. How is the battle going? Robinhood is not only making rapid progress in tokenized stocks, but has also entered the prediction market, becoming the fastest-growing player in this business. Coinbase is not to be outdone. At the end of 2025, it made a series of big moves, announcing its entry into stock trading and prediction markets, vowing to become the "Everything Exchange".

The head-to-head confrontation between the two companies has finally arrived.

This article provides an in-depth analysis of the history and present of Robinhood and Coinbase, as well as the key conditions for their potential 10x growth over the next 3-5 years. We welcome you to read on.

Interlude: This article is based on our Day1Global in-depth podcast interview released on July 21, 2025, and supplemented with the latest developments of the two companies in the second half of 2025. The original interview video is attached below, where you can watch it for more details.

Audio versions: Xiaoyuzhou , Apple , Spotify

How similar are the two companies?

Let's look at a few striking similarities:

Both companies are products of the mobile internet era, both have the characteristics of "founder-led", and both are trying to become the "new Wall Street" in the hearts of the next generation of young people.

But their DNA and pathways are actually very different.

II. Robinhood: A Retail Investor Frenzy, From Commission-Free to End-of-Day Options

If you want to quickly learn about Robinhood, I recommend a movie: Dumb Money.

This movie tells the story of the 2021 GameStop retail investors' battle against Wall Street, with Robinhood being the main battleground.

Robinhood has three core features:

1. Mobile-first

From its founding in 2013 until early 2025, Robinhood only had a mobile app. It wasn't until 2025 that they launched their first PC app—specifically for professional traders.

This isn't a matter of technical capability, but rather a product philosophy: their core users are young people who buy stocks using their phones while lying in bed.

2. Zero-commission transactions

Traditional brokerages charge $5-10 in commission per transaction, which is equivalent to 50%-100% of the cost for a college student buying $10 worth of stocks.

Robinhood bypasses this by using a "Pay-for-Order" (PFOF) model: it sells users' order information to market makers (such as Citadel), who then earn the spread through high-frequency trading and return a portion of the profits to Robinhood.

Users perceive zero transaction fees, but in reality, they are being "hiddenly exploited."

This model is essentially the same as the MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) in DeFi today.

3. Gamified investment experience

Robinhood's interface is extremely simple—swipe up to buy, and complete the transaction with a single button. Even candlestick charts were added much later; initially, there were only simple price charts.

This design turned investing into a "game," especially during the pandemic, when young Americans used the $1,000 or more in government subsidies to invest in stocks and options on Robinhood.

The combination of four factors—the pandemic, subsidies, gamified experiences, and gambling bans (online gambling is not allowed in the United States)—made Robinhood a "legal casino" for that generation of young people.

Robinhood's revenue structure: Cryptocurrency now accounts for half of its revenue.

A statistic that surprised me:

According to its Q4 2024 financial report, Robinhood's total revenue was $1 billion, of which:

Transaction revenue accounted for 67%.
Cryptocurrency trading accounts for 53% of trading revenue.
Options trading accounted for 33%.
Traditional stock trading accounts for less than 10%.

In other words, Robinhood appears to be a brokerage firm, but cryptocurrency is already its largest source of revenue.

This also explains why they are so aggressive in doing “tokenized stocks” – it’s about directing their core user base (crypto natives) to a new asset class.

Robinhood's "Triple Strike" in the Second Half of 2025

First Strike: Selected for the S&P 500

In September 2025, Robinhood was officially included in the S&P 500 index, replacing casino operator Caesars Entertainment. This was a historic moment—from a meme stock trading platform to a blue-chip component stock, Robinhood completed its transformation from a "rebellious kid" to a "mainstream player."

The stock price surged 15% that day. The buying by passive funds brought a huge inflow of funds.

The second blow: Prediction markets become the fastest-growing business.

In March 2025, Robinhood partnered with Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated prediction market, to launch Prediction Market Hub. Users can trade on sports events, economic data, political events, and more.

In just one year, this business exploded:

More than 1 million users participated in the transaction.
A total of 9 billion contracts have been traded.
Annualized revenue has exceeded US$100 million.
November was the strongest single month on record, with trading volume exceeding 3 billion contracts.

Prediction markets have become the fastest-growing product line in Robinhood's history.

Analysts believe this is one of the core drivers behind Robinhood's 200% stock price surge in 2025.

Even more aggressively, in November 2025, Robinhood partnered with top market maker Susquehanna International Group (SIG) to acquire CFTC-licensed exchange MIAXdx (formerly LedgerX). This means that Robinhood is no longer content with being an "intermediary" but wants to create its own prediction market exchange.

CEO Vlad said at the press conference: "What excites us most is the ability to innovate our own products, rather than just selling what others already have."

The third blow: The full rollout of tokenized stocks.

We talked about Robinhood's announcement of tokenized stocks in our July 2025 podcast, when they deployed about 200 stock tokens on Arbitrum.

Six months later (January 2026), this number has skyrocketed to nearly 2,000.

Specific data:

Total minted: US$55.5 million
Market capitalization: Over US$13 million
Coverage: 73% US stocks + 24% ETFs + some commodities and crypto ETFs
Users can trade 24 hours a day (without being restricted by US stock market opening hours).
Minimum investment threshold: only 1 euro

CEO Vlad posted on X: "slowly, then all at once"—this is exactly what tokenized stocks are going through.

More importantly, Robinhood is developing its own Robinhood Chain (an L2 chain based on Arbitrum), specifically optimized for RWA tokenization, and plans to support 24/7 trading, self-custody, and cross-chain bridging.

The head of strategy at Offchain Labs (the developer of Arbitrum) revealed that Robinhood has a "three-phase plan":

Phase 1 (currently): Tokenized shares can only be traded within the Robinhood app.
Phase Two: Achieving 24/7 Trading via Bitstamp
Phase 3: Stock tokens become completely permissionless assets, allowing users to withdraw them to external wallets and use them in DeFi.

This is the real ambition—to make stocks as freely tradable as ERC-20 tokens.

An exciting policy signal

In a 2025 interview, Vlad mentioned a detail: the "Great Beauty Act" being discussed in the United States contains a clause that is uncontroversial by both parties—

Every newborn child born in the United States automatically receives a brokerage account after birth, and the government directly deposits $1,000 into it.

This is practically an "investment version of Daughter's Red Wine"—start investing regularly from birth, and witness the power of compound interest when you grow up.

If Robinhood can secure this partnership, its user base will experience explosive growth.

III. Coinbase: The AWS of the Crypto World

If Robinhood is like Amazon's e-commerce front-end—you can buy anything and the experience is incredibly smooth; then Coinbase is more like Amazon's AWS—you may not even be aware of its existence, but the entire ecosystem runs on it.

The Origin Story of Coinbase

The story of founder Brian Armstrong is very interesting:

After graduating from Rice University, he took a gap year in Argentina and witnessed firsthand the collapse of the Argentine currency. One Thanksgiving after returning to the US, he saw the Bitcoin white paper on Reddit and was instantly captivated.

His idea was simple: why can't there be a Bitcoin wallet that's as simple as a bank account?

So he went to Airbnb to gain experience as a security engineer, then applied to Y Combinator and started working on Coinbase.

An interesting tidbit: Vitalik (the founder of Ethereum) once interviewed Coinbase, but ultimately declined the offer, saying, "I have other things to do."

This "other thing" is Ethereum, which was launched in 2014.

Coinbase's B2B Empire

Many people still associate Coinbase with being a "crypto exchange," but in reality, its B2B business is its true competitive advantage:

1. Coinbase Prime: Institutional Custody

Almost all mainstream Bitcoin ETFs (BlackRock, Bitwise, etc.) have Coinbase as the custodian of their Bitcoin assets. Coinbase currently manages over $200 billion in assets.

2. Circle Partners: USDC's largest distributor

Coinbase was an early investor in USDC and its largest distribution channel. According to the agreement:

Coinbase receives 100% of the interest earned on USDC generated on its platform.
Coinbase takes 50% of the interest generated by USDC on other platforms.

This means that half of the money Binance earns from promoting USDC will go to Coinbase.

This is why Binance has started promoting other stablecoins—instead of giving money to competitors, it's better to create its own.

3. Base Chain: Ethereum's most powerful L2 blockchain.

Coinbase has built its own Ethereum Layer 2 network, Base, which currently handles over 10 million transactions daily. While some worry about potential conflicts of interest in exchanges building their own public blockchains, Base has indeed performed well in terms of user growth and ecosystem development.

4. Crypto as a Service: An encrypted version of AWS

Coinbase has packaged its trading, custody, wallet, and payment capabilities into an API, allowing traditional financial institutions to directly integrate it. It is claimed that over 200 institutional clients are already using it.

This means that in the future, when you buy cryptocurrencies on traditional platforms like BlackRock and Charles Schwab, the backend service will likely be provided by Coinbase.

Coinbase's "last-ditch comeback" at the end of 2025

Seeing Robinhood's meteoric rise, Coinbase finally made a big move in December 2025.

December 17, 2025: Announce the "Everything Exchange" strategy.

This could be the biggest product upgrade in Coinbase's history:

Entering the stock trading arena: US users can directly buy and sell US stocks and ETFs on Coinbase, settling in US dollars or USDC.
Launching a prediction market: In partnership with Kalshi, allowing users to trade the outcomes of events in sports, politics, and economics.
Introducing Coinbase Tokenize: An RWA tokenization platform for institutions
Launching an AI wealth advisor: Using AI to provide investment advice to users.
Coinbase Business Launches: A One-Stop Crypto Service for Businesses

Brian Armstrong said at the press conference: "Our goal is to make Coinbase a complete financial platform—cryptocurrency, stocks, derivatives, prediction markets, all in one app."

This marks the first time Coinbase has directly competed with Robinhood's retail business.

December 22, 2025: Acquisition of The Clearing Company

Just five days after the press conference, Coinbase announced the acquisition of prediction market company The Clearing Company, whose founder, Toni Gemayel, is known as "the shaper of the modern prediction market landscape".

Coinbase stated that the acquisition will bring "the expertise needed to expand the prediction market."

Coalition for Prediction Markets: Industry Alliance Established

On December 11, 2025, Kalshi, Crypto.com , Robinhood, Coinbase, and Underdog jointly established the Coalition for Prediction Markets to promote friendly regulation of prediction markets in the United States.

Interestingly, rivals Robinhood and Coinbase have sided with each other on this issue.

Prediction markets have become a massive market with a global trading volume of nearly $28 billion, and both companies are vying for a piece of the pie.

Coinbase's compliance advantages

Charlie shared a detail: Every Coinbase employee's email signature has a link below it—Stand With Crypto.

This is a public advocacy platform supported by Coinbase, where over 2 million people have signed in support of cryptocurrency and even rate US lawmakers to see who is "Crypto-friendly."

Since 2020, Brian Armstrong has frequently traveled to Washington to lobby for policy. Coinbase and A16Z, among other investment firms, have formed a "Crypto Lobbying Alliance" with deep influence in the regulatory sphere.

This compliance advantage is difficult to replicate.

In contrast, while Robinhood's relationship with regulators has improved in recent years, it still doesn't have as harmonious a relationship with them as Coinbase.

IV. Who will win? Who will be the next 10-bagger?

Six months ago, we thought these two companies weren't doing exactly the same thing. But now it seems a direct confrontation is inevitable.

However, their core strengths still differ:

Robinhood is a super app for consumers: it acquires young retail users with an exceptional user experience and then monetizes through trading, subscriptions, credit cards, prediction markets, and more. CEO Vlad possesses a charismatic, almost cult-like presence, reminiscent of Steve Jobs.
Coinbase is a B2B infrastructure: it empowers the entire industry through services such as custody, data, and APIs, similar to Visa's role in the payments field—allowing partners to make big money while it makes a small share, but ultimately potentially making more money than any of its partners.

Finally, returning to the question in the title: In the next 3-5 years, which is more likely to become a 10x stock: Robinhood or Coinbase?

Let's do some calculations first:

From a purely mathematical perspective, Coinbase's 10x target is easier to achieve—$660 billion is roughly the size of Visa, while Robinhood would need to surpass JPMorgan to become one of the world's largest financial institutions to achieve 10x.

However, when investing, one should not only look at the destination, but also at the path.

The conditions required for Robinhood's 10x path:

The prediction market is projected to grow from $100 million in annual revenue to $3-5 billion (if the prediction market truly becomes a "new type of social media," refer to the scale of DraftKings + FanDuel).
Tokenized stocks are becoming mainstream, eating up 10-20% of the market share of traditional brokerages.
Taking advantage of the US "newborn brokerage account" policy.
Maintaining a leading position in cryptocurrency trading

Key variable: User mindset. If the next generation of Americans think of Robinhood when they think of "investing," just as we think of Google when we think of "search," a tenfold increase is not a dream.

Risks: Valuation is already high (P/S 25x), and growth expectations are largely priced in. A valuation correction may occur if market predictions or tokenized stocks underperform.

Overall assessment: 10-15% probability of a 10-fold increase over 3-5 years.

Conditions required for Coinbase's 10x path:

Bitcoin/Ethereum has entered a new bull market, driving trading volume and custody assets to double.
USDC's circulating supply grew from 70 billion to 200-300 billion, making stablecoin revenue a cash cow.
Its B2B business (Prime, CaaS) has secured more traditional financial institutions, becoming a "crypto version of AWS".
The Base Chain ecosystem is booming, with a significant increase in on-chain transaction fee revenue.
New businesses in stock trading and prediction markets are running smoothly.

Key variable: The overall size of the crypto industry. If the total market capitalization of crypto grows from 3 trillion to 15-20 trillion, Coinbase, as an infrastructure provider, will benefit the most.

Risks: Highly dependent on the crypto cycle; revenue could be halved during a bear market. New businesses (equities, prediction markets) started late; it will take time to catch up with Robinhood.

Overall assessment: 10-fold probability (15-20%) over 3-5 years.

V. Conclusion

The next generation's perception of "Wall Street" may be a combination of Robinhood and Coinbase.

"Robinhood may become the primary consumption gateway for the next generation's mindset. Coinbase, on the other hand, will become the core service architecture behind traditional Wall Street institutions and emerging cryptocurrency asset management. Both sides will win."

As for who can grow from the current hundreds of billions to JP Morgan's 800 billion?

It depends on what trends emerge over the next 10 years—it could be a surge in stablecoin payments, the widespread adoption of tokenized stocks, prediction markets becoming a new social media gateway, or something we can't even imagine right now.

But one thing is certain: the trend of cryptocurrency-equity integration will not be reversed, and both companies are at the forefront of this trend.

If you don't want to miss out, you can take inspiration from Sister Mutou, who allocated funds to both companies, haha. However, Robinhood has seen a 200%+ increase in 2025, and its current P/S ratio is 25, far exceeding the historical average of 11. Its short-term valuation is high, so it's advisable to wait for a pullback before entering the market. Coinbase, on the other hand, is relatively stable, with little change in valuation, but the effectiveness of its strategic transformation by the end of 2025 remains to be seen.

Disclaimer: All discussions in this article do not constitute investment advice, DYOR.

Robinhood Crypto has listed the MNT token.

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