Robinhood, the popular trading app for stock, options, gold and cryptocurrencies, filed for a public offering that could be worth up to $100 million, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) document submitted on Thursday.
Along with the company’s financials, the SEC document shows the reach of Robinhood as a popular destination for crypto trading.
“For the three months ended March 31, 2021, 17% of our total revenue was derived from transaction-based revenues earned from cryptocurrency transactions, compared to 4% for the three months year ended December 31, 2020,” the firm wrote.
A big chunk of that growth – 34% of the firm’s crypto transaction revenue in the first quarter – was from DOGE, the memecoin that has surged in popularity this year.
“If demand for transactions in dogecoin declines and is not replaced by new demand for other cryptocurrencies available for trading on our platform, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected,” Robinhood said.
The app currently has seven cryptocurrencies available for trading.
Robinhood has been criticized by regulators who have said the app encourages the game-like nature of trading, particularly among inexperienced retail traders. On Wednesday, the firm was fined approximately $70 million by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which said Robinhood had provided false or misleading information to users and failed to report many customer complaints about its services.
The underwriters for the IPO include Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Citigroup.
Robinhood’s IPO differs from Coinbase, the crypto exchange that opted to issue shares via a direct public offering, which eliminates intermediaries and only sells shares that already exist. Coinbase’s valuation based on its first-day trading price of April 14 was about $99 billion using a fully diluted share count of 261.3 million.
UPDATE (July 1, 15:43 UTC): Adds information on Robinhood’s IPO underwriters and comparisons to the Coinbase direct listing.
Source: Coindesk
