Robinhood is buying minority stakes in Crypto.com and its prediction markets platform OG.com. In return, OG.com becomes the infrastructure and clearing partner for Robinhood's own prediction markets product. The news moved markets right away. HOOD shares climbed 3.4% in premarket trading, while the CRO token added more than 6%.
What the deal actually covers
The companies announced the multi-year deal on Tuesday, September 8. Under the agreement, OG.com processes and settles bets from Robinhood customers through its own exchange, regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Prediction markets, or event contracts, let traders bet on a specific outcome, such as a Fed rate decision, an election result, or the winner of a sports match, instead of going through a traditional sportsbook.
The companies called it OG.com's largest B2B partnership by trading volume. The rollout is happening in phases. Eligible US customers are gaining access starting September 8, with full coverage expected to expand over the coming months.
Robinhood's stakes are priced in line with Citadel Securities' July investment, which valued Crypto.com at $20 billion and gave the exchange its first institutional funding round. The standalone OG.com spinoff was valued at $5 billion. For Crypto.com, which launched OG.com as a separate app back in February, this marks the second major valuation milestone this year.
How the market reacted
Crypto.com also received conditional approval for a US national trust bank charter in February, and now it is spinning OG.com off into a separately capitalized company. Both moves point in the same direction: the exchange wants to look like regulated financial infrastructure rather than just a crypto app.
The market approved. Robinhood shares climbed to roughly $126, while CRO edged toward a weekly high near $0.063. Over the past year, CRO has repeatedly jumped on partnership news, and this case is no exception. Investors appear to read the deal as confirmation that prediction markets are here to stay rather than a passing trend.
This fits a broader pattern. Major crypto exchanges are trying, one after another, to gain a foothold in the traditional financial system through US bank or trust charters while regulators stay friendly toward the industry. A partnership with a broker like Robinhood gives Crypto.com access to millions of retail customers it would struggle to build organically.
Why Robinhood keeps adding suppliers
Robinhood's prediction markets segment started out running on Kalshi's contracts. It later shifted part of that volume to Rothera, its own CFTC-licensed exchange built as a joint venture with trading firm Susquehanna International Group and tested during this year's World Cup, when betting volume on matches spiked. OG.com is now the third infrastructure supplier, and that is not an accident.
Running several exchanges at once cuts dependence on any single partner. If one supplier hits technical outages or regulatory trouble, Robinhood can shift volume to the others without pausing service for customers. For traders, competition between providers should mean steadier execution and fewer platform outages.
There is a second reason too. Each new partner brings its own license, its own liquidity, and its own customer base. The wider the supplier network, the harder it becomes for a rival to pull volume away with a single exclusive deal.
What it means for the prediction markets race
The numbers explain why Robinhood keeps pouring resources into this business. Event contract revenue jumped more than tenfold year over year, to $156 million in the second quarter, making it the company's fastest-growing line. Revenue from trading underlying assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, by contrast, fell 38%. For a company that started out as a retail stock brokerage, that is a notable shift in priorities.
The main players in the prediction markets race are already fighting over traders and liquidity:
- Polymarket remains the largest decentralized platform by betting volume.
- Kalshi was first to open a regulated market for event contracts in the US.
- Rothera handles part of Robinhood's volume through its joint venture with Susquehanna.
- OG.com brings capital and the reputation of one of the largest crypto exchanges into the race.
Crypto.com founder and CEO Kris Marszalek said he wants to turn OG.com into the world's most liquid venue for trading derivatives. The ambition makes sense. The more volume flows through OG.com, the more valuable the stake Robinhood just picked up becomes.
As event contract volume grows, the CFTC is becoming the key regulator not just for classic derivatives but for an entire new category of products competing with traditional sportsbooks. The fact that both OG.com and Rothera operate under the same commission's oversight makes life easier for Robinhood, since it does not have to reconcile different rulebooks for each supplier.
"Thrilled to partner with Vlad Tenev and Robinhood on prediction markets. This is a real game changer. Watch this space."
- Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com, from a post on X, September 8, 2026
What comes next
Robinhood is building a network of infrastructure suppliers around prediction markets instead of betting on one partner. Crypto.com, at the same time, is taking on the shape of a regulated financial institution through its bank charter and the OG.com spinoff. Both trends point the same way. The prediction markets industry is moving closer to traditional finance, not further into a niche crypto experiment.
For traders, that means more venues to compare prices on the same contracts and, likely, sharper competition on fees. For the industry, the Robinhood-Crypto.com deal is one more signal that the line between an exchange, a broker, and a sportsbook keeps getting blurrier.
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