Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev discusses growth of the company’s prediction markets and the firm’s involvement in Trump Accounts for children.
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What Vladimir Tenev said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Vladimir Tenev said prediction markets are a nascent asset class that entered the mainstream in the 2024 election, when Robinhood launched its offering. He said sports is a big chunk of activity but non-sports contracts are gaining share, and he expects non-sports to eventually overtake sports. Tenev announced Robinhood Derivatives, a joint venture with Susquehanna, will go live this quarter, using the acquired LedgerX as a vertically integrated exchange and clearing system, with Kalshi remaining an alternative provider. He defended sports trading as a big part of the economy, comparing critics to those who dismissed crypto. On Trump accounts, Tenev said Robinhood is the sole initial trustee and broker, partnering with BNY, with a $100 million cost on a cost-plus basis, and 5.5 million children already signed up. He declined to speculate on Coinbase's layoffs.
Key takeaways
Robinhood Derivatives, the Susquehanna joint venture using LedgerX, goes live this quarter as a vertically integrated prediction market exchange.
Robinhood expects non-sports prediction contracts to eventually overtake sports activity as the product matures.
Robinhood is the sole initial trustee and broker for Trump accounts, with BNY as financial agent and national infrastructure manager.
Trump accounts development will cost $100 million, billed on a cost-plus basis as a government subcontractor.
5.5 million children have already signed up for Trump accounts, with 70 million under 18 eligible.
0:57How much of that is sports related on Robinhood?
2:13So is Robinhood, your partner right now on infrastructure, but is the goal for Robinhood to have its own integrated prediction market exchange and clearing system?
2:53So what role would Kalshi play in Robinhood's ecosystem once you fully launch that one?
3:17Any names in your list other than Kalshi that you're looking to tap?
Prediction markets revenues, as I mentioned, now bigger than that from stock trading. The business did not exist just a few quarters ago. When does it overtake crypto revenues?
And that's a good point. It's a very new business for us. It's nascent as an asset class. Prediction markets really entered the mainstream in the 2024 election, which is when we launched our offering. And I think we're just at the beginnings of this new asset class. Does it become the biggest business? Well, I don't really think about it that way. So Robinhood is a financial super app. We're striving to serve all of our customers' financial needs across every asset class and every financial transaction worldwide. So I think there's plenty more room to run, but there's also plenty of room to run in our other business lines. We have 11 lines of business generating 100 million in revenue or more per year with plenty more on deck.
Well, and we're going to get to more on crypto. But I do want to stick with prediction markets for a second because it's kind of like what everybody is talking about right now. It's a big part of our... In fact, it's a big part of Bloomberg crypto now. How much is sports related on the platform? Because our Bloomberg Intelligence team does an analysis of Kalshi. For example, they say 80 to 90% roughly of the activity on Kalshi is sports related. How much of that is sports related on Robinhood?
Yeah, it's a big chunk of it for sure. But we're seeing non-sports contracts continuing to gain share. And sports is just easily understandable, right? You're seeing prediction markets being a disruptor and an alternative to traditional sports books. And there's already an established behavior there, whereas general event trading is a little bit newer, it's harder for some customers to wrap their heads around. We do a lot to educate customers on that, but we see it growing. And in fact, as the product matures, we see a world where actually non-sports eventually overtakes sports.
I'm still going to stick with prediction markets, just too interesting. So is Robinhood, your partner right now on infrastructure, but is the goal for Robinhood to have its own integrated prediction market exchange and clearing system?
We did announce a joint venture with Susquehanna, which was one of the leading market makers, to launch Robinhood Derivatives. So we acquired LedgerX, if you're familiar. Which is a long-established futures DCM and DCO, and that actually is going to go live this quarter. So for a while we've been partnering with third parties to provide the exchange and clearing infrastructure, but now we have a vertically integrated stack later this quarter.
There would be an alternative exchange provider along with LedgerX, and who knows, we might also integrate with more exchanges. Really what we're looking for is how do we give customers choice and flexibility and give them the best pricing and the best access to contract selection.
I mean, I think we've had conversations with all of the players. And I should also say on the referral side, a lot of people are interested in coming to Robinhood as well because they know Robinhood brings a lot of distribution, a lot of usage. So we've been hearing from folks that want to integrate with Robinhood at launch and they see the combination of Robinhood and CIG as a very, very strong one to bring liquidity into the market.
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Tenev, V. (2026, May 5). Robinhood Just at Beginnings of Prediction Markets, CEO Tenev Says [Interview transcript]. Bloomberg Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/886308/
MLA
Vladimir Tenev. "Robinhood Just at Beginnings of Prediction Markets, CEO Tenev Says." Bloomberg Television, 5 May. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/886308/.
BibTeX
@misc{tenev2026_886308,
author = {Vladimir Tenev},
title = {Robinhood Just at Beginnings of Prediction Markets, CEO Tenev Says},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Bloomberg Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {may},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/886308/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
