Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD) says price volatility contracts tied to Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), gold and oil now rank among its fastest-growing prediction market products, even as sports remains the platform’s single largest category.
Why Financial Contracts Are Catching Up to Sports
Robinhood VP and GM for futures and prediction markets JB Mackenzie told the NEXTPredict conference in New York Thursday, as cited by CoinDesk, that Bitcoin, crude oil and gold contracts have started to dominate trading activity.
Robinhood entered this business through a partnership with Kalshi and has since expanded event contracts into a growing slice of its platform.
The shift comes as sports contracts face legal pushback from state gambling regulators, raising questions about how much of that category survives long-term.
Financial contracts offer Robinhood a path to keep growing regardless.
Mackenzie said the platform’s largest single event contract in September wasn’t tied to sports at all, but to the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, a sign of rising demand around macro events.
Why Contract Durations Keep Shrinking
Traders are also moving toward much shorter contract windows, especially in crypto, where some products now settle in as little as 15 minutes.
“It started off with a week. It’s moved to a day, and now we’re down to 15 minutes,” Mackenzie said.
Asked about the risk, he compared these ultra-short crypto contracts to zero-day options, which expire the same trading day and can produce fast, sharp losses, even though the underlying structures differ.
Why Prediction Markets Matter Beyond the Contracts Themselves
Mackenzie said prediction markets have become a gateway into Robinhood’s broader platform.
Users who start by trading event contracts often move on to stocks, crypto, futures and options, and some discover Robinhood’s retirement account offerings along the way.
“What you see them do is almost immediately start to build out into equities, crypto, futures, options,” he said.
Robinhood currently runs 11 business lines each generating more than $100 million in annual revenue, and Mackenzie flagged prediction markets as potentially the fastest-growing among them.
The company is also expanding internationally, announcing Thursday it chose the Dubai International Financial Centre as its Middle East regional headquarters after securing authorization from the Dubai Financial Services Authority, with plans to launch its full product suite there in 2027.
Image: Shutterstock
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