Robinhood, the brokerage at the center of an equity trading mania, said its cryptocurrency trading activity fell 78% in the third quarter as it offered a disappointing outlook for the year.

The brokerage said the decline in crypto activity – a key revenue driver for the broker – has resulted in “significantly fewer” new funded accounts, as well as a drop in the total number of funded accounts on the platform. -form.

Third-quarter cryptocurrency revenue fell to $ 51 million, down sharply from its second-quarter crypto-based revenue of $ 233 million. Cryptocurrency trading accounted for the majority of the brokerage’s revenue in the second quarter.

The U.S. broker, which went public this summer, said it expected revenues of less than $ 1.8 billion this year, missing analysts’ forecast of $ 2.03 billion. He also said new accounts funded in the last three months of the year would not accelerate, forecasting 660,000 in line with the third quarter.

Robinhood shares fell more than 9% in after-hours trading.

The broker added crypto “wallets” to the platform earlier this month, a move that would put Robinhood in direct competition with more established digital currency sites such as Coinbase.

“This quarter was about developing more products and services for our clients, including crypto wallets,” said Vlad Tenev, managing director and co-founder of Robinhood Markets. “We believe Robinhood is emerging as the most reliable and intuitive platform for retail and crypto investors.”

Revenues from cryptocurrency transactions were still up over 800% from the same quarter a year earlier as digital currencies enjoyed record popularity and widespread adoption in financial markets.

Robinhood has grown rapidly over the past year. The broker estimated that half of all new brokerage accounts opened from 2016 to 2021 were on its platform, and half of its own 22.4 million funded accounts opened since 2015 were first-time investors.