Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD), one of the biggest retail trading platforms in the US, has reported YoY decrease in users. As per the latest Robinhood news, the platform’s monthly active users (MAU) fell 31% YoY in January 2023. However, the figure still came higher than the previous month of December 2022.
According to the recently released stats, Robinhood had 17.3 million monthly active users in January 2022. However, a year later, the monthly active users (MAU) fell to only 12 million. Robinhood stock appears to be unfazed by the decreased number of users. On the NASDAQ stock exchange, HOOD is trading at $10.69 after gaining 0.47% on Thursday.
One reason for the positive price action could be the MoM growth in monthly active users. In December 2022, the platform reported an MAU of 11.4 million. The MAU increased to 12 million in January 2023 which is an increase of 600,000 active users.
Robinhood Crypto Trading Volume Falls 59% YoY
The decline in trading activity on the platform was also evident from a significant decrease in volume. The cryptocurrency trading volume on Robinhood fell by 59% on YoY basis. Nevertheless, there was still a 95% increase in the volume from the previous month of December 2022.
Due to a decrease in active users, the assets under control (AUC) also fell 14% since last year. On monthly basis there was still an improvement. In January 2022, Robinhood had AUC of $86.8 billion, which got reduced to $74.7 billion just a year later.
In other news, the board of Robinhood has given the go-ahead to buy Sam Bankman-Fried’s stake in the company. The former CEO of the bankrupt FTX exchange currently holds $548 million stake in Robinhood. This stock was bought by the FTX co-founders SBF and Gary Wang.
“Our Board authorized us to pursue purchasing most or all of our shares that Emergent Fidelity Technologies bought in May 2022,”
Jason Warnick – CFO Robinhood
It’s also been alleged that the co-founders of the troubled FTX exchange misused user funds. These funds were used for trading and other high-risk investments, which rendered the exchange bankrupt. Collectively, Sam and Gary bought 55 million shares of Robinhood, which were recently seized by US Department of Justice (DOJ).