Robinhood Remains Under Pressure To List Shiba Inu

Key Takeaways

• Robinhood will be reporting earnings soon, with crypto revenues again in focus.
• Further evidence of declining income will spur fresh calls for the company to list Shiba Inu.
• A Robinhood listing announcement could give SHIB/USD a substantial near-term boost.

With the start of the Q1 2022 US corporate earnings season fast approaching, retail trading brokerage Robinhood Markets investors will be hoping for some good news that might reverse months of stock price decline. At last Friday’s closing price of $11.22 per share, HOOD has lost more 35% so far since the start of the year. Since its post-IPO record highs last August at $85.00, it has lost more than 85%.

Earnings for Q4 2021, as revealed at the end of January, showed crypto-related revenue had collapsed to just $51M, having been as high as $223M in the second quarter. Given the lack of bullishness in cryptocurrency markets since then, analysts are not optimistic that Q1 2022 will show a substantial pick up.

Poor Earnings Argue In Favour of SHIB Listing

Robinhood’s declining crypto trading revenues argue in favor of the listing of popular so-called memecoin Shiba Inu (SHIB). At present, only seven cryptocurrencies are available for trading on the Robinhood app, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Litecoin.

During Q4 2021, trading in the popular dog-inspired memecoin Dogecoin (which is often touted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk) generated 40% of Robinhood’s crypto revenue. That’s despite the fact that Dogecoin’s market capitalisation is just over $19B, closer to $800B and $400B respectively for Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Offering trading in memecoins is clearly a lucrative business.

Given Shiba Inu’s status as the second memecoin by market cap (at just over $13B), it would seem that an easy way for Robinhood to deliver a quick boost to its revenues would be to list SHIB.

Robinhood can be confident that there is a massive demand for this listing – a petition on change.org for Robinbood to list SHIB has now garnered nearly 560,000 signatures.

Plenty of other cryptocurrency and stock exchanges offer trading in Shiba Inu, including Binance, crypto.com, KuCoin, Coinbase and Webull. However, Robinhood has in recent months cited concerns about regulation as one of the key reasons why it has not expanded the number of cryptocurrencies it has on offer.

But further evidence of declining crypto-related revenues may put pressure on the company to re-examine what many in the crypto community have criticized as an overly cautious stance.

How A Robinhood Listing Might Affect SHIB

The introduction of trading in the Shiba Inu token would likely not just come as a boost to Robinhood’s stock price, but also to SHIB.

The creator of the change.org petition to get SHIB listed on Robinhood noted that “a Robinhood listing would open trading to its 17 million traders”. “It would open up the token to easy trades for many people who may not have or may not be comfortable yet with a crypto exchange,” they continued.

SHIB/USD has spent the majority of 2022 so far trading within 0.000020 to 0.000035 parameters.

Recent listing announcements, such as when Coinbase announced its foray into Shiba Inu, have been associated with jumps in SHIB of at least 25%. Earlier this year, rumours that Robinhood would list SHIB sent SHIB/USD nearly 12% higher intra-day.

Clearly then, where any such announcement from Robinhood to occur, SHIB will lurch higher. Technicians will be eyeing resistance at the 0.000030, 0.000035 and 0.000040 levels.

But a return to the euphoria seen in the fourth quarter of 2021, where the price of each Shiba Inu token reached nearly as high as 0.000090, remains a distant prospect.

Against the macro backdrop of hawkish central banks raising interest rates to drive down inflation and thus dampening speculation in risk assets, of which SHIB is included, the prospects for a prolonged bull run aren’t too great right now.