--- title: "Webull's record quarter shows retail traders want options, not crypto" description: "Webull posted record revenue of $198.8 million, up 51%, and swung to a $24.4 million profit, but crypto trading contributed only about 1% of the total a year after its US relaunch. Combined with Robinhood's 38% drop in crypto revenue, the retail brokerage data points to a quiet truth: small traders are busy with options." category: "Crypto" category_url: https://boursel.com/category/crypto author: "Daniel Okonkwo" published: 2026-08-20T12:04:00.000Z updated: 2026-08-20T12:04:00.000Z canonical: https://boursel.com/article/webull-s-record-quarter-shows-retail-traders-want-options-not-crypto tags: ["webull", "retail-trading", "crypto-revenue", "options", "brokerages"] --- # Webull's record quarter shows retail traders want options, not crypto Webull posted record revenue of $198.8 million, up 51%, and swung to a $24.4 million profit, but crypto trading contributed only about 1% of the total a year after its US relaunch. Combined with Robinhood's 38% drop in crypto revenue, the retail brokerage data points to a quiet truth: small traders are busy with options. Webull's second quarter was, by most measures, the best in the online brokerage's history. [Revenue hit a record $198.8 million, up 51% from a year earlier and ahead of estimates, and the company swung to a $24.4 million net profit](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/webull-reports-second-quarter-2026-financial-results-302855581.html) from a $28.3 million loss. The detail that stands out is what did not drive it: [cryptocurrency trading brought in about $2.25 million, roughly 1% of revenue](https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-generated-1-webulls-record-q2-revenue), a year after Webull relaunched crypto for US customers. ## What actually made the money The quarter belonged to derivatives and stocks. [Trading-related revenue jumped 66% to $147.7 million, on 213 million options contracts (up 68%) and $279 billion in equity notional volume (up 73%)](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/webull-reports-second-quarter-2026-financial-results-302855581.html), with order-flow rebates from equities and options contributing about $113 million, interest income $42.8 million and handling charges $34.8 million. The customer base grew to [28.2 million registered users, 5.13 million funded accounts, and $28.5 billion in assets, up 79%](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/webull-reports-second-quarter-2026-financial-results-302855581.html). The company also credited record volumes partly to June's elimination of the pattern day trader rule, which had restricted rapid-fire trading in small accounts. Against those numbers, crypto's $2.25 million is a rounding error, and management is candid that the segment is early. ["For the first time, probably in the last nine months, I am starting to see the clouds start to part in the crypto business,"](https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-generated-1-webulls-record-q2-revenue) president Anthony Denier said, noting the platform is still gradually rolling out crypto deposits and withdrawals, plumbing that rivals have had for years. ## An industry-wide pattern Webull's experience would be easy to dismiss as a latecomer problem if the incumbent looked different. It does not: [Robinhood's crypto transaction revenue fell 38% year over year to about $100 million in its own record quarter](https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-generated-1-webulls-record-q2-revenue), even as bitcoin traded near two-month highs. Retail brokerage customers are not abandoning markets, they are trading options at record volume, but spot crypto trading through brokerage apps is shrinking as a share of the wallet. There are structural reasons. Long-time crypto traders concentrate on dedicated exchanges and increasingly on ETFs, which moved crypto exposure into ordinary brokerage accounts without per-trade crypto fees. And this week's bitcoin rally was driven visibly by derivatives, a $1.7 billion short squeeze, not by a wave of new retail buying through apps. ## Why it matters For investors in the brokerage sector, the lesson of Webull's quarter is that crypto trading is a feature, not a business, for mainstream platforms: worth offering for completeness, unlikely to move the P&L. The revenue engines that matter are options volume, net interest, and whatever regulation does next to order-flow rebates, a concentration worth remembering when the next crypto bull run tempts the sector to re-market itself around digital assets. ## Sources - [Crypto generated about 1% of Webull's record $198M Q2 revenue](https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-generated-1-webulls-record-q2-revenue) - [Webull Reports Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/webull-reports-second-quarter-2026-financial-results-302855581.html)