Coinbase and Robinhood are locked in a heated battle ahead of Q2 earnings—but only one is being called the industry’s ‘first hyperscaler’

When Robinhood and Coinbase went public back in the first half of 2021, the companies occupied very different lanes. Today, the two founder-led firms are clashing on multiple fronts as Robinhood seeks to co-opt large portions of Coinbase’s crypto empire, while the latter has rebranded itself as an “everything exchange” for stocks and more. Both firms report second-quarter earnings this week, and their results are likely to reveal which has the upper hand.

While the market has soured on both stocks, there are strong indications that one firm—Robinhood—is in a position to turn the corner, thanks to its early momentum in new and emerging sectors like prediction markets and tokenized finance. Coinbase, meanwhile, is struggling to find its footing after betting heavily on a strategy involving its in-house blockchain that has yet to pay off.

Q2 earnings preview for COIN and HOOD

Robinhood is set to release second-quarter earnings on Wednesday at 5 p.m. ET, and Coinbase will do so at the same time on Thursday. For HOOD, analysts are predicting earnings per share will come in at around $0.40 on revenue of approximately $1.25 billion. For COIN, the consensus view is that the company will post a loss of around $0.36 EPS on roughly $1.3 billion in revenue.

Even as the two rivals are set to bring in approximately the same amount of revenue, analysts are decidedly more bullish on Robinhood with Mizuho’s Dan Dolev predicting the company could become the “first ‘hyperscaler’ in the brokerage industry.” The outlook for Coinbase is more mixed, with analysts expressing concern about the company’s exposure to weakness in the crypto markets, and several downgrading its stock to “hold” or “sell.”

Perhaps most telling, though, is that Robinhood’s current market cap of around $85 billion is double that of its rival, which indicates investors believe it has far more growth potential, even though Coinbase brought in considerably more revenue in the past year.

When it comes to this week’s earnings, investors will be looking for answers to a familiar question: How successfully are........

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