How Robinhood’s MIAX Plans Could Impact Kalshi
For a lot of 2025, Kalshi’s rise as the primary scaled, regulated U.S. prediction market platform was intently tied to Robinhood. When the retail brokerage launched occasion contracts inside its app in March of 2025, routing trades to Kalshi as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), Kalshi’s buying and selling volumes surged.
That relationship may now face a doubtlessly consequential check. On January 21, it was introduced that Miami International Holdings had accomplished the sale of MIAX Derivatives Exchange (MIAXdx) by a three way partnership shaped by Robinhood and Susquehanna International Group (SIG), a significant world buying and selling agency that additionally serves as considered one of Kalshi’s major market makers and liquidity suppliers. As a part of the deal, Miami International Holdings will retain a ten% possession stake in MIAXdx.
Like Kalshi, MIAXdx is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as each a Designated Contract Market (DCM) and a Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO), giving Robinhood the power to record and clear occasion contracts with out counting on a third-party alternate.
“The buy of MIAXdx accelerates our funding within the prediction markets and improves our place to ship a greater expertise for purchasers on this rising asset class,” stated JB Mackenzie, Robinhood’s vp and normal supervisor of futures and worldwide, in the announcement.
The transfer raises a central query for Kalshi. If Robinhood steadily internalizes extra of its prediction markets by way of MIAXdx, how a lot of Kalshi’s present buying and selling quantity is realistically in danger?
A Robinhood spokesperson advised DeFi Rate that the brand new alternate is anticipated to start operations someday in 2026, however that no extra exact timeline is at the moment out there.
How dependent has Kalshi quantity been on Robinhood?
Robinhood’s impression on Kalshi was speedy and substantial.
On its Q2 2025 earnings call, Robinhood disclosed that customers traded roughly $1 billion in occasion contracts through the quarter, producing about $10 million in income from per-contract charges. At the time, Kalshi’s complete quarterly quantity was beneath $2 billion, main trade observers to estimate that Robinhood accounted for greater than half of Kalshi’s buying and selling throughout peak intervals in mid-2025.
That share, nonetheless, didn’t persist. Kalshi has by no means disclosed partner-level quantity figures, however later reporting painted a extra balanced image. In October, according to Reuters, Piper Sandler analysts estimated that Robinhood customers accounted for roughly 25%-35% of Kalshi’s every day buying and selling quantity. Reuters described Robinhood as a significant distribution accomplice, however now not the dominant one, reflecting the expansion of Kalshi’s personal app.
While it might make sense for Robinhood to finally prioritize markets listed by itself alternate, there are not any indicators of an imminent shift away from Kalshi. The Robinhood spokesperson advised DeFi Rate that the platform will proceed its partnerships with DCMs like Kalshi. In truth, it’s trying to prolong these varieties of alliances, signaling that MIAXdx shall be an addition, not a alternative for these partnerships.
“Robinhood has maintained relationships with a number of exchanges for the reason that inception of Prediction Markets,” the spokesperson wrote. “Robinhood Derivatives plans to proceed to accomplice with a number of DCM/DCO companions, supporting entry to a range of market venues for our prospects.”
How a lot Kalshi quantity may really be in danger?
Based on the Piper Sandler estimates, Robinhood doubtless accounts for roughly 25%-35% of Kalshi’s every day buying and selling quantity. If Robinhood have been to supply fewer Kalshi-listed contracts over time and as a substitute internalize some prediction market exercise by MIAXdx, the potential impression would doubtless be incremental.
In a hypothetical situation the place Robinhood internalizes roughly half of the quantity it at the moment routes to Kalshi, the ensuing discount would equate to roughly 10%-15% of Kalshi’s total daily trading volume, primarily based on the analyst estimates. In weekly buying and selling quantity, that might translate right into a dent within the vary of $225-$340M primarily based on present figures, or extra relying when Robinhood takes its prediction markets in-house.
A ten%-15% decline could be a slight setback within the close to time period. But even beneath that situation, Kalshi would nonetheless retain the overwhelming majority of its buying and selling quantity, retaining the impression nicely in need of existential.
How Kalshi may exchange misplaced liquidity and income
Even if Robinhood have been to finally cut back or remove the quantity it routes to Kalshi, the alternate has already proven that its progress is just not depending on any single distributor. As Robinhood’s share of Kalshi buying and selling declined from a majority place in mid-2025 to roughly 30% later within the yr, total exercise on the alternate continued to develop, pushed by progress throughout sports activities, financial, and different event-based contracts, in addition to an increasing base of direct customers.
That development displays a deliberate effort by Kalshi to diversify its distribution throughout fintech platforms relatively than depend on a single retail channel. The firm has centered on integrating its prediction markets into current brokerage and crypto platforms, permitting Kalshi to scale by inserting prediction markets inside platforms like Robinhood the place customers already handle cash and commerce by acquainted interfaces.
In an October 2025 interview with Reuters, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour stated the corporate was actively trying to develop third-party integrations and considered dealer partnerships as a scalable technique to develop entry. Speaking on the Solana Accelerate convention last May, Mansour stated, “I feel throughout the subsequent yr and a half I’d say most mainstream monetary brokerages like the place you could have your 401(ok)s and others can have entry to Kalshi’s merchandise or prediction markets in app.”
That technique has prolonged past conventional brokerages into crypto platforms. Since becoming a member of Kalshi as head of crypto, John Wang has emphasised embedding prediction markets instantly into the apps the place customers already commerce digital property.
“Six months for Kalshi to be in each main crypto app or I’ve failed at my job,” Wang wrote in a December post on X, outlining an aggressive push to distribute Kalshi contracts by third-party crypto platforms.
One of probably the most speedy methods for Kalshi to offset any potential quantity loss is additional fintech accomplice diversification. There are a variety of consumer-facing platforms the place its regulated prediction markets are (or shall be) out there, together with Webull, Coinbase and common crypto pockets app Phantom.
While no single accomplice matches Robinhood’s scale, the cumulative impression of a number of mid-size brokerage, alternate, and pockets integrations may collectively exchange a significant share of any misplaced quantity over time.
Kalshi’s progress doesn’t hinge on Robinhood
Beyond distribution technique, the clearest approach Kalshi can offset any potential discount in Robinhood-routed quantity is by persevering with to develop its personal buying and selling exercise. That progress has been fairly evident in latest months. Kalshi generated $2.26 billion in trading volume last week, up 4.9% week over week. The run of document or near-record weekly and month-to-month quantity suggests Kalshi’s momentum is being pushed by demand on the alternate itself, not simply by any single distribution accomplice.
Those beneficial properties replicate greater than a short-term spike. Kalshi’s quantity progress has been supported by a broader mixture of contract classes, larger presence and engagement round occasions, and increasing participation.
For merchants, that dynamic factors to a market that’s changing into deeper and extra aggressive. As Kalshi’s liquidity grows and its markets stay accessible throughout a number of fintech platforms, merchants are more likely to profit from higher execution, tighter pricing, and extra selection, as competitors will increase amongst platforms, together with Kalshi and Robinhood’s forthcoming alternate.
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