Robinhood will let eligible US customers trade crypto perpetual futures in its main app, with up to 10x leverage on Bitcoin and Ether, making it the first large US brokerage to carry the product. The company announced the offering at its Hood Summit conference on September 29, 2026, describing perps as the missing piece in a platform that now spans stocks, options, crypto, futures and swaps.
The product comes through Robinhood Derivatives, a registered futures commission merchant with the CFTC and the National Futures Association, and settles through Bitstamp, the exchange Robinhood acquired in 2025. TradingIME covers the rollout with a launch fee of 0.01 percent per trade through the end of 2026, a cut of roughly 99 percent against typical offshore perp rates. Perpetual contracts never expire, so positions can stay open indefinitely as long as margin coverage holds. The company’s own newsroom frames the move as “putting the power of hedge funds in every trader’s pocket.”
Six assets open the lineup. Bitcoin and Ether carry maximum 10x leverage. Solana, XRP, Dogecoin and Cardano, plus Chainlink and Hyperliquid’s HYPE token, cap at 3x. Robinhood has not given a firm release date, saying only that the product arrives “in the coming months.”
Why it matters for US retail access
Perpetual futures are the single most traded crypto derivative globally, but US rules have long kept retail traders away from them. Most perps volume sits on offshore venues such as Binance, Bybit and Hyperliquid. American restrictions limited retail access to such contracts, forcing interested US traders to offshore platforms unregulated for them or to dated quarterly futures with thinner books and rolling expiries.
That gate started to open in 2025. The CFTC authorized a Bitcoin perpetual product at KalshiEX in May and followed with broader guidance on perp-style contracts. Robinhood’s move is the first time a brokerage with a retail pipeline as wide as its roughly 25 million customer base brings the structure into a mainstream, CFTC-regulated wrapper. The CME, which has pushed back against the CFTC’s approach in court over the Kalshi listing, faces a retail-facing competitor it does not currently have an equivalent for.
How the product works
Perps on Robinhood settle every 15 minutes instead of using a continuous funding-rate model, a design the company says keeps positions predictable and lets risk systems run through the same clearing stack as its conventional futures. Traders can set stop-loss and take-profit orders from the same app where they hold spot balances, and margin requirements sit closer to standard futures than to the loose leverage offshore venues advertise. The fee schedule starts at 0.01 percent per trade and stays there through December 31, 2026.
Robinhood Derivatives already clears conventional futures and cleared swaps, so the plumbing sits inside the existing brokerage entity rather than a new crypto subsidiary. Bitstamp provides the pricing reference and the liquidity backstop, a role the exchange has filled for Robinhood’s European perps offering since 2024, where leverage topped out at 3x.
The competitive picture
Robinhood’s stock, HOOD, has spent 2026 as one of the best performers among retail brokerages on crypto and derivatives expansion. The perps roll builds on two earlier moves: the Bitstamp acquisition, which brought a global exchange with derivatives experience in-house, and a joint venture with Susquehanna that grew the options and futures business.
Rivals have moved in parallel. Coinbase shifted its international derivatives book to Deribit in late September, concentrating offshore-class perps volume under one roof. Crypto.com and Kalshi already list US-accessible perp-style contracts, and CME lists conventional Bitcoin and Ether futures that settle to a fixed date. What makes the Robinhood product different is the leverage level and the fully retail-regulated path, both of which no other major US brokerage currently matches.
| Venue | Product | Max leverage | US retail access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robinhood | Crypto perpetual futures | 10x (BTC, ETH) | Yes, in main app |
| Kalshi | BTCPERP via CFTC approval | Varies | Yes, since May 2026 |
| Coinbase (Deribit) | Offshore perps | Up to 50x | No, international only |
| CME | Dated Bitcoin and Ether futures | Exchange-set | Yes, via brokers |
| Binance, Bybit | Offshore perps | Up to 100x+ | No |
Risk disclosure is blunt
The company’s documentation carries the standard futures risk warning that trading futures, perps and cleared swaps is not appropriate for everyone. Liquidations at 10x leverage arrive quickly. A 10 percent adverse move closes a fully margined position. Bitcoin’s daily range in October so far has run roughly 3 percent, but weekly ranges have exceeded 10 percent in both directions during the summer rally and its September pullback.
Retail appetite for levered crypto has picked up alongside the broader market. Bitcoin rose through the summer to near $87,000, up 44 percent over 90 days according to Yahoo Finance, before pulling back near $85,000. A Greed-zone Fear and Greed Index reading of 71, reported by CoinStats on October 3, suggests the timing leans toward a bull-cycle audience rather than a contrarian bottom-fishing one. Short liquidations of $76.9 million over the latest 24 hours, against $41.7 million in long liquidations, point to sharp upward moves even as the price finished lower.
What happens next
No launch date has been set. Robinhood says the product is “coming months” away, which places general availability somewhere in the first quarter of 2027 at the latest. The fee schedule and the six-asset lineup could change before then, and regulatory sign-offs for particular pairs may still add friction. The company also flagged AI trading agents and weekend stock trading at the same event, both of which are rolling out separately from the perps product.
For offshore exchanges, the risk is gradual volume migration. For US traders who have historically routed perps activity through offshore venues, the main change is custody: positions now sit inside a regulated brokerage account alongside spot holdings, with the same account protections and the same tax reporting that applies to conventional futures.