The Robinhood stock trading platform saw $5 billion in equities trading volume yesterday, according to the company’s CEO.
Vlad Tenev tweeted that it was “one of our biggest days in the past 12 months,” and acknowledged that the app had to be taken offline for two hours to adjust for such high trading volumes.
“We’re going to be upgrading some of our systems tonight to make sure we’re prepared for even higher load,” he said late Tuesday.
The most recent monthly metrics from Robinhood show $84.7 billion in equity trading volume for the entire month of March, averaging out to $2.7 billion a day. Monday’s activity nearly doubled that.
Robinhood is an investing app that initially allowed users to buy and sell stocks but has embraced the crypto world in recent years. Customers can buy and sell assets from stocks and U.S. equities to Bitcoin, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and meme coins on their smartphones.
.@RobinhoodApp hit $5B in equities trading volume today …
one of our biggest days in the past 12 months
— Vlad Tenev (@vladtenev) May 15, 2024
Meme stock trading mania returned to markets this week, with formerly popular assets like GameStop (GME) and AMC rocketing in price. “Meme stocks” are shares in companies that have gained a cult-like following on the Internet—particularly message boards and group chat apps like Reddit and Telegram.
Robinhood didn’t immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.
The trading flurry started Monday morning after the Twitter account for Roaring Kitty returned to life for the first time in years. Roaring Kitty is financial analyst and investor Keith Gill, who made headlines in 2021 by fueling the first meme stock rally.
Everyone logging back into their Robinhood accounts 3 years later to see if they own any GameStop pic.twitter.com/xqLfFCF9qK
— Morning Brew ☕️ (@MorningBrew) May 13, 2024
Once again, GME and AMC stock were booming, and exchanges briefly halted trading for them several times during the rally. By Tuesday, after two days of trading, the price of GME had shot up by over 270%. Other meme stocks and cryptocurrencies—especially memes, volatile coins, and tokens based on Internet jokes—also made significant gains.
GME and AMC have since dipped in price.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
