Dive Brief:

• Investing and trading platform Robinhood granted CFO Shiv Verma a promotion grant of restricted stock units with a target grant value of $18 million as part of changes to his compensation, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company said in a Tuesday securities filing. The grant will vest over a four-year period.
• Robinhood’s compensation committee also granted Verma an annual base salary of $600,000, an increase from his previous base salary of $500,000 reported in February when he first took the finance chief role, CFO Dive previously reported. His target annual bonus opportunity was also increased from 60% to 75% of his base salary, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Verma, a Robinhood veteran, took the seat on Feb. 6, succeeding Jason Warnick — who is set to remain as an advisor until Sept. 1.
• News of the updated compensation arrangements for its CFO came as the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company also announced its board of directors approved a $1.5 billion share buyback program, according to a Tuesday press release. The buyback comes as Robinhood’s stock value has dipped by 36% this year to date among a pullback in the cryptocurrency market and other macroeconomic turbulence.

Dive Insight:

The share buyback program adds over $1.1 billion of incremental capacity to Robinhood’s remaining previous authorization, according to the press release. It occurs after the company announced a $1 billion share repurchase program in May 2024, with Robinhood authorizing another $500 million in April 2025. Robinhood has repurchased 25 million shares as of March 20, 2025 as part of its previous program for a total of over $1.1 billion, with an average share price of $45, according to the release.

“Robinhood is a generational company with a massive long-term opportunity,” Verma said in a statement included in the release.“This authorization reflects the confidence of our management team and board in our ability to continue delivering innovative products for customers and creating value for shareholders while returning capital over time.” 

Robinhood’s stock has slumped by approximately 36% year-to-date, according to data from Nasdaq, as the trading platform looks to shake off the impact of a “crypto winter” at the start of the year, which saw the overall market value of cryptocurrencies drop by a collective $2 trillion, the Economist reported in February.

Robinhood itself saw cryptocurrency revenues decline for its fourth quarter of 2025 ended Dec. 31, slumping by 38% to $221 million, according to its Q4 and full year 2025 earnings report released Feb. 10.

During its earnings call last month, Verma’s first as CFO, the finance chief noted Robinhood remained “long-term bullish” on cryptocurrency but cautioned that cryptocurrency represented only about 18% of the business’ overall revenue figures last year.

Although the platform reported an upswing in crypto notional trades for February, daily average revenue trades for its crypto segment stayed flat month-to-month at $500,000, Robinhood said in a release of select monthly metrics on Mar. 10. Notional crypto trading volume reached $25 billion last month, a 9% increase from January and a 74% jump YoY, according to the update.

The cryptocurrency market has continued to face upheaval as the industry navigates both economic and regulatory shifts, particularly concerning stablecoins — digital assets which have their value tied to a fiat asset, such as the U.S. dollar, and which has been a topic of ongoing debate among U.S. lawmakers in recent years.

In the most recent regulatory twist, CNBC reported shares of stablecoin issuers including Circle and Coinbase fell Tuesday due to concerns regarding the most recent draft of the Clarity Act. The newest draft of the act, which concerns potential regulations for stablecoin issuers, included language on stablecoin yields which remained unclear, as well as potentially too narrow, according to reports by Coindesk citing people familiar with the matter.

The CLARITY Act, which has been touted as a game-changing regulation for those in the stablecoin space, has been stuck in the Senate Banking Committee since passing the House in January, as Democratic and Republican leaders clashed over language regarding if crypto exchanges should be allowed to pay yields to stablecoin holders via reward programs — with Senators reaching a reported compromise last week, Politico reported Friday.

In a Friday post thread on X, Robinhood CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev wrote in support of passing the CLARITY Act, noting doing so would allow the crypto space to “finally get the regulatory certainty we've been advocating for” and critiquing the “bank-led anti yield position” as “counter-productive.”

“The pushback from legacy institutions has been predictable,” Tenev wrote in a post included in the thread. “They lobbied to treat stablecoins strictly as ‘payment rails’ rather than ‘value-holding assets.’ By stripping yield, they aimed to make stablecoins less attractive than traditional bank deposits.”