Robinhood review: why it scores 9.66

The crypto exchanges ranking scores five criteria: Scale of value trusted (28%), Track record (20%), Status transparency (18%), Security record (18%) and Latency (16%). Security audits, Multi-chain reach and Peg stability are not scored in this category, so Robinhood's zero published audits and four-chain footprint on DefiLlama play no part. All five criteria were measured, coverage is 100% and no weight was redistributed.

Each criterion score times its weight gives the total: Scale of value trusted contributes 2.80 points, Track record 2.00, Status transparency 1.80, Security record 1.62 and Latency 1.44, for 9.66. Three criteria are at their ceiling and the other two are one point below it. The first place is produced by a specific combination: Robinhood is the only exchange among the peers compared on this page that scores 10 on reserves, and it also scores 10 on status transparency, which most of the category scores 2 on. An exchange that matched it on both would need either a clean hack record or a faster probe to pass it. The full rubric is on the methodology page.

One scope note matters more here than for most services. Robinhood is rated as a crypto exchange because DefiLlama lists it with on-chain reserves and because it runs a public status feed and a live interface our probe can time. The score does not evaluate Robinhood's stock, options or retirement products, its payment-for-order-flow revenue or its brokerage regulation; none of those are measured by any criterion.

DefiLlama tracks $14.92B in on-chain reserves for Robinhood as of the October 19, 2026 collection. That is the only 10 on this criterion among the five exchanges compared on this page and roughly 2.7 times the category median of $5.43B, which scores 9. Because the criterion is the heaviest in the category at 28%, that one-point edge is worth 0.28 points, which is more than Robinhood's entire margin over Gemini. A tracked reserve figure means the holdings can be checked on-chain from outside. It says nothing about customer liabilities, and a large balance does not protect any individual account.

Robinhood runs a statuspage-based status site with an incident history the collector can parse. The category median for this criterion is 2, the score for no public status page at all, so a checkable archive is worth 1.44 points against the median exchange. It shows that Robinhood's record can be audited from outside; it does not show that the platform stays up.

The archive also supplies context that is measured but not scored. Over the full 90-day window, Robinhood's incident history logged zero incidents of any severity, which produces a 100% outage-free reading. That figure counts only incidents the provider itself labels, so an empty feed can mean nothing happened or that nothing was recorded; the methodology leaves it out of the score for exactly that reason.

Robinhood has operated since its 2013 launch, 4,859 days at collection (counted from July 1, 2013, because the public record gives only the year), with the date taken from its S-1 filing with the SEC. The criterion rewards survival and tops out well before 13.3 years, so it is level with the category median of 10. The date is Robinhood's 2013 launch as recorded in that filing, not a date specific to its crypto product; the criterion is applied the same way to every exchange in the category. Age shows the business has lasted; it does not predict that it will.

No criterion scores below 9, so there is no measured weakness to report. The 0.34 points between Robinhood and a perfect score come from two places, and both are small.

DefiLlama's hack database, which held 1,307 incidents when checked on October 19, 2026, lists one entry under Robinhood's name: a social account takeover dated January 26, 2023, with a reported amount of $8,200 and no returned amount recorded. Under the rubric a loss under $1M scores 7, and an incident older than three years counts two points less severely, which brings it to 9, the cap for any service with an entry on record. Only a service with no entry at all scores 10, as Gemini and Bitvavo do. The score is two points above the category median of 7. Incidents outside DefiLlama's database are not scored.

Our probe timed Robinhood's live interface at a median 299 ms to first byte. Most exchanges in the category are timed at a public API endpoint, and the category median of 268 ms mostly reflects those; Robinhood was timed at its website instead, so it is scored on the bands for that surface, where 299 ms earns 9, and the comparison with API-timed peers is loose. The measurement is one location and a small sample (two of three samples kept, the slowest discarded). It indicates how quickly the site answers from one place, not order execution speed.

The rating measures operational health from public data: tracked reserves, years in operation, status transparency, interface response time and hacks recorded by DefiLlama. It does not certify that Robinhood's crypto service is safe, solvent, licensed or compliant in any jurisdiction, and a 9.66, even at #1, is not a guarantee that funds held there are protected.

The score also stops at the edge of the crypto service. It does not cover Robinhood's stock and options brokerage, how it is paid by market makers for order flow, its margin or lending products, or any regulatory action involving those businesses. A reader with questions about them will not find answers in this rating.

What the evidence does show is the largest tracked reserve figure among the peers compared here, a long operating history, a public incident archive with nothing logged in 90 days, and a single small entry in the hack database. What it cannot show is how reserves compare with customer liabilities, or whether the empty incident feed reflects a quiet quarter or light logging.

Fees, spreads, which coins are listed, withdrawal options, account verification, customer support and app experience are not scored for any exchange, so the 9.66 says nothing about them. For what Robinhood's crypto service is and how it works, see About Robinhood. How CoinPulse is paid for, and why that does not affect scores, is set out on how this site is funded.

Gemini (#2, 9.56) is 0.10 behind, and the two are identical on three criteria: both score 10 on track record and status transparency and 9 on latency. Robinhood's $14.92B in tracked reserves scores 10 against Gemini's $5.43B at 9, worth 0.28 points. Gemini has no entry at all in DefiLlama's hack database and scores 10 on security record against Robinhood's 9, worth 0.18 the other way. The first place therefore rests on a single point of reserves, partly offset by Gemini's cleaner record. A change in either figure at the next collection could swap the order.

Bitstamp (#3, 9.18) scores 10 on latency with a 60 ms API, one point better than Robinhood, worth 0.16. Robinhood gains 0.28 on reserves ($14.92B against $4.67B) and 0.36 on security record, where Bitstamp's $5.2M phishing loss from 2015 scores 7. Net: 0.48 in Robinhood's favor.

Bitvavo (#4, 9.16) has a clean hack record (10 against 9, worth 0.18) and a 33 ms interface response (10 against 9, worth 0.16). Robinhood's advantage is all in reserves: Bitvavo's $296.6M scores 7, three points lower, worth 0.84, leaving Robinhood 0.50 ahead. Crypto.com (#5, 8.20) trails by 1.46: 0.28 on reserves, 0.64 on latency (5 against 9) and 0.54 on security record (6 against 9).

Robinhood's 9.66 is the highest score in the category, and every component of it can be checked through the linked sources: the reserve figure on DefiLlama, the launch date in an SEC filing, the status archive on its own site, and the one hack entry in DefiLlama's database. The margin at the top is thin, 0.10 over Gemini, and depends on one criterion point. The rating describes Robinhood's crypto service as an operating venue on five public signals, not Robinhood as a brokerage. Fees, coin selection, support and everything else outside the five criteria need separate checking.