On Friday, Gemini Space Station (NASDAQ:GEMI) discussed second-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.
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Summary
Gemini Space Station's total revenue grew 37% year over year to $45.5 million, driven by growth in services revenue and OTC business despite a 38% decline in exchange revenue.
The company launched commission-free U.S. stock trading and expanded its derivatives clearinghouse, focusing on building a financial super app with a broader product portfolio.
Future focus is on scaling adoption and growing revenue while maintaining cost discipline, with the prediction markets seen as a significant near-term growth opportunity.
Operating expenses declined 15% sequentially due to cost restructuring, with headcount reduced by 40% from the Q3 2025 peak.
Credit card MTUs declined, influenced by crypto market conditions, but efforts are underway to expand card rewards and integrate them with other products in the super app.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Gemini Space Station second quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ryan Todd, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Ryan Todd, Head of Investor Relations
Thanks, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining Gemini Space Station's second quarter 2026 earnings call. My name is Ryan Todd, Head of Investor Relations at Gemini Space Station. Joining me on the call today are Gemini Space Station's co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and our interim CFO, Daniela Stoyanovic. Yesterday we released our second quarter 2026 financial results. During today's call we may make forward-looking statements, which may vary materially from actual results and are based on management's current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions.
Information concerning the risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause these results to differ is included in our SEC filings. Our discussion today will also include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in the earnings presentation on our Investor Relations website and on the SEC's website. Non-GAAP financial measures should be considered in addition to, not as a substitute for, GAAP measures.
We'll start today's call with prepared remarks and then take questions. And with that out of the way, let me turn the call over to our founders, Cameron and Tyler.
Cameron Winklevoss, Co-Founder
Thanks, Ryan. Good morning, everyone. With the close of Q2, we are approaching the one-year anniversary of Gemini Space Station going public. In September 2025, the price of Bitcoin touched 117,000 and the market we were entering looked much different from the market we operate in today, with Bitcoin closing Q2 below 60k. Despite these headwinds, we have been heads down building the Gemini Space Station of tomorrow. The Gemini Space Station platform has changed more in the past nine months than it did in the past decade.
Last quarter we spoke about the launch of prediction markets in December '25, and last month, following the close of Q2, we launched commission-free U.S. stock trading. With the addition of stocks, customers in eligible states in the United States can now trade thousands of U.S. equities with 0% commission, participate in prediction markets, and trade crypto all from the Gemini Space Station app. Since the end of Q2 we also began operating our derivatives clearinghouse and settling our own prediction markets contracts following the DCO license we received from the CFTC in April.
This quarter we continued to focus on rapidly evolving our predictions business. While Q1 was largely product- and feature-focused, this quarter we invested in marketplace liquidity and improving the overall trader experience on our prediction marketplace. Since Q1 we tripled the number of contracted market makers on the platform, launched three new maker and taker incentive programs, and expanded trading infrastructure with several improvements to our predictions API.
On the product side, we shipped personalized insights powered by AI and a rebuilt interface with unique, category-specific experiences across the contract markets we offer. Looking ahead, we continue to see predictions as the largest near-term growth opportunity on the platform, especially heading into the upcoming sports season in the second half of the year. We've recently certified a wide range of new product filings and continue to deliver new experiences to directly capture that activity.
And with our clearinghouse now live and clearing our own contracts, which keeps those economics in-house, we are now focused on adding distribution partners to our DCM and expect to have more updates on our progress here shortly. Through all of it, the focus stays on continuing to improve the health of both sides of the order book. Deeper taker flow attracts more makers, which tightens spreads and lets customers trade with greater capital more predictably.
We believe that this is the next unlock in driving prediction activity higher at Gemini Space Station, and with that I'll turn it over to Tyler to discuss our recent business highlights.
Tyler Winklevoss, Co-Founder
Thanks, Cameron. Tyler here. In Q1 we laid out our strategy for Gemini Space Station 2.0, and Q2 was our first full quarter operating under it. As we march ahead in the second half of 2026, the shape of the business is visibly different: more products, a leaner cost base, less dollars going out the door, and revenue that leans less on spot crypto trading every quarter. Daniela will take you through the financials in detail shortly, so I'm going to spend my time on what we built this quarter and what we intend to do with it.
We've operated through crypto market cycles for over a decade, and the rule has held every time: bear markets are for building. The first half of 2026 was a focus on building by design. We put our dollars and our focus into shipping new products and securing regulated infrastructure rather than overspend on acquisition. In an environment where we felt paid acquisition wasn't going to earn the right returns, we continue to believe that was the right sequencing.
It put us on pace to complete and operationalize our regulated derivatives stack: our designated contract marketplace at the start of this year, our derivatives clearinghouse live earlier this month, and our FCM application filed in June. Very few here in this country hold that combination of licenses, and we built ours in-house rather than spending significant capital to acquire it. And the stack was built for more than predictions. Most price discovery in crypto happens in perpetual futures, not spot, and today the vast majority of that volume sits outside the United States.
We already offer perpetual contracts to customers in Singapore, so the product and the technology are built and running. We own the DCM and the DCO and have filed our FCM application. If and when we receive the approvals we need, we are ready and intend to launch perpetual futures for U.S. customers. On the product side, this year we have dramatically expanded what customers can actually trade at Gemini Space Station. With commission-free U.S. equities and ETFs launched in July, the platform now offers more than 5,000 tradable markets across equities, crypto, and event contracts, up from less than 100 a year ago.
We also rebuilt our advanced trading experience on mobile so customers can trade directly from the chart or the order book, with positions, open orders, and margin all visible in one place. We expanded the assets available for margin trading, and we continue to improve our developer platform and API trading capabilities for programmatic and agentic traders. Taken together, the first half of this year was about building the products and licensed infrastructure needed to support a financial super app.
We feel confident we've never had a better mousetrap, and it's driving better engagement, with multi-product users nearly doubling year over year. The focus now shifts to distribution and growing revenue by getting more customers and more activity on the platform while holding the cost discipline we've established this year. With that, I'll turn over the call to our interim CFO, Daniela, to discuss our financial results for the quarter in greater detail.
UNKNOWN, Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Cameron and Tyler. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'll start with a few key takeaways from the quarter, then walk you through the results in further detail and close with our updated financial outlook for the year. Three things I want to highlight up front. First, total revenue grew 37% year over year to $45.5 million, driven by continued growth in services revenue and our OTC business. This growth came despite a 38% year over year decline in exchange revenue as crypto market volumes remained under pressure throughout the quarter.
Second, services revenue and interest income reached $26 million, up 117% year over year and now representing 59% of net revenue, up from 50% in Q1, reflecting both the continued growth of the card and staking businesses and a softer trading environment. And third, our cost restructuring is delivering: total operating expenses declined 15% sequentially to $122.4 million and headcount ended the quarter at approximately 402, down 40% from our Q3 2025 peak.
The full benefit of the Q1 restructuring is now flowing through the cost structure. Turning to revenue, net revenue was $43.7 million, up 33% year over year. Transaction revenue was $17.8 million, down 15% year over year and down 26% sequentially. Within that there were meaningful moving parts. Exchange revenue was $12.5 million, down 38% year over year and down 27% sequentially, reflecting continued softness in crypto trading activity. Total spot trading volume declined to $3.8 billion from $11.3 billion in Q2 of 2025, a 66% decline against a 38% decline in exchange trading revenue.
Institutional volume accounted for nearly 90% of the volume decline, while fee economics continued to improve in both retail and institutional trading segments. OTC revenue was $4.7 million, up 671% year over year. Similar to Q1, the quarter included episodic client demand in response to periods of heightened volatility in the crypto market that contributed to elevated volumes. The underlying OTC API program continues to add institutional clients and we expect OTC to remain variable quarter to quarter given the nature of large institutional trades.
Prediction markets contributed $0.5 million to transaction revenue, up 18% sequentially. That figure is reported net of rebates. As Cameron mentioned, we launched new maker and taker incentive programs during the quarter and the rebates paid under those programs, roughly 20% of gross fees, are recorded as contra revenue. Event contracts traded in Q2 were up 93% quarter over quarter and our focus in the period was on building depth in the order book rather than maximizing short-term fee capture.
While this is still an early-stage product, we are encouraged by the growth in customer activity and believe the investments we're making today position the marketplace for stronger monetization as liquidity and participation continues to scale. Turning to services revenue and interest income, which was $26 million, up 117% year over year and up 6% sequentially. Let me walk you through the key components. Credit card revenue was $16.2 million, up 231% year over year and up 10% sequentially.
Card MTUs were 106,000 at quarter end, up 165% year over year though down 7% sequentially. As we continue to shift our acquisition strategy toward higher returning lower spend channels, new signups in Q2 were approximately 5,000, reflecting that deliberate pullback in acquisition marketing. In the second quarter, card receivables remained roughly flat sequentially at $219.6 million and pre-provision net revenue on the card improved 44% sequentially to $5.5 million, reflecting the continued maturation of the portfolio.
Staking revenue was $4 million, up 88% sequentially and up 50% year over year. There were three primary drivers of the increase. First, approximately $1.6 million relates to revenue that economically belonged in the first quarter but was recognized in Q2 as we completed the migration to our in-house validator infrastructure and resolved associated data capture issues. Second, following that migration we now act as a principal in the staking arrangement so validator costs now flow through operating expenses rather than being netted against revenue, increasing reported staking revenue on a gross basis.
And third, we also saw continued growth in staking adoption during the quarter, reflecting healthy underlying customer engagement with the product. Advisory fee revenue was $2.7 million, consistent with the prior two quarters, reflecting our ongoing advisory services agreement with a strategic customer entered into during Q3 2025. As the compensatory warrant arrangement associated with that agreement reaches the end of its recognition period in July 2026, we expect to recognize the small remaining amount of advisory fee revenue in the third quarter after which this revenue source is expected to conclude.
Custodial fee revenue was $0.6 million, down 67% both year over year and sequentially, reflecting lower average asset valuations on the platform during the quarter and net custody asset outflows. Assets on platform ended Q2 at $8.4 billion compared to $18.2 billion in Q2 of 2025, reflecting the decline in crypto asset prices over the past year and the custody net asset outflows. Interest income was $2.4 million, roughly flat sequentially. Now turning to expenses, total operating expenses were $122.4 million, down 15% sequentially from $144.5 million in Q1 and up 24% year over year.
The sequential improvement reflects the full quarter benefit of our restructuring actions. Salaries and compensation were $48.2 million, down 26% sequentially. This includes $20.3 million of stock-based compensation. Without the $20.3 million of stock-based compensation, cash compensation was $27.9 million, down 32% sequentially and down 20% year over year, reflecting our lower headcount base following our workforce reduction. There was no severance in Q2 compared to $6.5 million in Q1.
Headcount ended the quarter at approximately 402, down from 442 in Q1 and down approximately 40% from our Q3 2025 peak. Sales and marketing was $8.8 million, down 54% sequentially and down 45% year over year. Within that, brand and performance marketing was approximately $0.1 million as we paused broad-based acquisition spend and focused on organic and targeted channels. That level of spend reflects our tactical decisions during the quarter and should not be viewed as a fixed operating run rate as future investment will continue to be driven by market opportunities and expected returns.
Credit card rewards and promotional and referral incentives were $8.7 million, down 24% sequentially, reflecting lower cardholder spend activity. During the quarter, transaction losses increased from $3.6 million in the prior year to $20.1 million. The increase is primarily due to higher provision for expected credit losses on the credit card portfolio. As we discussed last quarter, we previously identified an identity fraud event in Q1 and established an initial $4.1 million reserve based on the information available at the time.
During the second quarter, as our investigation progressed, we identified additional fraud patterns and affected accounts associated with the same Q1 origination cohort. These account balances continue to mature through the delinquency cycle and our June 30th reserve reflects our updated estimate under the CECL methodology. Importantly, based on our analysis, we believe the elevated provision is concentrated to this identified fraud-related cohort and does not reflect broad-based deterioration in the underlying credit portfolio.
We've taken actions to strengthen our fraud controls and monitoring and while provision expense will continue to evolve as the portfolio seasons, we expect future provisioning to be driven primarily by the underlying credit performance of the portfolio rather than one-time fraud events. Technology expenses were $18.8 million, down 15% sequentially and up 5% year over year, reflecting operating efficiencies that largely offset continued investment in product development.
General and administrative expenses were $20.6 million, down 5% sequentially and up 7% year over year. Combined tech and G&A was $39.3 million for the quarter, tracking within our full-year guidance range. On the bottom line, net loss was $107.7 million, an improvement of 19% year over year compared to a net loss of $133.2 million in Q2 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $74 million compared to a loss of $59.9 million in Q1 and a loss of $51.9 million in Q2 of 2025.
That deterioration is driven primarily by non-cash mark-to-market losses on Bitcoin holdings, reflecting the decline in Bitcoin prices during the quarter following the close of the $100 million strategic investment of Bitcoin that we received in May. We believe that operating loss offers a cleaner view of our operational performance, which improved 18% sequentially from $94.2 million in Q1 to $76.9 million in Q2, reflecting the full quarter benefit of our restructuring actions and continued expense discipline across the business.
Monthly transacting users were 580,000, up 11% year over year, though down 2% sequentially as softer crypto market conditions weighed on trading activity. Let me close with our outlook. Consistent with prior quarters, we are not providing formal revenue guidance at this time. While we have expanded our product portfolio and market infrastructure, many of these initiatives are still in the early stages of monetization. Our focus in the first half of this year was on building capacity by expanding our regulated footprint, launching new products, and improving the marketplace.
As we shift our focus toward distribution and customer acquisition in the second half of 2026, we expect these investments to contribute more meaningfully over time, but the pace of that ramp remains difficult to predict given both the early stage of these businesses and the broader macro and crypto environment. On expenses, we're refining the precision of our outlook. Cash compensation is still expected to decline 15% to 20% relative to 2025 levels, which does not account for stock-based compensation or restructuring charges.
Stock-based compensation is still expected to total $100 million to $115 million for the full year. We now expect technology and G&A expenses to be between $155 million and $170 million for the full year, narrowing our previous guidance range. On marketing, our guidance remains unchanged at 10% to 15% of revenue without rewards and promotions. Marketing spend in the second quarter was intentionally well below that range as we prioritized investments in product development, regulated infrastructure, and marketplace capabilities during a period of weaker customer acquisition economics.
As we enter the second half of the year, we expect to increase brand and performance marketing while remaining within the full-year guidance range we previously provided. With nearly 2/4 of restructuring now behind us and the full cost run rate reflected in our results, we've largely completed the first phase of Gemini Space Station's transformation over the past year. We believe that we have fundamentally reshaped the business by broadening our product offerings and establishing a more disciplined operating model.
We are adding products, stocks are live, predictions are scaling, and the derivatives infrastructure is in place. We believe that we are operating more efficiently than at any point since going public. The next phase is execution and growing adoption across our expanding platform while maintaining the discipline that we have established. To summarize, this quarter reflects continued progress as we continue to transform Gemini Space Station into a broader multi-product financial platform.
We delivered 37% year over year revenue growth despite one of the weakest crypto trading environments since becoming public, improved operating loss for the third consecutive quarter, and continued to expand beyond our historical exchange business. While there is still meaningful work ahead to improve profitability, we believe we've largely completed the heavy lifting of expanding our product and market infrastructure. Our focus now shifts to scaling adoption, growing revenue, and demonstrating the operating leverage embedded in the platform.
And with that, I'll hand it back to Ryan to open up the Q&A.
Ryan Todd, Head of Investor Relations
Thanks, Daniela. We'll now turn to Q and A. Questions were submitted in writing yesterday after the release of our second quarter results. Before we go analyst by analyst, we want to first start with a repeat question we received from several analysts, specifically on the provision for credit losses in the quarter. Given how consistently it came up, we'll address that to start. So on the provision for credit losses in the quarter, understanding that the majority of these provisions are from a fraud incident, how are provisions for credit losses looking outside of this incident within the portfolio?
And with respect to fraud, can you help us understand what changed in your assessment from May to today? How confident are you that we shouldn't see another meaningful provision from this cohort?
UNKNOWN, Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Ryan. Yeah, we understand the question. Given the size of the Q2 provision, first I would separate really the operational issue from the underlying credit performance of the portfolio. Based on our investigation to date, we believe that this was a concentrated identity fraud event associated with a specific Q1 origination cohort rather than broad-based deterioration in the portfolio. And so many of those accounts were still current at the end of the first quarter and then naturally progressed through the delinquency cycle during the second quarter.
And as our investigation progressed during that time period, we identified additional fraud patterns and affected accounts associated with that same fraud event. And so as those amounts matured and more performance data became available, we updated our CECL estimate to reflect the expanded scope of this identified fraud event. What I will say is that the headline delinquency metrics this quarter are overwhelmingly influenced by that one concentrated cohort rather than a change in the broader credit characteristics of the portfolio.
And so if you exclude the fraud-related cohort, you can see that the underlying portfolio has performed broadly in line with our expectations. Delinquency increased from 3.8% to 9.4%, but nearly all of that increase was fraud-related. So fraud-related delinquency rose from 1% to 6.1%, while when you look at the non-fraud delinquency, it increased modestly from 2.8% to 3.3%. So this is consistent with normal seasoning in a relatively young portfolio.
And what we've done since, we've taken these learnings and strengthened our fraud controls, onboarding, and monitoring based on what we've learned through our investigation. From a timing perspective, these provision balances will flow through to charge-off stage over the normal credit loss cycle as they progress through delinquency and reach charge-off status. And lastly, we will say, obviously it's hard with respect to the second half of the year.
We're not providing quarterly guidance on provision expense or charge-offs. But as with any lending portfolio, provision expense will continue to naturally evolve as the portfolio seasons and as new information becomes available. But what we will say is that based on what we know today, we expect the future provisioning to increasingly reflect the underlying credit performance of the portfolio rather than this specific fraud event.
Ryan Todd, Head of Investor Relations
And as a repeated follow-up, what specifically changed in the fraud screening that's going to protect you from this occurring in the future?
UNKNOWN, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, so unfortunately, fraud prevention isn't a static process. Fraud is an area where bad actors continue to evolve their tactics, and so our fraud controls and monitoring and underwriting capabilities have to continue to evolve alongside them. We've implemented a number of enhancements and controls based on what we learned from this event, and we will continue to invest in those capabilities over time. We also periodically implement new enhancements and controls irrespective of any given event, so that we can continue to be equipped to identify and prevent evolving fraud schemes.
Beyond that, we don't think it's appropriate to discuss the details of our fraud controls publicly because those controls are part of our fraud prevention framework. But we view it as an ongoing discipline rather than a one-time fix.
Ryan Todd, Head of Investor Relations
Our next question comes from James Yarrow at Goldman Sachs on prediction markets. Can you walk us through your competitive advantages in prediction markets, specifically in having them built in-house? How do you scale in this market given competitors are investing aggressively and bringing much larger customer bases?
Cameron Winklevoss, Co-Founder
This is Cameron here. So I think one of the key points here is that we are not just a predictions app, we are actually building a super app that offers predictions, and those predictions are offered alongside spot Bitcoin, staking, a credit card, and U.S. equities, and more. And so we think there's a lot of opportunity for cross-pollination and it's a broader offering than simply just predictions, and I think few people actually have such a strong breadth.
In addition, focusing on predictions, we've also invested in the entire stack. So we've got the clearinghouse and the exchange, which allows us to control our destiny with more control and also work on distribution partnerships to help move the flywheel. And so I think taken together, it's a much different story than simply just predictions. And I think the opportunity to cross-sell the existing customer base that we have is a great opportunity. For example, 50% of the people who have placed predictions on Gemini Space Station also have a Gemini Space Station credit card.
That's one good example of the cross-pollination among our super app experience.
Ryan Todd, Head of Investor Relations
Our next question comes from Michael Cypress at Morgan Stanley on perpetuals. Given the CFTC's approval of digital asset perps in the U.S., what's the process and timeframe for Gemini Space Station to bring a product to market? And what are some gating items that need to be overcome? More broadly, if the U.S. regulatory path opens for perps beyond crypto, how quickly could you launch and where do you think client interest might be strongest? And finally, given the liquidity advantages of larger incumbents, what gives you confidence you can build meaningful share?
Tyler Winklevoss, Co-Founder
Thanks for the question. This is Tyler. So we are in the process of achieving the approvals we need to offer perpetuals on crypto in the U.S., and what's required is an amendment to our DCO, which is already in slate for margining, and the approval of an FCM, which is already in flight. And once we receive those approvals, we'll be able to launch perpetuals in the U.S. It's important to note that the technology on our side is ready. We already offer this product offshore in Singapore, so we've been doing this now for at least two years, maybe more.
And so we understand the technology, the risk engine, the matching engine, and how to run this type of marketplace. And now it's just a matter of getting the necessary approvals in the U.S., which we believe could happen this year. And so once that happens, we will offer these products. These products have been the largest traded products with the most liquidity in crypto for a really long time. And so we're very optimistic about the demand. The crypto industry likes to trade perps.
There's a huge demand for it and there has been globally for many years. And once we get the green light in the U.S., we're excited to bring this instrument to U.S. customers.
Cameron Winklevoss, Co-Founder
And this is Cameron, just to build on that a little bit. Perps have been the most popular instrument in crypto for many years, but there's been no perps in the U.S. So that story is just getting started. It's so early. So when you think of competition and the opportunity, I think we're—the starting gun has essentially just gone off. We're at mile one of a marathon. The perp story in the U.S. is just getting started, and we think there's a tremendous amount of demand and excitement for these products.
And it is very early days, even though they've existed offshore elsewhere for a long time.
Ryan Todd, Head of Investor Relations
Our next question comes from Adam Frisch at Evercore on the card. MTUs fell in 2Q26. Do you expect sustained MTU growth to remain soft/negative given the bearish crypto market? And do you expect the growth in prediction markets and the newly introduced equities product to be able to reverse the card MTU growth trend?
Cameron Winklevoss, Co-Founder
Thanks for the question. This is Cameron. So I think the story of the card in 2025 was very much a growth story, and a lot of that was the excitement of this innovative ability to earn crypto rewards with a credit card. Naturally, as crypto prices have declined 50% since their peak last year, thereabouts, interest in a crypto rewards card naturally wanes a bit and it can be cyclical. With that said, I think we spent the last two quarters—if 2025 was very much about growth, I think the first half of 2026 is about maturity and making sure that we're putting in the right controls.
We've got a big growth in receivables and ensuring that we catch fraud. We've got the right controls in place and that the portfolio is seasoning for the long term. And we think that the card is still very much like a diesel engine, and I think people love it. And I think there's a lot of growth just organically through word of mouth, even in the crypto downturn. But we very much believe in this product and we believe that it will continue to grow throughout 2026.
But our focus has shifted in light of how the market has changed.
Tyler Winklevoss, Co-Founder
And this is Tyler. I'll also add that we are looking to expand the type of rewards that customers can earn with the credit card, such as offering the ability to earn stock rewards. And this plays into our overall vision, of course, of the super app where the credit card's one piece of that larger puzzle and experience. And we're not just a crypto company. We offer obviously equities now and predictions, and as customer demand changes, whether they're into Bitcoin or that changes into AI stocks, we have that offering for them.
And so it's always harder to market crypto when the prices are down. Even though customers—this is the time they should be purchasing Bitcoin—they tend to get excited about purchasing Bitcoin when prices near all-time highs. And so this just further emphasizes the importance of having a really broad offering. The credit card earning rewards is part of that, but also being really broad in our offering on what rewards mean, and whether that's you can earn back crypto or you can earn back in stocks.
Obviously AI stocks are really popular and there's a lot of demand. We don't want to lose that customer. And so that just goes back to this idea that we are—of course we started as a crypto company, but we really evolved into Gemini Space Station 2.0 into a markets company, and we continue to work on increasing the dimensions of that.
Ryan Todd, Head of Investor Relations
Our next question comes from Matt Code from Truist. Could you touch on the long-term ARPU expansion opportunity for Gemini Space Station power users? Put another way, how does the ARPU for your retail customer that adopts all of your Gemini Space Station 2.0 product offerings compare to the blended average retail ARPU today? And how do you plan on creating more power users?
UNKNOWN, Chief Financial Officer
Thanks for the question, Matt. We believe there's a meaningful long-term ARPU expansion opportunity ahead of us, especially as customers adopt more of the Gemini Space Station ecosystem. Historically, many retail customers engaged with us through a single product for the most part. But our strategy is to increase both the scope and the frequency of engagement by offering a more comprehensive financial platform. And so 1H26 was really about that—about building the ecosystem and giving customers more reasons to engage with Gemini Space Station through products like prediction markets and, more recently, commission-free equities, while at the same time ensuring the card business was on a solid footing after the fraud events. Going forward, the focus shifts to distribution by driving adoption across that product suite, increasing cross-sell, and also creating more multi-product power users. That's what we believe will drive the next leg of ARPU expansion and customer growth. A year ago we were primarily acquiring crypto traders, but today we're acquiring customers into a platform that includes a much broader product offering, and we believe that will meaningfully expand customer lifetime value and gives us greater opportunity to really monetize each acquired and existing customer over time.
And while we don't disclose product-level ARPU, we consistently see that multi-product customers trade more frequently, retain balances longer, and exhibit stronger long-term retention, so over time we believe this product ecosystem will drive sustainable ARPU expansion through greater product adoption and higher engagement frequency rather than relying solely on higher trading activity or favorable crypto market conditions.
Ryan Todd, Head of Investor Relations
Our last question comes from John Todaro from Needham. Following the initial launch of stock trading on the platform, how have early volumes looked? Additionally, how are trading activity trends across the platform since the beginning of the third quarter? And are there any specific categories that clients are trading more frequently this quarter within predictions?
UNKNOWN, Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, John. Yeah, so we're encouraged by the early reception to equities, but it's still very early days. The launch is only about five weeks old, so we're going to be careful not to over-interpret the initial activity. And we don't expect equities to be a material revenue contributor in 2026. But over the long term the monetization opportunity really comes through deeper customer relationships, including customer cash balances and securities lending, as well as order flow economics rather than trading commissions.
But again, more importantly, as we've emphasized numerous times, we view equities as another step in building our super app and a broader investing platform. And over the past year, as Cameron or Tyler highlighted, I believe we've expanded from fewer than 100 tradable products to roughly 5,000 across crypto, equities, and prediction markets. And our multi-product user base has nearly doubled year over year. So these are the metrics that we're most focused on because it does drive engagement and cross-sell opportunities.
With respect to Q3 activity, spot crypto volumes have moderated from the elevated levels we saw historically and it's weaker than the second quarter as well, which is consistent with publicly available market data. But at the same time prediction markets have continued to perform well. We reached new monthly highs in prediction trading volume during July and some of that was helped by the later stages of the World Cup. But importantly, activity has remained healthy even after that concluded.
We continue to see strong engagement in our—specifically in our crypto prediction contracts, especially Bitcoin contracts that have different durations and expiry dates, and really demonstrating that prediction markets are evolving beyond one-off event-driven trading.
OPERATOR
Thank you. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
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