HOOD Stock Price Target Hiked On Football Prediction Market Boom – Robinhood Chain’s CASHCAT Hits Record High

• Piper Sandler’s Patrick Moley raised Robinhood’s price target above 40%, keeping an ‘Overweight’ rating.
• The analyst cited the NFL and NCAA football season as catalysts set to drive the prediction market growth for the firm.
• Robinhood Chain’s DEX volume hit more than $1.4 billion over the past 24 hours. 

Robinhood Markets Inc (HOOD) shares edged lower in pre-market on Wednesday even as Piper Sandler raised its price target by above 40%, with the analyst citing the upcoming football season as the next catalyst for the company's prediction-market business.

In a note to investors cited by TheFly, Piper Sandler raised its price target on HOOD to $145 from $135, keeping an ‘Overweight’ rating on the stock. Piper Sandler analyst Patrick Moley said that the thesis behind the rating was based on prediction markets rather than Robinhood's core brokerage business. 

Despite the raised price target and the initiation of coverage, HOOD stock was down over 1% during pre-market hours. On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment around HOOD remained in the ‘bearish’ zone, while chatter around it stayed at ‘normal’ levels over the past day.

Why Is Wall Street Bullish On HOOD Stock?

"While the World Cup drove prediction market volumes through the summer, the NFL and NCAA football seasons are set to take center stage," Moley wrote.

Piper Sandler's base case projected Robinhood users trading roughly 29.7 billion event contracts between September and December 2026, generating an estimated $320 million in revenue over the four months. From Tuesday’s close of $103.5, Piper Sandler sees an upside above 40%.

Additionally, Scotiabank also initiated coverage for HOOD with an ‘Outperform’ rating and a price target of $136. From Tuesday’s close of $103.5, Scotiabank saw an upside of above 31%.

Beyond The Brokerage

The price hikes come at a time when activity on Robinhood’s blockchain arm has been booming.

Robinhood Chain, the Ethereum (ETH) layer-2 network the company launched in July, reported a total value locked (TVL) of $757.06 million, as per DefiLlama data, up 4.68% over 24 hours. TVL measures the total value of crypto assets deposited into a network's applications. Robinhood’s chain was the second-best-performing chain in the last 24 hours, just behind Mantle (MANTLE), which saw a 6% rise in its TVL.

The network's decentralized-exchange (DEX) volume stood at $1.42 billion over the same period, with a stablecoin market cap of over $832 million and bridged TVL of $2.63 billion. A DEX volume is the dollar value of tokens traded on the network's exchanges over a given period, a measure of trading activity rather than deposited capital.

CASHCAT Sees New High

A meaningful share of that trading activity ran through CASHCAT, a memecoin that has become the chain's most consistently traded token, and reached an all-time high on Wednesday. 

CASHCAT's price was up over 27% during the past 24 hours. On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment around CASHCAT remained in the ‘bullish’ zone, while chatter around it stayed at ‘high’ levels over the past day.

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