In the latest second-quarter earnings report disclosed by the US-listed crypto exchange platform Gemini Space Station, the most striking feature is not only the increase in total revenue to $45.475 million but also a curve that almost looks inverted.
According to Gemini's Q2 2026 earnings press release, this revenue grew 37% year-over-year. However, the platform's spot trading volume decreased by 66% compared to the same period last year. Trading activity has not returned for this exchange platform, yet revenue on the books is increasing. Where is the money coming from?
Where Revenue Comes From Without Trading Volume Recovery
The answer is first hidden in the revenue structure. According to Gemini's Q2 earnings presentation materials, credit card revenue has reached $16.178 million, surpassing the trading platform revenue of $12.497 million. For the first time, this blue segment is longer than the grey bar representing trading platform revenue.
The same earnings presentation materials show that the positions were reversed a year ago. Trading platform revenue was $20.233 million, while credit card revenue was only $4.882 million. Today's Gemini still operates spot trading matching, but its revenue no longer solely follows trading activity.
The speed of this rotation is fast. Credit card revenue increased by 231% year-over-year, while trading platform revenue decreased by 38% year-over-year, both figures from the company's earnings presentation materials. The former filled the gap left by the latter, making credit cards the largest single revenue item.
There is another easily overlooked nuance in this chart. The service revenue and interest income mentioned in these materials account for 59.4% of net revenue, which is based on net revenue, not directly comparable to the stacked bar chart percentages for total revenue. It indicates revenue sources are broadening but alone does not prove profitability has improved.
According to company earnings presentation materials, credit card revenue includes both transaction fees and interest income, which is a different business from pure trading fees. Its own accounts receivable portfolio also means Gemini bears risks related to account quality and repayment speed.
Revenue and Trading Volume Are No Longer the Same Curve
According to company earnings presentation materials, total trading volume in Q2 was $3.8 billion, compared to $11.3 billion a year ago. Judging by the most familiar metrics for trading platforms, Gemini is still in a period of significant contraction.
Placing three indicators on the same baseline period makes the divergence in the chart clear. The revenue line, after pulling back from highs, remains above the starting point, while trading volume and platform assets move downward in sync. Trading volume is no longer the sole key to explaining Gemini's revenue; the product mix is now taking over that explanatory role.
A similar divergence exists on the user side. According to company earnings presentation materials, monthly active transacting users (MTU) increased from 523,000 to 580,000. However, the company's MTU definition covers any user who engaged in revenue-generating activity or whose account generated income in the past 30 days, including non-spot businesses like credit cards. It cannot be directly interpreted as spot trading users remaining active.
This is precisely what product expansion changes. The platform can generate revenue from more types of interactions, weakening the explanatory power of the traditional pointer, trading volume.
However, platform assets are not the company's own money. It includes custody, staking, trading products, customer fiat custody assets, and GUSD reserves. Treating this line as cash freely available to Gemini, or interpreting the revenue divergence as being decoupled from the crypto cycle, would overstep the boundaries set by the financial report.
The change in revenue structure is real, but the conclusion of detachment from the cycle is premature. The five quarters in the chart seem to suggest that Gemini is now distributing the story once dictated by a single trading curve across more business lines.
The New Revenue's Accounting Must Be Calculated from Credit Costs
Growth in credit card revenue does not equate to credit cards already contributing profit of the same scale. According to company earnings presentation materials, the company's defined non-GAAP metric, PPNR, is the amount of credit card net revenue after deducting financing debt interest and crypto reward expenses. Q2 PPNR was $5.457 million, while credit card provisions were $16.062 million.
Calculating based on the two disclosed metrics leaves a difference of $10.605 million between them. The second line of the horizontal axis in the chart reads "PPNR - Provisions," not Gemini's net profit. It only answers a narrower question: whether the net income generated by the credit card business before accounting for credit costs is sufficient to cover this portion of provisions.
According to the company press release, approximately $10 million of these provisions are related to a batch of accounts opened in Q1 involving identified identity fraud activities. This is management's attribution to a specific account group and should not be extrapolated as representing the general bad debt rate of the entire card portfolio.
But qualifiers do not erase risk control pressure. The proportion of accounts receivable overdue for more than 30 days increased from 3.8% last quarter to 9.4%, as also disclosed in the company's earnings presentation materials. For a business that has just become the largest revenue source, the revenue curve and the credit cost curve now need to be viewed together.
Gemini's revenue sources have diversified, and the operational variables supporting this revenue have extended from trading activity to credit costs and risk control.
