Robinhood and Public will pay 3% to strip Webull's account book
A House committee called Webull a national-security risk on October 7, 2026. Within a day, Robinhood and Public.com had posted identical 3% offers to poach its customers, turning a China finding into a price on every account.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
Webull's account holders woke on October 8, 2026, to a marketed answer to a question Congress asked the day before: switch brokers, and get paid 3% of your assets to do it. 12
A security finding became a price list
The House Select Committee on China reported on October 7 that Webull is "tied in structural ways" to China's government, from ownership and workforce to data routing and financing, with a "profound gap" between its American branding and its actual control. 2 The report counts $24.6 billion of customer assets at a Cayman-incorporated holding company, and says the mainland subsidiary Hunan Weibu has grown to 863 employees, 62% of the workforce, after Webull told the committee it had no China-based staff. 2 Chair John Moolenaar's line was aimed at the account holder: "Investors should heed this information when choosing who they do business with." 2
Nineteen percent gone in a session
BULL closed down about 19%, its worst session since April 17, 2025, and 91% below its April 2025 closing high of $62.90. 139 Siebert Financial's Brian Vieten suspended his Buy rating and price target, saying his prior estimates "can no longer be relied upon." 38 The split is retellable: BULL is down about 28% this year against roughly 5% for HOOD and 6% for Schwab, and one Webull holder posted he may move part of his account to Schwab "just incase." 1
Webull has shed about five times as much of its value this year as Robinhood or Schwab
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Webull (BULL) | -28% |
| Robinhood (HOOD) | -5% |
| Schwab | -6% |
Two rivals bid exactly 3%
Robinhood−2.11% — Robinhood, down 2.11 percent today offered a 3% match on transfers from Webull, calling itself "proudly American"; chief executive Vlad Tenev posted that "American assets should be at America's favorite broker." 1 Public.com matched the 3% and added a $0.06 to $0.18 rebate per options contract, per posts on X relayed by StockTwits, the sole outlet carrying the offers. 1 Two identical bids are a market price. Three percent of the committee's $24.6 billion count is $738 million, about 19% of Webull's $3.97 billion market cap, or roughly $144 across its 5.13 million funded accounts: the going rate for making the China question someone else's problem. 1234
At the 3% both rivals bid, Webull's whole account book prices at $738M
- Estimate
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Webull customer assets | $24.6B |
| Webull market cap | $3.97B |
| Whole book at 3% (est.) (estimate) | $0.74B |
Webull's answer, and what it cannot fix
Webull calls the findings "significant inaccuracies and unsupported conclusions," published without the committee seeking clarification, and says US customer data is stored and access-controlled in the US. 2 The report itself carries no fine or ban. 4
The poacher collects, the regulator decides
A transferred account is worth more than the coupon. Robinhood earns management fees, not asset ownership, on its retail venture funds, Fund I is up about 27% since its March launch, and analyst Northwise Project calls them "a repeat business": a poached customer is a future fund buyer. 67 HOOD is still heading for a third weekly decline, and Tenev sold 375,000 shares on October 5 for $42.6 million under a preset plan. 56 The trigger to watch is whether a federal agency opens a formal review of Webull's ownership, data routing or customer-cash arrangements. 4 Until one does, the only price on the China question is the 3% two rivals are paying to make it someone else's problem.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
