Robinhood chain broke out after the main network was launched

Robinhood Chain: Nearly US$80 million has been locked in eight days after launch, but the ecological trend is unexpected.

Robinhood Chain (@RobinhoodCrypto) has climbed to nearly US$79 million in the first eight days of its existence, an increase of about 69% in the past 24 hours. For a blockchain that was only officially launched by securities firms on July 1, this is undoubtedly a strong start. However, it also evolved into a role Robinhood had not expected: a hotbed for Meme coins. This chain does attract real liquidity and attention, but its expression is different from the blueprint outlined when it was originally released.

What is Robinhood Chain?

Robinhood Chain is an Ethereum Layer 2 network owned by Robinhood (@RobinhoodApp). It is built based on the Arbitrum Orbit technology stack and is eventually transmitted back to the Ethereum main network to ensure security. It uses ETH for fuel, has a block time of approximately 100 milliseconds, and is fully EVM compatible, so standard contracts can be deployed without modification. There are no separate native tokens for this chain.

What is the scale and growth rate?

The growth is very rapid. As of July 8, the chain has attracted more than 141,000 new active wallets, pushing the number of daily active addresses to approximately 193,000. As of July 9, the total value of locked positions was US$78.97 million, a one-day increase of 68.72%, close to this week\'s high. Most of the money is concentrated in a single area: the Morpho platform accounts for the vast majority of lending, at about $58 million;Uniswap ranks second with about $20.6 million, but the gap is wide; and all other applications, from forecasting markets to launch pads, lag far behind. A large part of this is DeFi native money chasing revenue, not the 28 million Robinhood users who flock to it. At the same time, the chain subsidized Gas fees in the first 90 days, which also made the early data even more eye-catching. The market value of stablecoins in this chain is US$267.98 million, of which USDG accounts for 68.87%. It should be noted that the stablecoins stored in wallets are not the same concept as the value locked in the agreement. The market value of active real-world assets is only $12.8 million. For a chain that sells tokenized stocks, this RWA data is the key.

Trading activity is the most eye-catching part of this. In the past 24 hours, decentralized exchange transaction volume on the chain reached US$433 million, mainly contributed by Uniswap, which is one of the highest single-day transactions outside of the Ethereum main network. Applications built on the chain have charged $1.47 million in fees in the past day, while chain-level fees have remained relatively low at $38861, consistent with the characteristics of a nascent and subsidized network.

Unexpected turn in Meme coin

What embarrassed Robinhood was what really filled the space. The chain was originally built for serious real-world assets and AI-native finance, but traders used it to issue and trade Meme coins. Tenev has spent weeks trying to draw the line between real-world assets and speculative activity, questioning the significance of continuously launching endless Meme coins. However, when the reality on the chain came into view, his tone changed. He admitted that while Robinhood is building the chain for RWAs, it \"works equally well for Meme coins.\" The craze centered on $CASHCAT, a token named after Robinhood\'s old mascot Cash Cat, whose market value soared to $140 million in just a few days. On July 8, Solana launch pad Pump(dot)fun added support for the Robinhood Chain token, allowing traders to purchase without a cross-chain bridge, further driving the token\'s rise. Today, Meme coin transactions account for a considerable share of daily DEX transaction volume. This is a familiar model for any EVM chain with fresh liquidity, a large user base and low fees, but it is not the story a listed company wants its online coverage to focus on.

Will Robinhood Chain issue tokens?

The chain uses ETH for fuel, and Robinhood has not announced the issuance of native tokens, nor has it launched a points program or airdrop event. There are structural reasons behind this. Robinhood is a NASDAQ listed company with the ticker symbol $HOOD. Issuing on-chain tokens, or even launching points programs that appear to be tokens, can attract severe scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, something purely crypto-native projects do not need to face. In addition, there are clear precedents to follow. Coinbase built another second-tier network Base related to major brokerages and deliberately avoided issuing tokens, focusing instead on ecosystem growth and developer incentives. Robinhood\'s public information follows the same line of thinking, emphasizing product integration and global reach rather than token economics.

In summary, Robinhood Chain uses ETH as a Gas fee, holds approximately US$79 million in TVL (most of which is still in lending business), has achieved US$433 million in DEX transaction volume in the past day, and spawned a Memecoin ecosystem that the company had not originally planned for.