Robinhood Chain (@RobinhoodCrypto) climbed to almost $79 million in whole worth locked in its first eight days, up virtually 69% previously 24 hours, a powerful begin for a blockchain {that a} brokerage solely switched on July 1. It additionally was one thing Robinhood didn’t plan for: a memecoin playground. The chain is pulling actual liquidity and actual consideration, simply not solely within the form the launch pitch advised.
What Is Robinhood Chain?
Robinhood Chain is Robinhood’s (@RobinhoodApp) personal Ethereum Layer 2, constructed on the Arbitrum Orbit stack and settling again to Ethereum for safety. It makes use of $ETH for gasoline, runs block instances of roughly 100 milliseconds, and is absolutely EVM-compatible, so customary contracts deploy with out modifications. There isn’t any separate chain token. I coated the complete technical image in my earlier piece, What Is Robinhood’s New L2 Blockchain?, when the mainnet first went stay.
The chain launched with merchandise already bolted on somewhat than an empty developer sandbox. The headline characteristic is Inventory Tokens, tokenized variations of shares like NVDA, GOOG, and AAPL that commerce across the clock via Robinhood Pockets in additional than 120 nations. Alongside it got here Robinhood Earn, which lends the $USDG stablecoin for about 7% APY via Morpho, plus perpetuals through Lighter and AI-driven buying and selling instruments. Day-one companions included Uniswap, Chainlink, BitGo, and Alchemy.
How Large Is It, and How Quick?
The expansion has been fast. The chain drew greater than 141,000 new lively wallets on July 8, pushing every day lively addresses to round 193,000, per CryptoTimes. As of July 9, whole worth locked sits at $78.97 million, up 68.72% in a single day, which places the chain close to its excessive for the week.
Most of that worth sits in a single place:
- Lending on Morpho holds the bulk, roughly $58 million.
- Uniswap is a distant second close to $20.6 million.
- Every thing else, from prediction markets to launchpads, trails far behind.
A lot of that’s DeFi-native capital chasing yield somewhat than 28 million Robinhood customers piling in, and the chain is masking gasoline charges for the primary 90 days, which flatters early exercise. Stablecoin market cap on the chain is $267.98 million, with $USDG making up 68.87% of it. These two figures are price setting apart, since stablecoins parked in wallets usually are not the identical as worth locked in protocols. The lively real-world asset market cap is just $12.8 million. For a series offered on tokenized equities, that RWA determine is the one to look at.
Buying and selling has been the loud half. The chain’s decentralized exchanges noticed $433 million in buying and selling quantity over the previous 24 hours, led by Uniswap, one of many largest single-day totals for any Uniswap deployment exterior Ethereum. Apps constructed on the chain pulled in $1.47 million in charges over the previous day, whereas chain-level charges stayed modest at $38,861, according to a brand new and backed community.
The Memecoin Twist
The awkward half for Robinhood is what stuffed the area. The chain was pitched for critical real-world property and AI-native finance. Merchants used it to launch memecoins.
Tenev (@vladtenev) had spent weeks drawing a line between real-world property and hypothesis, questioning the purpose of spinning up limitless memecoins. Then the on-chain actuality landed and his tone shifted. Whereas Robinhood is constructing the chain for RWAs, he conceded, it “works nice for memes too.” The frenzy centered on $CASHCAT, a token named after Robinhood’s outdated Money Cat mascot, which ran to a $140 million market cap in a matter of days. It obtained an even bigger push on July 8 when the Solana launchpad Pump(dot)enjoyable added assist for Robinhood Chain tokens, letting merchants purchase them with out bridging. Memecoin buying and selling now makes up an actual share of that every day DEX quantity. It’s a acquainted sample for any low-fee EVM chain with recent liquidity and a giant viewers, however it isn’t the story a public firm desires main its launch protection.
Will Robinhood Chain Get a Token?
The chain makes use of $ETH for gasoline, Robinhood did not announce a local token, no factors program and no airdrop. There’s a structural motive for that. Robinhood is a public firm listed on the NASDAQ as $HOOD, and a series token, or perhaps a factors scheme that regarded like one, would invite heavy SEC scrutiny {that a} personal crypto-native challenge merely doesn’t face.
There’s additionally a transparent precedent. Coinbase constructed Base, one other main brokerage-linked Layer 2, and has intentionally prevented launching a token, as an alternative leaning on ecosystem progress and developer incentives. Robinhood’s public messaging follows the identical script, emphasizing product integrations and international attain somewhat than tokenomics.
Robinhood Chain runs on $ETH for gasoline, holds about $79 million in TVL that’s nonetheless principally lending, moved $433 million in DEX quantity over the previous day, and hosts a memecoin scene the corporate by no means initially deliberate for.
Sources
- Robinhood Chain Official product web page for the chain, its structure and launch merchandise
- DefiLlama Reside information on TVL, DEX quantity, stablecoin market cap and RWA lively market cap
- CryptoTimes Protection of $CASHCAT, the file active-address depend and Tenev’s memecoin remark
- The Defiant Reporting on the Pump.enjoyable integration and the break up between lending inflows and meme buying and selling
