According to Woofun AI, the Robinhood Chain built by brokerage firm Robinhood (HOOD.US) established its dominant position in the Ethereum Layer 2 network (L2) in the third quarter of 2026, seizing about 80% of the network's fee revenue.
This tokenless public chain built by US stock brokerage firms rewrote the commercialization path of traditional public chains through a unique business model and ecological strategy within the first full quarter after the main network went live.
In terms of macro transaction volume, the chain's decentralized exchange (DEX) turnover in the third quarter reached $90.7 billion. This figure not only far exceeded the industry average, but also directly surpassed the 50 billion US dollar cryptocurrency turnover that the parent company Robinhood app combined with Bitstamp.
According to data compiled by Woofun AI, even excluding the 12-day token launch wave, Robinhood Chain still accounts for 57.7% of all L2 network fees for the remaining 80 days, which is significantly higher than 30.7% of Coinbase (COIN.US)'s Base. Over the entire quarter, the chain achieved a total of $51 million in network fee revenue, while the median L2 fee for the entire network was only $2.47 million during the same period. Among them, between July and September, a wave of token launches triggered by Pons V2 contributed 74% of network fees, causing the share of stock tokens to rise rapidly from 2.6% to 15.6% of DEX transactions.
In terms of the revenue distribution mechanism, Robinhood Chain is built on the Arbitrum technology stack and does not issue native tokens. Arbitrum charges a 10% technical license fee based on the total network fee, and the rest uses a tiered sharing mechanism: Robinhood retains 50% until the cumulative operating revenue reaches the threshold of about $50 million; as the revenue scale expands, the retention ratio will be raised to 70% and 85% in sequence. Based on a minimum of 50%, Robinhood received a share of network fees of $22.9 million in the third quarter, which is equivalent to 19% of Robinhood's total crypto business revenue of $120 million during the quarter.
Additionally, traders paid $593 million in application layer fees in the third quarter, of which app operators retained $147 million. Notably, after the governance proposal was passed, the Uniswap protocol fee switch was activated on the chain on July 27. As of September 30, it had accumulated funding to repurchase and destroy $13.7 million worth of UNI tokens.
The impact of the token launch wave on network gas prices is particularly significant. In the third quarter, Robinhood Chain paid an average of 6.4 cents in gas fees per transaction, compared to just 1.4 cents before launch. The launch platform Pons launched the V2 factory contract on August 4, completing a total of 648,701 token launches, pushing gas consumption above the pre-set target, causing the basic fee to soar along with the backlog of transactions. On September 4, the busiest day had revenue of $8.36 million, more than double the total for the entire month of July.
The boom is part of Robinhood Chain's independent market: compared to the previous 12 days, Pons V2's fee revenue soared 7.3 times, while pump.fun declined 33% over the same period. To deal with congestion, Robinhood raised the network gas target limit to 40 million gas per second twice in three days, and lowered it again to 15 million on October 18. In the last week of September, the average daily cost of the network fell back to $121,000, which was 24% lower in terms of ETH. From October 1 to 19, the average daily cost fell to $54,600, less than half of the initial level, and the gas consumption of the launch platform dropped sharply by 91%. While fees have declined, active return visits have not been lost, surpassing Base in September; the total hedged value of on-chain apps reached a new high of US$1.15 billion on October 22.
As a tokenized US stock product launched by Robinhood, stock tokens showed strong price discovery capabilities during the market closure period. These tokens are fully collateralized by the underlying stock 1:1 and are minted by Bitstamp alone. The turnover of its existing stock token trading pairs reached $8.7 billion in September, surpassing bStocks's $6.4 billion. Among the top 60 stock token pools in terms of turnover, 67.1% of the trading volume in the third quarter occurred during the NYSE market closure period, accounting for 18.2% of the volume over the weekend alone. Of all 37 weekend and holiday skipping swings of at least 1% 30 minutes before Monday's opening, all stock tokens indicated the right direction, and the median price of fluctuation reached 86%. At the close of the NYSE in September, the median spread between the top ten most actively traded stock tokens and underlying shares was only 13 basis points, which was significantly narrower than the 29 basis points in July. The new regulations issued by the US SEC on September 17 have allowed US compliant places to trade tokenized stocks with dividends and voting rights, paving the way for future product upgrades.
In terms of ecological expansion, the introduction of loans and cross-chain assets has accelerated capital accumulation. Robinhood Earn's capital surpassed Coinbase at the beginning of its 92nd day of operation, and its Steakhouse treasury management on Morpho reached $499 million, 18% higher than Coinbase at the same stage. On October 22, Morpho and Robinhood jointly launched a lending marketplace that allows holders to borrow stablecoins using stock tokens as collateral. Ondo then introduced 15 tokenized stocks and ETFs to the chain on October 27, 11 of which were directly traded in pairs with corresponding stock tokens within the Uniswap pool. Ondo opens cross-chain minting and redemption of these 11 assets on Ethereum and BNB Chain every day, and continues on weekends, further enhancing the liquidity and composability of assets.
Looking ahead, Robinhood Chain faces three key nodes. In the October 27 earnings report, the chain was ranked in the top five public chain revenue and transaction volume. On December 25, at the pace of October, 70% of the trigger will be divided into tiers. After October 26, the operator's cumulative revenue is only $2.9 million short of the $50 million threshold. Once crossed, Robinhood will receive a higher percentage of additional network fees. On December 31, the wallet gas subsidy expires. Until then, Robinhood Wallet will continue to pay the full amount of gas for exchange transactions above $0.5. January 2027 will reflect the actual average daily fee requirement without subsidies for the first time. At the beginning of 2027, the Robinhood app plans to open weekend trading of US stocks. The plan is to directly provide weekend US stock trading functions for US users who are not yet able to hold stock tokens.
The reshaping of the profit structure is the core logic of this round of growth. In the third quarter of 2026, no L2 earned more network fees than Robinhood Chain, regardless of whether the launch wave was included. Although gas revenue fell to a low level in October, the $683 million USDG low-level treasury bond reserve income accumulated on the chain is still about US$26.9 million per year based on a treasury bill interest rate of 3.94% in the third quarter, which is equivalent to three times Robinhood's own gas share (US$8.97 million) converted at the rate of October. As the share ratio enters the next level, the incremental amount it obtains from each dollar fee will continue to rise. This model, which combines traditional financial benefits with on-chain activity, provides a reference sample for institutional-level RWA chains.