Robinhood is betting on millions of retail investors moving on-chain: DEX trading surges, but the RWA vision remains unverified

2026-07-17 15:39

According to Odaily, Robinhood is betting on the decentralized finance (DeFi) market by building its own blockchain, Robinhood Chain, aiming to bring over 10 million active users into the on-chain ecosystem. However, current network trading activity is still primarily driven by Meme coin speculation, while the initially touted vision of tokenizing Real World Assets (RWA) has yet to gain traction.

Robinhood Chain has recently experienced a rapid surge in trading volume. On July 12, the chain's 24-hour DEX trading volume reached approximately $878 million, briefly surpassing Coinbase's Base and Ethereum to rank among the top in decentralized trading volume, drawing attention from the crypto community. However, Robinhood Chain is still in its early stages. Data shows:

1. On July 13, the chain's perpetual contract trading volume was only about $5.9 million, compared to $8.9 billion for leading on-chain derivatives platform Hyperliquid during the same period;

2. Robinhood Chain shows a bridged TVL of approximately $734 million, but its actual on-chain Total Value Locked (TVL) is about $211 million, with some assets remaining in wallets rather than entering lending or yield protocols;

3. The market cap of RWA tokenized assets currently stands at just about $12.66 million.

Currently, most of Robinhood Chain's trading activity comes from Meme coins. The CASHCAT token, recently launched on the chain, surged over 2,100% in one week, reaching a market cap of $156 million at one point—12 times the total size of the entire on-chain RWA market.

Robinhood stated that early on-chain activity is in line with expectations, with developers building the ecosystem and users participating in network usage. The company emphasized that the long-term goal remains bringing real-world assets like stocks and ETFs on-chain, enabling round-the-clock trading and on-chain lending services.

Analysts believe that Robinhood Chain's development path is similar to the early stages of some new public chains: initially gaining traffic through speculative trading, then needing to prove it can convert this into long-term users, a developer ecosystem, and real financial applications. The key question is whether Robinhood can leverage its vast retail user base to transform the short-term Meme coin craze into a sustainable on-chain financial ecosystem. (CoinDesk)