Robinhood bets on millions of retail users moving on-chain: DEX volume surges but RWA vision yet to be validated

2026-07-17 15:39

Odaily Odaily reports that 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 transaction activity is still primarily driven by Meme coin speculation, while the initial vision of tokenizing real-world assets (RWA) has yet to gain significant traction.

Robinhood Chain has recently experienced a rapid surge in transaction 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. Nevertheless, Robinhood Chain remains in its early stages. Data shows:

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

2. Robinhood Chain shows a bridged TVL of approximately $734 million, but the actual on-chain Total Value Locked (TVL) is about $211 million, as some assets remain in wallets and have not entered lending or yield protocols;

3. The market cap of tokenized RWA assets on the chain is currently only around $12.66 million.

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

Robinhood stated that early on-chain activities are in line with expectations, with developers building the ecosystem and users engaging with the network. The company emphasized that its long-term goal remains to bring real-world assets like stocks and ETFs on-chain, enabling 24/7 trading, on-chain lending, and other financial services.

Analysts believe that Robinhood Chain's development path resembles the early stages of some new public chains: initially relying on speculative trading to attract traffic, then needing to prove whether this can convert into long-term users, a developer ecosystem, and genuine financial applications. The key going forward will be whether Robinhood can leverage its massive retail user base to transform the short-term Meme coin frenzy into a sustainably growing on-chain financial ecosystem. (CoinDesk)