Robinhood Bets on Millions of Retail Users Moving On-Chain: On-chain Trading Surges, but RWA Vision Still Unproven

2026-07-17 15:39

Odaily Odaily星球日报 reports that Robinhood is betting on the decentralized finance (DeFi) market by building its own blockchain, Robinhood Chain, hoping 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 its initial vision of tokenizing real-world assets (RWA) has yet to reach scale.

Trading volume on Robinhood Chain has recently grown rapidly. 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 for decentralized exchange volume, sparking attention within 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, while leading on-chain derivatives platform Hyperliquid recorded $8.9 billion in trading volume during the same period.

2. Robinhood Chain reports a bridged TVL of approximately $734 million, but actual on-chain total value locked (TVL) is around $211 million, meaning some assets remain in wallets without entering lending or yield protocols.

3. The market capitalization of tokenized RWA assets is currently only about $12.66 million.

Currently, most of Robinhood Chain's trading heat comes from Meme coins. The CASHCAT token, recently issued on this chain, surged over 2,100% within a week, reaching a market cap of $156 million—12 times the 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 engaging with the network. The company emphasized that its long-term goal remains bringing real-world assets like stocks and ETFs on-chain, enabling 24/7 trading, on-chain lending, and other financial services.

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