Robinhood Chain draws over $3 billion in weekly DEX volume to join top five chains: Bernstein

Robinhood Chain pulled roughly $3.1 billion in cumulative decentralized exchange volume over its first seven days, ranking among the top five chains by DEX activity, according to a Bernstein research note shared with The Block on Monday.

Robinhood (HOOD) launched its public mainnet on July 1, and about 65,000 users now hold $13 million in tokenized stocks and $300 million in stablecoin balances on the chain, Bernstein analysts led by Gautam Chhugani said.

An Arbitrum Layer 2 built for tokenized assets

Robinhood Chain is an Arbitrum-based Ethereum Layer 2 designed for financial services and tokenized real-world assets, with a permissionless environment for outside builders. Its ecosystem draws integrations from Uniswap, Morpho, Lighter, Chainlink, and BitGo, among others.

The chain’s expanded product line includes tokenized stocks, decentralized lending, and perpetual futures. Robinhood's stock tokens are now available in more than 120 countries, though not in the United States, and trade around the clock on decentralized exchanges. Users can post them as trading collateral or deposit them in lending pools for yield.

On the lending side, Robinhood partnered with Morpho to let eligible U.S. users lend the dollar-backed stablecoin USDG directly through the main Robinhood app, earning up to 7% APY. Perpetual futures run through Lighter, which committed $11 million in LIT tokens to incentivize Robinhood users trading the contracts.

Early volume led by meme coins

The chain's opening week ran on speculative flow, with early trading dominated by meme coins before broader liquidity arrived from crypto-native traders, Bernstein said. Over time, Robinhood intends to steer the chain toward real-world asset trading across equities, commodities, and perpetuals, paired with Bitstamp's liquidity.

Daily figures placed the network third among all chains by 24-hour DEX volume at $809 million, trailing Solana and BNB Chain, per Bernstein. Decentralized finance total value locked on Robinhood Chain crossed $100 million within 15 days of launch.

Tokenized equities gain a regulated rival

The launch expands Robinhood's custodial model for equity tokenization, in which a sponsor buys the underlying shares, holds them in a secured account, and issues a blockchain token against them.

Robinhood's stock tokens previously traded only in the European Union with limited utility beyond price tracking; roughly $13 million in tokens across more than 90 stocks now sit on the chain.

A competing model surfaced the same week.

Ondo Finance introduced what it called the first third-party tokenized securities compliant with existing U.S. regulations, minting tokens through a registered transfer agent and passing shareholder rights to holders. Ondo has tokenized an ETF and a single stock to demonstrate the structure.

A resilient corner of a weak market

Tokenized real-world assets have held up against a broader crypto market down about 25% year to date. The category's market cap climbed from $35 billion at the end of 2025 to more than $51 billion, a 50% gain, with private credit the dominant slice at 48%, followed by U.S. Treasurys at 29%.

Total RWA holders crossed one million, up roughly 75% year to date, according to the note. Ethereum and Provenance together host close to 70% of onchain RWA activity.

Bernstein rates Robinhood Outperform with a $130 price target. The stock closed at $111.97 on July 10.