Robinhood bets on tens of millions of retail investors going on-chain: On-chain trading surges but the RWA vision remains unproven

Odaily reports that Robinhood is betting on the decentralized finance (DeFi) market by building its own blockchain, Robinhood Chain, hoping to bring more than 10 million active users into the on-chain ecosystem. However, current network activity is still mainly driven by speculation in Meme coins, and the originally promoted vision for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization has yet to reach scale.

Recently, Robinhood Chain's transaction volume has seen rapid growth. On July 12, the chain's 24-hour DEX trading volume was about $878 million, briefly surpassing certain exchanges and Ethereum, rising to the top of decentralized trading rankings and attracting 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 around $5.9 million, while leading on-chain derivatives platform Hyperliquid reached $8.9 billion in trading volume over the same period;

2. Robinhood Chain reports a bridged TVL of approximately $734 million, but actual on-chain locked value (TVL) is about $211 million, with some assets still held in wallets, not yet entered into lending or yield protocols;

3. The current market value of RWA tokenized assets is only around $12.66 million.

At present, most of Robinhood Chain's trading frenzy comes from Meme coins. The CASHCAT token issued on this chain recently surged more than 2,100% in a week, with its market capitalization once reaching $156 million—twelve times the total scale of the on-chain RWA market.

Robinhood stated that early on-chain activity is as expected, with developers building the ecosystem and users engaging with the network. The company emphasized that its long-term goal is to bring real assets such as stocks and ETFs on-chain, enabling round-the-clock trading, on-chain lending, and other financial services.

Analysts believe that Robinhood Chain's development path resembles some new public chains in their early stages: initial launch relies on speculative trading for traction, followed by the need to demonstrate whether this traffic can convert into long-term users, a robust developer ecosystem, and genuine financial applications. The key going forward will be whether Robinhood, with its massive retail user base, can turn its current Meme coin frenzy into a sustainably growing on-chain financial ecosystem. (CoinDesk)