Robinhood Chain launched with a pitch centered on tokenized exposure to some of the world’s biggest companies. Two weeks in, meme coins are drawing more of the early trading activity than tokenized stocks.
Bernstein says meme coins led early volume
According to a Monday note from investment bank Bernstein, the Ethereum layer-2 network gives users a way to trade tokenized versions of companies including Apple and Nvidia, but initial activity on Robinhood Chain has been driven by demand for meme coins.
“Early trading volumes on Robinhood Chain were led by meme coins, but [it] shows strong liquidity and traction from crypto-native traders,” the analysts wrote. They also said Robinhood is putting more attention on products and services tied to real-world assets.
Bernstein said the network has quickly become a top-five destination for on-chain asset trading. Over the past seven days, it handled $3.1 billion in cumulative trading volume through decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap and PancakeSwap.
Stock-token activity is smaller, but already has 65,000 users
The analysts added that about 65,000 users have gained exposure to $13 million in so-called stock tokens. Those tokens are available in more than 120 countries, but not in the United States.
Blockscout data on Monday showed about 25,000 wallets holding Cash Cat. With a $150 million market cap, the cat-themed token was the most valuable meme coin on the network by market capitalization. Other tokens named in the report included Wen Lambo, Tendies, and Hoodrat.
Robinhood is also pushing lending and perpetuals
Bernstein said Robinhood has been trying to expand user activity beyond tokenized assets. That includes decentralized lending through a partnership with DeFi protocol Morpho and perpetual futures through an arrangement with DEX Lighter.
Yahoo Finance showed Robinhood shares trading around $111 on Monday. Over the past month, the stock has gained 19%, nearly wiping out its year-to-date losses, which coincided with a downturn in the crypto market.
Comments from Tom Lee and Vlad Tenev
BitMine Chairman Tom Lee, an investor in Dastan, Decrypt’s parent company, wrote on X over the weekend that Robinhood Chain’s early success has strengthened Ethereum’s image as money because transaction fees on the network are denominated in ETH.
Nearly a year ago, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev described tokenization as “the biggest innovation in capital markets in over a decade” during an earnings call, where he referenced tokenization around a dozen times.
At that time, he said criticism that crypto assets were not tied to fundamental value, or were mostly meme-based, would fade as the technology made it possible to connect tokens to assets with fundamental utility.