Robinhood Chain posted $943,728 in gas revenue on Sept. 10, down 82.6% from the $5.44 million it recorded on Sept. 4, according to DefiLlama. Trading activity on the network, however, did not show the same kind of drop.
Gas revenue is commonly used as a measure of demand for blockspace. On Robinhood Chain, transaction throughput stayed close to peak levels even as the price paid for that blockspace fell sharply after the early-September congestion eased.
Fees and revenue pulled back after the Sept. 4 peak
Sept. 4 remains the chain’s record day for both fees and revenue. DefiLlama shows $6.04 million in fees and $5.44 million in revenue on that date. By Sept. 10, fees had dropped to $1.05 million and revenue to $943,728, the lowest daily revenue figure since Aug. 29.
The move circulated on X after Stacy Muur described the decline as 87% on Friday morning. DefiLlama’s own series puts the decline from the Sept. 4 peak through Sept. 10 at 82.6%.
Roughly the same trade count, but cheaper blockspace
Blockscout data shows Robinhood Chain processed 13.6 million transactions on Sept. 10, compared with 13.98 million on Sept. 4, a decline of about 3%. Using DefiLlama’s daily fee line and dividing it by transaction count, the average cost per transaction works out to about $0.077 on Sept. 10 versus $0.43 on Sept. 4. Before the run-up, that figure was $0.009 on Aug. 25.
The key change was the price of blockspace. The chain’s base fee rises with congestion from a floor of 0.02 gwei, a level that held through mid-August before memecoin activity pushed fees up 82-fold in 11 days and drove the median to 0.467 gwei on Sept. 2. On Friday, Blockscout listed gas at 0.14 to 0.31 gwei and showed network utilization at effectively zero.
Robinhood’s documentation breaks the charge into two components: an L2 execution fee and an L1 data fee used to post transaction data to Ethereum. Over the same window, Ethereum’s own fees fell 32%, to $304,600 on Sept. 10 from $447,161 on Sept. 4. Arbitrum’s fees fell 15%.
DEX volume did not follow revenue lower
The drop in revenue was not matched by a drop in trading volume. Robinhood Chain recorded $1.87 billion in decentralized exchange volume on Sept. 10, compared with $1.89 billion on Sept. 4.
For the seven days through Sept. 10, DEX volume reached $12.34 billion, up 26.5% from $9.76 billion in the previous week. Sept. 8 set a record at $2.06 billion. By Friday, the still-incomplete trading day had already climbed to $2.42 billion, above that prior record.
Still near the top of chain revenue rankings
Even after the decline, Robinhood Chain remained the second-largest network by daily revenue, trailing only Canton. Over 24 hours, Canton took in $1.55 million, Robinhood Chain $943,728, Tron $897,830, Base $164,200, and Ethereum $64,025.
Over the trailing seven days through Sept. 10, Robinhood Chain led all chains with $15.15 million in revenue, ahead of Canton’s $11.17 million. That seven-day revenue total was flat from the previous seven-day period. Since the mainnet launch on July 1, cumulative revenue has reached $35.84 million on $39.88 million in fees.
The gap tied to Ethereum costs and Arbitrum’s share narrowed
DefiLlama records the difference between fees and revenue as Ethereum L1 costs plus the 10% fee share Robinhood owes under the Arbitrum Expansion Program license. The Defiant said it covered that license arrangement when the chain launched.
That gap stood at $605,058 on Sept. 4 and narrowed to $105,612 on Sept. 10.
According to CoinGecko, ARB traded at $0.1459 on Friday, down 2.9% over 24 hours and up 6.3% over seven days, giving it a market capitalization of $974 million. ETH was at $2,611.40.
Applications on the chain kept generating revenue
Applications on Robinhood Chain generated $2.64 million in revenue on $12.46 million of fees over 24 hours, based on the DefiLlama series that excludes stablecoin issuers, liquid staking, and gas. Robinhood Chain passed Ethereum on that measure on Aug. 29 and has held the spot since.
Launchpad Pons collected $5.85 million in fees on Sept. 10, down 35% from $9.05 million on Sept. 4 and down 49% from its own $11.42 million peak on Sept. 5. Trading bot GMGN brought in $1.86 million, compared with $3.45 million previously. Both declines were smaller than the drop seen at the chain level.
Total value locked stood at $903.77 million, up 1.66% over 24 hours. Stablecoins on the chain totaled $1.01 billion, up 10.07% over seven days.
Robinhood earnings did not break out chain revenue
Robinhood does not separately disclose chain revenue in its financial results. The company reported $1.31 billion in total net revenues for the second quarter, up 32% year over year. Cryptocurrency revenue was $100 million, down 38%. The release mentioned the mainnet launch, but it did not include a separate line item for gas revenue.