Lorenzo Valente, a researcher at ARK Invest, analyzed contract-level data on Robinhood Chain and concluded that most trading activity on the chain is not driven by new crypto users onboarded by Robinhood. Instead, it comes from degen traders using platforms like GMGN and OKX. Valente found that wallet activity confirmed as originating from Robinhood users—specifically swaps via Robinhood Wallet's Settler contract on 0x—accounts for less than 1% of total volume, and even including unidentifiable long-tail trades, the share is around 5%. The rest of the activity mirrors degen behavior observed on other chains. Valente described the situation as "the same degens, just on a new chain." Robinhood Chain is an open, permissionless Layer 2 network, allowing any EVM-compatible wallet or app to connect, meaning on-chain activity does not necessarily indicate new users.

Robinhood Chain generated $16.78 million in user fees over the past seven days, while Ethereum, which handled settlement and data availability costs for the network, received just $2,008, or 0.012% of the total, according to BlockTempo. The report said Arbitrum, whose stack powers the chain, took about $2.28 million under its expansion agreement, with $1.82 million going to the Arbitrum DAO treasury. Cost details in the report showed $1,748 was spent on mainnet gas for batch submission and $260 on blob fees, even though Robinhood Chain posted 13.5 GB of data to Ethereum over the same period. BlockTempo also cited ARK Invest research director Lorenzo Valente, who in July argued Ethereum was being paid only 0.15% and proposed a 75% / 10% / 15% split for Robinhood, Arbitrum and Ethereum. Two months later, the actual share for Ethereum had fallen to 0.012%. The article also compared fee income across networks and applications: Robinhood Chain alone brought in seven times Ethereum mainnet’s total fees for the same seven-day period, while apps including Uniswap V4, Pons and GMGN posted even larger fee figures on the chain. Market performance over that stretch also diverged sharply, with ARB, UNI and HOOD outpacing ETH.

PA Daily’s latest roundup spans crypto markets, regulation, AI, funding, and whale activity. OpenAI formally introduced GPT-6 Astra and said the model may sit close to the point where artificial general intelligence becomes recognizable in hindsight. Nvidia, meanwhile, agreed to acquire AI platform Hugging Face for about $13 billion, a deal that would put its three French co-founders into the billionaire ranks while preserving Hugging Face’s open-platform model, according to the report. In crypto, spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $731 million in net inflows on Sept. 3 U.S. time, led by BlackRock’s IBIT at $454 million. Spot Ether ETFs added another $141 million. Polymarket launched perpetual contracts across crypto, equities, and commodities, while Ethena said its fee switch proposal passed unanimously, clearing the way for programmatic ENA buybacks. The report also tracks a sharp response from AMC CEO Adam Aron, who said Robinhood’s tokenized stock plan involving AMC and more than 190 companies was unauthorized and unregistered under U.S. securities law. Elsewhere, a Guangzhou court ruled that a virtual-currency lending contract was invalid and said losses should be calculated using acquisition cost. Binance Alpha listings, funding for Diameter Pay, Oura’s U.S. IPO filing, and a series of high-return meme-token trades also featured in the day’s developments.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds posted $730.9 million in net inflows on Thursday, the strongest daily intake since Jan. 14, as Bitcoin climbed back above $80,000. The move followed $101.2 million in inflows a day earlier and came after BTC traded in a roughly $76,000 to $81,000 band this week, according to CoinGecko. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust led the pack with $454 million, or about 62% of the day’s total, while ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund also saw sizable inflows. VanEck’s HODL and WisdomTree’s BTCW were the only funds to post outflows. Even with the sharp pickup in ETF demand, onchain analytics firm CryptoQuant said the latest rally still lacks strong fresh spot buying. In a report shared with Cointelegraph, the firm said the move has been driven largely by short covering rather than new long positioning. It also pointed to elevated profit-taking, noting that Bitcoin holders realized 23,000 BTC in net profits on Aug. 21, the highest daily figure this year, and roughly 110,000 BTC since Aug. 19. CryptoQuant placed Bitcoin’s next major technical test near its 365-day moving average at about $82,300 and said a decisive close above $83,000 would confirm a new bull market, while rejection there could send BTC back toward its 200-day moving average near $69,000.

ARK Invest researcher Lorenzo Valente used three restaurant-style models — branded stores, pop-up shops and private-label stores — to compare how Ethereum, Solana and Hyperliquid capture value at the Layer 1 level. The framework was used to examine how different public blockchain ecosystems distribute value among developers, users and capital, and to assess the sustainability of those structures. The item was cited by Techub News, which attributed the report to Crypto.news. No additional details on the underlying methodology or conclusions were provided in the source brief.

Elon Musk amplified a view from ARK Invest chief futurist Brett Winton, writing that 「The AI riptide is already underway.」 The discussion centers on a sharp rise in AI demand, with the article saying global AI inference token usage has increased about 25-fold over the past year and OpenRouter token volume is doubling roughly every 11 weeks. Cathie Wood argued that token consumption is growing exponentially and spreading across the economy, while frontier AI labs are seeing annualized revenue rise 5x to 10x within six months to one year. The article’s main claim is that AI infrastructure now offers unusually short payback periods and very high internal rates of return, drawing capital toward GPUs, data centers, and AI companies. It says this shift is not limited to venture funding. Debt markets and talent allocation are also being reshaped as builders of AI capacity can tolerate higher financing costs because compute remains scarce and profitable once deployed. The piece also states that Nvidia chips have become a form of collateral for debt tied to data center buildouts. According to the article, the pressure on traditional companies could show up in four ways: higher financing costs, weaker valuations and liquidity for non-AI stocks, more expensive debt refinancing, and a migration of talent toward AI-linked sectors. Musk replied to the broader argument with a short endorsement: 「You are right.」

Kraken Derivatives announced it will delist 77 perpetual contracts on October 1st at 12:00 UTC, covering assets such as 2Z, AEVO, AIXBT, AKT, ANKR, ARKM, AR, BLUR, CELO, ENJ, GMT, GMX, IOTA, MINA, NEO, THETA, VET, ZIL, and ZRX. Additionally, the platform delisted SUN, MTL, IOST, and XVS perpetual contracts on September 3rd, and will delist COTI perpetual contracts on September 7th. All affected contracts will be settled and removed after trading ceases.

Market updates from Sept. 2 to Sept. 3 spanned macro rates, whale activity, exchange products, AI financing, and sharp moves in token-linked speculation. TRON’s USDT supply rose by $4 billion over the past month to $94.27 billion, overtaking Ethereum. On-chain data also showed a Bhutan government-linked address moved 400 BTC worth about $30.62 million. In derivatives, a whale long roughly 45,000 ETH on Hyperliquid sold 1,500 ETH to add margin as liquidation pressure increased. Beyond crypto-native flows, U.S. and U.K. bond yields remained in focus. Former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss warned that surging sovereign yields could force emergency spending cuts, while JPMorgan Chase Private Bank’s Grace Peters said a move in the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield toward 5% could trigger a 5% to 8% pullback in global equities. Elsewhere, Coinbase launched regulated crypto and commodities derivatives for eligible investors in Canada, Bubblemaps flagged concentrated control risks around the CHUMP token, and several AI developments landed at once, including Lyte’s $165 million Series C, Google’s Gemini 3.8 Flash rollout, and Meta’s Muse Spark 1.3 update.