What happened
Robinhood’s recent surge isn’t a typical meme-market trend—it’s a signal: a leading traditional brokerage is doing “an exchange” and “a public chain” at the same time. For the crypto industry, what’s truly worth paying attention to isn’t how much the HOOD stock price has risen, but that it validates a path: traffic giants can build their own blockchain, capture their own fees, and create a closed loop.
1. On-chain data platform Messari statistics: On September 1, Robinhood Chain generated about $3.8 million in network revenue, ranking first among all blockchain networks, accounting for about 38% of total on-chain revenue that day (Gelonghui). Its DEX daily trading volume set a record since the platform went live that same day, once exceeding $1.5 billion.
2. Wall Street has been increasingly bullish: Morgan Stanley raised HOOD to "Overweight" with a target price of $150; Piper Sandler raised its target price to $145 on September 3; Scotiabank initiated coverage with an "Outperform" rating. HOOD is currently around $107–110, and at one point rose more than 3% pre-market (Yahoo Finance/Glonhui).
3. Background: Robinhood Chain is an Ethereum-compatible L2 launched by Robinhood in July this year, with access to a huge retail user base. Its on-chain Meme trading ranked first among all chains in the past 24 hours, with about $280 million in trading volume (PANews).
Why Robinhood, of all platforms?
1. It directly turns "brokerage traffic" into "on-chain revenue": users can trade on-chain assets without leaving the app, and Robinhood doesn’t have to painfully cold-start like a new public chain—its traffic was already in its own hands.
2. The revenue structure has quietly changed: in the second quarter, prediction market revenue was $156 million, surpassing crypto trading revenue. Revenue related to crypto trading declined year over year, but total trading-related revenue increased by 44% year over year. What Wall Street sees is not a "Meme bubble," but "retail users willing to pay for new ways to play."
3. The subsidy window is the biggest variable: Robinhood is subsidizing gas for early on-chain trading, and the window is expected to end around late September. Real retention will then become visible.
Don’t forget that on-chain Meme hype and institutional ETF flows are two separate lines: ETH spot ETFs turned to a net outflow of about $48 million on Wednesday, ending 12 consecutive days of net inflows. What to watch next: ① after the gas subsidy ends, whether DEX trading volume and on-chain revenue can be sustained; ② the regulatory stance toward prediction markets (event contracts); ③ Friday’s U.S. nonfarm payroll data and its impact on risk assets—BTC is currently in the $77k–$78k range, and ETH is around $2,400.
How many users do you think Robinhood Chain can retain after the gas subsidy ends? Is this wave of hype short-term Meme speculation, or is a traditional brokerage really bringing incremental users on-chain?