Memecoin trading drives early activity on Robinhood's new chain

Robinhood’s new blockchain is drawing heavy early use, though much of the activity so far has come from memecoin traders rather than the tokenized financial products the company has emphasized. The launch matters because Robinhood is trying to position itself for a future in which stocks and other assets move onto blockchains.

The online brokerage publicly rolled out Robinhood Chain in early July, according to Fortune. The network is a layer-2 blockchain built on Ethereum, a design commonly used to process transactions more cheaply or efficiently while relying on Ethereum’s underlying infrastructure.

Robinhood has framed the project around real-world assets, a crypto industry term for traditional financial products such as stocks issued in tokenized form. Fortune reported that the rollout follows earlier work by the company on its own blockchain and fits Chief Executive Vlad Tenev’s broader argument that tokenization will become a larger part of finance.

Trading volume surged after launch

Activity on the network rose quickly. DefiLlama data cited by Fortune showed trading volume on Robinhood Chain moving from a little more than $200,000 on July 1 to more than $500 million nine days later.

That early surge, however, was not led by tokenized real-world assets, according to Fortune. Memecoins became some of the most actively traded assets on the network within days of the launch.

One token, Cash Cat, reached a market value of about $150 million on Friday, according to CoinGecko data cited by Fortune. The name has a Robinhood connection: The New Yorker previously reported that Tenev and cofounder Baiju Bhatt initially called the company CashCat in its early days.

Robinhood has history with meme-driven trading

The memecoin activity follows a familiar pattern for Robinhood. Fortune noted that the company has benefited before from waves of joke-inspired or internet-driven trading.

Robinhood was a central platform during the 2021 surge in GameStop shares, Fortune reported. CNBC reported that in the second quarter of that year, Dogecoin transactions accounted for 62% of Robinhood’s crypto revenue.

The broader memecoin market had been a major part of the 2024 and 2025 crypto boom, Fortune reported, with traders using blockchains such as Solana and apps such as Pump.fun to create tokens themed around animals and internet jokes. Fortune also reported that political figures became involved, including President Donald Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei.

Interest later cooled as some investors became wary of the risks and others shifted to speculative products such as perpetual futures and prediction markets, according to Fortune. The early activity on Robinhood Chain suggests at least some of that trading crowd has returned.

Company says real-world assets remain the goal

Robinhood’s crypto leadership has kept the focus on tokenized assets. Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s senior vice president of crypto, told Fortune: “We are laser-focused on one mission: building the most secure, scalable, and seamless foundation for real-world assets.”

Tenev also addressed the memecoin activity on X. “While we’re building Robinhood Chain to be the best chain for RWA [real-world assets]… it works great for memes, too,” he wrote, according to Fortune.

The result is an early test for Robinhood’s crypto strategy. The company built the chain around a long-term bet on tokenized finance, while its first burst of attention has come from traders chasing speculative tokens.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.