Robinhood Chain is liquidating more than $800 million in daily decentralized exchange (DEX) volume two weeks after launch, with meme coins doing most of the lifting. Artemis CEO John Ma warns that the network’s greatest strength could become its greatest liability.
The layer 2 network runs on Arbitrum, and processes trades faster and cheaper than Ethereum itself. It launched on July 1 to host token shares and real assets (RWA), but speculative tokens dominated early trading.
Meme Coins Lead Robinhood Chain Live Trading Volume Early
Devillama It recorded nearly $819 million in 24-hour live trading volume on Tuesday and $3.9 billion for the week. This number measures the value of tokens that change hands on the chain each day. network briefly It overtook Ethereum in terms of volume on Monday before falling behind him.
Cash Cat (CASHCAT), a token built on Robinhood’s internal name before launch, carries a market cap of $156 million per Queen Gekko. Insomnia plays like Robin Hood (fox) doubled in one day with a market value approaching $2 million.
Ma runs Artemis, an on-chain analytics company, and invested in Robinhood before its IPO in 2019. In an open letter to CEO Vlad Tenev, he acknowledged the strong start.
He counted over 300,000 daily active addresses, $40 million in annual fees, and $300 million in total value locked (TVL).
However, he said memes account for most of the circulation. He pointed to the 2024 meme category on the Coinbase core network, down 99% from the peak by his count. He also pointed to 2021, when GameStop mania Tenev was forced to testify before Congress.
“But meme coins lose people’s money and destroy trust… Please don’t build a meme chain,” Ma to caution.
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Proponents are betting on liquidity first, utilities later
Not everyone agrees. Analyst Miles Deutscher called the Robinhood series one of the most compelling crypto narratives of the year.
The barking merchant Argue A wave of memes previews what happens when Robinhood’s retail base hits the chain. Ma’s own message puts that base at 27 million funded accounts.
“Tens of millions of people are one app update away from engaging in memes for the first time.”
Arbitrum said the network generated more than $800,000 in revenue in seven days, with annual revenue approaching $42 million. Its expansion program directs 10% of that into the Arbitrum (ARB) ecosystem, and ARB price increased by 16% this week.
By contrast, Ethereum captures almost none of this value, a The split analysts are already discussing.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Supported Bottom line use cases in the discussion, describing users and liquidity as the strongest moat. Grayscale research similarly found The market is now rewarding fundamentals On meme speculation.
Whether meme coins serve as a gateway or a distraction may become clearer once Robinhood connects its main app to the chain. Even then, the network’s loudest critics and biggest fans point to the same numbers.
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