The main Robinhood app has over 24 million active users. On-chain, transactions contributed by Robinhood Wallet account for less than 1%.
Even if you include all the long-tail transactions that cannot be identified, the most optimistic estimate is only 5%.
ARK Invest researcher Lorenzo Valente:
"It's like the same group of Degen, just on a new Chain."
This is not a story of "brokerage users going on-chain." This is a Degen party disguised in brokerage clothing.
PONS has dropped more than 58% from its historical high. AI has fallen over 70%. CASHCAT is down more than 50%. The crypto stock Meme project MEME has dropped over 90%.
People who were chasing these tokens a month ago are now cutting losses.
From September 29 to October 2, Pons V2's daily token issuance was 6,768, down about 72% compared to the first half of September. Daily fees dropped from $6.87 million to $1.48 million, a plunge of 78%. During the same period, the daily trading volume on all-chain DEXs fell about 35%.
The token issuance frenzy has cooled, fees have been halved, and PONS's buyback support funds have shrunk accordingly.
When the tide goes out, you can see who’s swimming naked.
After Robinhood Chain launched on July 1, daily active users once surged to 320,000, and the DEX daily trading volume peaked at over $800 million. On-chain data looked very attractive.
But by August, the daily transaction count hit a record 11.6 million, while the average daily active accounts only grew by 3.3%, still 11% below the July peak.
To translate:
Trading volume increased, but the number of people did not.
It’s the same group trading frantically, not new users flooding in.
What is the essence of Robinhood Chain’s growth? It’s driven by crypto-native speculative capital. Meme coins and crypto stock Meme are the hooks, and the bait on the hook is high yield.
When the bait is gone, the fish leave.
Robinhood Chain DeFi TVL is about $1.051 billion, stablecoin market cap about $1.055 billion, and cumulative DEX trading volume has surpassed $75 billion.
These numbers look big. But the underlying user structure hasn’t changed.
Conversion of 24 million users doesn’t happen automatically.
An ordinary stock trader opening the Robinhood app to buy Tesla is separated by a whole universe of cognitive barriers from opening Robinhood Wallet to swap a Meme coin on-chain.
Robinhood needs to answer a core question:
Why would an ordinary stock trader move money from the app to the chain?
If this question has no answer, on-chain growth will always depend on the tides of speculative capital.
At high tide, the data looks good. At low tide, the truth is revealed.
So does Robinhood Chain still have hope?
Yes. But not relying on Meme.
Tenev revealed at Korea Blockchain Week that the company plans to integrate blockchain features into the main app to enable seamless user experience. They also plan to expand the application scenarios of stock tokens globally.
This is the right direction. Not pushing users to the chain, but bringing the chain to the users.
But this path takes time. Tokenized stocks have a long way to go from "synthetic exposure" to real shareholder rights. AMC’s CEO has publicly blasted Robinhood’s stock tokens as "disgusting" "quasi-fake markets."
Cold start relies on Meme, staying depends on product.
Robinhood Chain is stuck in the middle now.
Robinhood has 24 million users, which is its biggest trump card.
But before that card is played, it’s just a card. Not a chip.
The 1% on-chain is the real truth.
$PONS$AI$MEME
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