Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee believes Robinhood Chain could become one of 2026’s biggest crypto success stories by connecting the brokerage’s 27 million customers with Ethereum-based financial services.
Summary
- Lee called Robinhood Chain one of crypto’s biggest success stories of 2026 after its July 1 launch.
- Robinhood’s customer base gives the network a potential market of more than 27 million funded accounts.
- Robinhood Chain has recorded nearly $9 billion in cumulative DEX volume, although memecoins drove most early trading.
- The Ethereum Layer 2 uses ETH for transaction fees and settles activity on the Ethereum mainnet.
Tom Lee sees Robinhood Chain accelerating ETH adoption
Lee, who chairs Ethereum treasury company Bitmine and co-founded Fundstrat, said Robinhood Chain’s reach could take blockchain activity beyond crypto-native users and into mainstream financial markets.
“One of the biggest crypto success stories in 2026 is the breakaway success of the Robinhood Chain L2 mainnet on July 1, built on Arbitrum,” Lee said in a Bitmine statement.
Lee initially cited more than $1 billion in dollar-denominated trading volume shortly after the launch. He argued that the activity demonstrated demand for applications built on Ethereum infrastructure.
Robinhood Chain is an Ethereum Layer 2 developed using Arbitrum’s technology. ETH serves as its gas token, while its transactions ultimately settle on Ethereum. That structure means greater activity on the network can generate additional demand for ETH, although only a fraction of Layer 2 fees flows directly to Ethereum.
“Robinhood Chain uses ETH as the native gas token. And transaction fees are denominated in ETH, and the finality is settled on Ethereum,” Lee said. “Robinhood’s 27 million users are paying crypto fees denominated in ETH. In other words, everyday users are starting to see ETH as money.”
The 27 million figure refers to Robinhood’s wider customer base rather than the number of confirmed Robinhood Chain users. Robinhood reported 27.4 million funded customers at the end of the first quarter, up 1.7 million from one year earlier.
Lee’s argument is that Robinhood already has the distribution needed to introduce blockchain services to those customers. Actual adoption will depend on product availability, regulatory restrictions, and whether customers use the chain instead of remaining within Robinhood’s traditional brokerage interface.
Robinhood Chain records strong early activity
Network data provides some support for Lee’s positive view. crypto.news previously reported that Robinhood Chain approached $9 billion in cumulative decentralized exchange volume within three weeks of its mainnet debut.
The chain had accumulated $431 million in total value locked, close to $400 million in stablecoins and more than 250,000 daily active users, according to figures cited by FalconX. It was also processing about 6 million transactions per day.
However, the composition of that activity presents a more mixed picture. Memecoins accounted for over 80% of cumulative DEX trading volume during the network’s early weeks, while Robinhood designed the chain primarily for tokenized stocks, real-world assets and decentralized financial services.
Temporary incentives may also have contributed to the surge. Robinhood waived gas fees during the network’s first 90 days, reducing the cost of trading and potentially drawing short-term activity that may not continue once users must pay transaction fees.
Liquidity was concentrated in a limited number of applications. Morpho emerged as one of the network’s largest protocols after institutional deposits helped push locked value higher. Robinhood Earn, tokenized stocks and decentralized exchanges provided other sources of activity.
Robinhood Chain generated more than $2 million in cumulative revenue during its opening weeks, with approximately $200,000 sent to the Arbitrum ecosystem. Under the Arbitrum Expansion Program, 10% of the network’s net protocol revenue goes to Arbitrum, divided between its DAO treasury and developer funding.
Tokenized stocks could connect finance with Ethereum
Robinhood launched the network with tokenized stocks as one of its main products. Eligible users can trade blockchain-based instruments linked to publicly traded companies around the clock and use them in supported decentralized finance applications.
The company describes the network as infrastructure for bringing financial assets onchain. Along with tokenized equities, Robinhood Chain supports lending, borrowing, swaps and perpetual futures through third-party applications.
Early holder data suggests Robinhood’s distribution strategy is attracting retail participation. Its stock-token product reached approximately 328,000 holders after launching on July 1, giving Robinhood a 44% share of the tracked tokenized-equity market.
Those holdings were worth only about $44 million, producing an average position of roughly $134 per holder. The gap between the holder count and total value indicates that Robinhood’s early tokenization growth came from many small retail positions rather than a limited number of institutional accounts.
The figure also counts blockchain addresses and does not necessarily represent unique verified users. Still, the distribution differs from tokenization platforms where a small number of institutions control most of the assets.
For Ethereum, the potential benefit extends beyond transaction fees. Robinhood Chain gives users access to Ethereum-compatible wallets, smart contracts, stablecoins and lending markets. Customers who begin with a tokenized stock could later interact with other Ethereum-based assets and applications.
It should be noted that this expansion is not guaranteed. Robinhood must convert existing brokerage customers into active blockchain users, while addressing risks involving smart contracts, token liquidity, custody and regulatory compliance.
US users face limits on Robinhood Chain products
Robinhood’s US presence makes its customer base central to Lee’s adoption case, but several of the chain’s products were unavailable to American users at launch.
Robinhood introduced its Layer 2 mainnet with tokenized stocks in more than 120 countries. The company’s disclosures said the new onchain stock tokens were not offered in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and several other restricted markets.
The tokens provide economic exposure to underlying shares but do not grant legal ownership or beneficial rights in those shares. That difference may attract regulatory scrutiny, especially when tokenized assets cross jurisdictions or trade continuously outside conventional exchange hours.
Perpetual futures offered through Robinhood Wallet were also unavailable in the US. American retail traders face tighter restrictions on offshore-style crypto derivatives, limiting their access to one of the network’s main sources of trading activity.
US customers can still gain indirect exposure to the company’s blockchain strategy by holding Robinhood shares or using crypto products offered through its regulated domestic entities. However, the restrictions mean Robinhood cannot immediately connect its entire customer base to every feature Lee discussed.
Robinhood shares traded near $93.67 on Aug. 10, little changed during the session, while Bitmine shares fell about 2.2% to $18.40. ETH traded near $1,625.
Robinhood Chain’s early volume, active-user figures and tokenized-stock adoption show that the network has attracted attention. Its longer-term importance to Ethereum will depend on whether activity remains strong after incentives end and whether Robinhood can expand compliant access to its mainstream customer base.
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