Robinhood Chain flirts with $1B TVL as Uniswap does the heavy lifting 🏋️

Robinhood's new blockchain is approaching $1 billion in total value locked less than two months after launch, with Standard Chartered attributing the rapid buildup to a partnership that routes nearly all of the network's liquidity through Uniswap. In a recent note, Standard Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick said Robinhood Chain has grown to nearly $1 billion in total value locked (TVL), describing it as the fastest growth of any blockchain by that measure. Virtually all of Robinhood Chain's liquidity needs are being met through Uniswap V2, V3 and V4, Kendrick said, giving the brokerage access to established decentralized finance infrastructure as it scales.

The arrangement is reshaping Uniswap's token economics. According to Standard Chartered, protocol fees generated through Robinhood are now the largest source of UNI token burns. The UNI burn rate has roughly doubled since a Robinhood-linked fee switch was activated on July 27, reaching an annualized pace of about $90 million. At UNI's current price of roughly $3.50 apiece, that would translate to 25 million UNI tokens, or just over 4% of the circulating supply, being burned annually.

Robinhood Chain launched on July 1 with a focus on bringing real-world assets onchain. Adoption accelerated quickly after launch, reaching 194,000 daily active users during its first week, with over $70 million in ETH bridged onto the network in that period. The blockchain is part of Robinhood's broader expansion beyond traditional stock trading into crypto, prediction markets and tokenization, a strategy that has drawn attention from Wall Street. Analysts at Bernstein raised their price target for Robinhood (HOOD) stock to $160 per share, identifying tokenization and prediction markets as key growth drivers. HOOD shares were up more than 4% on Thursday, extending six-month gains to almost 30%.

The tokenization push comes alongside mixed trends in Robinhood's existing crypto business. The company reported record revenue and earnings in the second quarter, even as crypto trading volumes and revenues declined. Robinhood is also in talks with Crypto.com over prediction markets, according to a Wall Street Journal report.