Robinhood Chain slowdown spreads from fees to trading as transactions fall more than 40%
Robinhood Chain is experiencing a significant decline in activity, with daily transactions falling by over 40% since mid-September. Despite the drop in trading volume and network fees, total deposits in the chain's lending and trading apps have remained relatively stable.
Why it matters
The slowdown suggests a cooling of retail interest in the specific blockchain ecosystem, highlighting the volatility of transaction-based revenue models in decentralized finance.
The network averaged 6.2 million transactions a day during Oct. 2–8, down from 10.8 million during Sept. 10–16, according to CoinDesk calculations using growthepie data . Activity fell 20% from the preceding week alone.
Robinhood launched the chain in July to let people trade tokens, borrow and lend through applications connected to Ethereum, with plans for round-the-clock trading of tokens tied to stocks and funds.
Every transaction pays a network fee, and the apps built on top charge their own fees for trades and loans. Robinhood keeps roughly nine-tenths of the network fees, according to a Bernstein note last month, so fewer transactions means less income from the chain.
When CoinDesk reported on Sept. 19 that fees had collapsed 97%, transactions were still near their highs and weekly trading volume was growing. Both have now turned lower.
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