Robinhood Chain deposits climb but volume and users fade after memecoin-fueled launch

Total value locked (TVL) in Robinhood Chain currently stands at approximately $325 million in less than a month since the mainnet went live, without a single down day. Despite TVL continuing to compound over the past month, every throughput metric peaked in the chain’s second week and has since ground lower.

DEX volume averaged $553 million per day last week, down 27% compared to the prior week. The number of active accounts averaged around 275,000 per day, also down by 7% week over week.

The chain’s turnover, which is measured by dividing DEX volume by TVL, fell from 9.25x in the second week of July to just 1.68x by last Friday. This means capital is arriving faster than it is being traded, an indication that recent deposits into the chain have been more yield-motivated rather than trade-motivated.

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This is likely due to Robinhood Earn, which offers an estimated 7% APY on USDG. Trading volume per active account has also declined to just $2,000 over the past week, compared to a peak of about $2,800 just two weeks ago.

Robinhood Chain's early activity appears to have been driven by a post from CEO Vlad Tenev saying the chain "works well for memes," six days after he described memecoins on CNBC as largely a dead end.

The tweet prompted a "mini memecoin season" on the chain, with the most notable example being the memecoin CASHCAT, named after Robinhood's original mascot, which rose between 700% and 962% that day, but has been on a gradual decline since.

Robinhood (HOOD) reports second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, which will be worth watching for what the company has to say regarding the chain’s first month and its plans for the prioritization of RWA projects and use cases on the chain, as initially intended.

This is an excerpt from The Block's Data & Insights newsletter. Dig into the numbers making up the industry's most thought-provoking trends.