Arbitrum to receive 10% of fees from Robinhood Chain and other L2s

Every Layer 2 chain built with Arbitrum’s technology that settles outside of Arbitrum One or Nova will now kick back 10% of its net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem. That includes Robinhood Chain, which just launched its own Ethereum L2 using the Arbitrum tech stack.

The split works out to 8% flowing into the Arbitrum DAO treasury and 2% going to the Arbitrum Developer Guild.

How the Arbitrum Expansion Program works

The revenue-sharing arrangement falls under what Offchain Labs calls the Arbitrum Expansion Program, or AEP. It applies specifically to chains that leverage Arbitrum’s tech stack but settle transactions on blockchains other than Arbitrum One or Nova.

The revenue subject to sharing comes from sequencer profits, the fees generated by the entity responsible for ordering and processing transactions on the chain. If a chain adopts Timeboost, Arbitrum’s mechanism for capturing maximal extractable value (MEV), those revenues could also fall under the sharing arrangement.

Robinhood Chain’s early traction

Robinhood Chain is the highest-profile chain operating under this model, and its early numbers suggest the revenue share could actually mean something. The chain processed 4 million transactions during its first week of mainnet operation.

Uniswap was among the partners integrated from day one, giving the chain immediate DeFi liquidity infrastructure. The chain launched its public testnet on February 10, 2026, before transitioning to a full public mainnet. Robinhood’s path to this moment involved an earlier phase where the company deployed tokenized US stocks and ETFs on Arbitrum One in 2025.

Offchain Labs, co-founded by Steven Goldfeder and Ed Felten, provided technical support for Robinhood Chain’s development. Goldfeder has emphasized the technology’s readiness for enterprise-grade applications.

The bigger picture for Arbitrum’s business model

The 8% directed to the DAO treasury and the 2% allocated to the Developer Guild create direct incentives for the people actually building and maintaining the technology, tying compensation to ecosystem-wide revenue growth in a way that one-time grants do not.

What this means for investors

For ARB token holders, the revenue-sharing model introduces a concrete value accrual mechanism tied to ecosystem growth. Every new chain that launches on the Arbitrum stack feeds revenue back into the DAO treasury that ARB holders govern.

The competitive landscape matters here too. Optimism’s Superchain model takes a similar approach with its OP Stack, collecting revenue from chains like Base (Coinbase’s L2). Arbitrum’s AEP is a direct response, ensuring that the proliferation of Arbitrum-based chains doesn’t become a value extraction problem where Offchain Labs benefits but the broader ecosystem doesn’t.

Robinhood’s evolution from deploying tokenized assets on Arbitrum One to launching its own dedicated chain sets a template that other fintech companies could follow, with Robinhood Chain’s 4-million-transaction first week as an early indicator of volumes flowing through these chains.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.