Robinhood Chain shocks DeFi as Uniswap volume hits $500M in 8 days

Robinhood Chain has recorded $500 million in daily Uniswap trading volume within just eight days of launch, lifting total value locked above $106 million and pushing the Arbitrum-powered network into the top ranks of decentralized finance activity.

DeFiLlama data shows the network’s total value locked climbed to more than $106 million after surging 159% in 24 hours, while cumulative addresses approached 200,000. The same data places Robinhood Chain behind only Ethereum mainnet in 24-hour Uniswap trading volume, an unusually rapid rise for a newly launched Layer 2 network.

Uniswap activity on the chain reached $500 million on July 8 after cumulative trading volume had already crossed $250 million during its first week.

Institutional liquidity has fueled the TVL jump

Most of the recent capital increase has come from institutional DeFi flows rather than retail participation.

According to DeFiLlama, nearly $90 million of Robinhood Chain’s locked value is held on the Morpho lending protocol, which powers the roughly 7% annual percentage yield available through Robinhood Earn on USDG deposits.

The largest catalyst came from Ethena, which deposited $50 million into a Steakhouse Financial-managed USDG vault on Morpho in a single transaction. That transfer accounted for much of the network’s sharp one-day TVL increase and highlighted how concentrated institutional liquidity can rapidly reshape early DeFi metrics.

Robinhood Chain also launched with full support for Uniswap’s v2, v3, v4 and UniswapX infrastructure from day one. Trading activity has centered on Wrapped Ether (WETH), memecoins and tokenized equity assets including NVDA, AAPL and GOOG, giving the network exposure to both crypto-native and tokenized real-world asset markets.

Ecosystem expansion has drawn fresh market attention

Robinhood chief executive Vlad Tenev has continued to position the network around tokenized real-world assets while acknowledging growing meme coin demand. In a July 8 post on X, Tenev wrote that as Robinhood develops Robinhood Chain into “the best chain for RWA,” it is “a great chain for memes, too.”

Support from Pump.fun arrived the same day, allowing users to trade Robinhood Chain tokens directly using SOL without bridging assets. The integration quickly boosted activity around the memecoin CASHCAT, adding another source of transaction volume shortly after the chain’s launch.

A separate filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed that Tenev sold 375,000 Class B HOOD shares under a prearranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

According to the filing, the shares were sold between $112.22 and $118.13, generating roughly $43.6 million after HOOD stock had already gained more than 40% over the previous month, supported in part by enthusiasm surrounding Robinhood Chain.

Activity on the network has also lifted related crypto assets. UNI, Uniswap’s governance token, rose as much as 14% alongside the surge in trading volume. Robinhood Chain processes blocks every 100 milliseconds compared with Ethereum’s roughly 12-second block time, while Chainlink supplies oracle infrastructure for tokenized equities. Robinhood is also waiving gas fees for the network’s first 90 days, reducing transaction costs during its early growth phase.

Institutional interest in tokenized finance had already been building before the launch. Earlier this week, ARK Invest increased exposure to crypto-related stocks, adding to expectations that companies connected to tokenized assets could continue attracting investor attention.

At the same time, regulatory risks remain. SEC guidance published in January 2026 identified tokenized debt securities as an area for increased scrutiny, while Robinhood Chain’s current TVL remains heavily concentrated in Morpho, meaning large liquidity withdrawals could materially affect the network’s headline metrics.