Robinhood Chain Out-Earned Ethereum in Its First Quarter, ARK Says

Robinhood Chain brought in about $51 million in network revenue in its first quarter of operation. That is more than Ethereum earned over the same three months, about $41 million, according to ARK Invest's DeFi Quarterly for Q3 2026. The new chain also came close to BNB Chain, which made about $54 million.

For anyone holding ETH, the comparison arrives in a weak quarter. Ethereum's revenue fell about 35% while most of its large rivals grew. ARK does not expect Robinhood Chain to keep up this pace, and it explains why.

The report covers the quarter that ended on 30 September 2026. In Robinhood Chain's case, "first quarter" means its first quarter live, not calendar Q1.

Network Revenue Rebounds, but Ethereum Misses Out

Total network revenue across the chains ARK tracks rose about 24% from the previous quarter to about $349 million. ARK says this is the first increase in five quarters. Even so, the total is still about 47% lower than a year earlier.

The gains were uneven:

• Solana: about $76 million, up about 48%, which ARK linked to a rebound in memecoin trading
• BNB Chain: about $54 million, up about 54%
• Robinhood Chain: about $51 million in its first quarter
• Ethereum: about $41 million, down about 35%

So the sector grew while Ethereum shrank. A chain that did not exist a quarter earlier finished ahead of it.

ARK Expects Robinhood Chain's Revenue to Fall

ARK warns readers not to treat the $51 million as a run rate. "We do not expect to see Robinhood Chain continue to post such impressive revenue numbers," the report says, "as a recent increase in gas on Robinhood Chain will eliminate high fees from congestion pricing."

In other words, part of the chain's revenue came from fees that rose when the network was crowded. With more capacity, those fees should shrink. ARK did not give the date or details of the gas change in the material we reviewed, so it is not yet clear how much of the next quarter it will affect.

Trading Volume Shows the Same Shift

The pattern also appears on decentralised exchanges (DEXs), where traders swap tokens directly on-chain.

Solana led with about $197 billion in DEX volume. That was up about 16% and gave it about 36% of the total. BNB Chain grew about 24% to about $73 billion. Robinhood Chain debuted with about $65 billion, enough to make it the fourth-largest chain by volume.

Ethereum and Base moved the other way. Their DEX volumes fell about 27% and 17% respectively.

Tokenized Stocks Explain Part of the Activity

Much of the new volume came from tokenized stocks, tokens that track company shares. Spot DEX volume in these assets grew about ninefold to about $50 billion. That equals about 9% of all spot DEX volume, up from about 1% in the second quarter.

Two chains dominated this trade. BNB Chain handled about $16.5 billion and Robinhood Chain about $13.7 billion, with Solana third at about $6.9 billion. ARK adds a caveat for the leader: Binance incentives may have inflated BNB Chain's volume.

The next quarterly figures will test both parts of this story. One question is whether tokenized stock trading holds its share of DEX volume. The other is how much of Robinhood Chain's revenue is left once the congestion fees go away.