Robinhood Chain Transactions Fall 42% as Memecoin Frenzy Fades

Published October 10, 2026, 23:45 PKT. Based on reporting by CoinDesk, with network data from growthepie and DefiLlama cited in the report, and analyst commentary from Bernstein.

Robinhood Chain processed an average of 6.2 million transactions a day during Oct. 2-8, down 42% from 10.8 million a day during Sept. 10-16, according to CoinDesk calculations using growthepie data. Activity fell 20% from the preceding week alone.

The slowdown has spread from fees to trading itself. When CoinDesk reported on Sept. 19 that network fees had collapsed 97%, transactions were still near their highs and weekly trading volume was growing. Both have now turned lower.

From $8 million fee days to $65,000

Users paid about $65,000 a day in network fees during Oct. 2-8, down 39% from the week before, according to CoinDesk. That is a fraction of the roughly $8 million the chain collected on its busiest day in early September.

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, which means fewer transactions could reduce the fees the brokerage collects.

The memecoin engine stalls

The engine behind both the boom and the bust was memecoin trading, according to CoinDesk. Launches on platforms such as Pons generated heavy gas spending in August and early September, pushing fees to their record peak. Weekly memecoin volume on Pons fell 37% as appetite for high-gas activity cooled, TradingView's summary of the reporting noted.

Transactions followed fees lower. Daily transaction counts slid from 13.1 million to 8.9 million by mid-September, a day-over-day decline of roughly 32% on that measure, while the seven-day average dipped only about 6% over the same stretch, TradingView reported.

322,000 daily addresses, $7.45 billion in spot volume

The number of active blockchain addresses averaged about 322,000 a day in the latest week, down 31% from mid-September, CoinDesk reported. That suggests fewer people, and fewer of the trading bots they run, are using the chain each day, although the figure does not translate directly into users: one person can control many addresses, and a single automated program can generate thousands of transactions.

Spot exchanges, where users buy and sell tokens directly, handled $7.45 billion during Oct. 2-8, down 21% from $9.46 billion the week before, according to CoinDesk calculations using DefiLlama. Uniswap handled roughly 77% of that volume.

Deposits hold above $1 billion as perpetuals grow

The decline in trading does not mean users are pulling their money out. Deposits in the chain's lending and trading apps rose about 2% over the week to $1.04 billion, and the supply of stablecoins ticked up to roughly $1.10 billion, CoinDesk reported. That suggests the pile of money is simply being traded less, with traders keeping their funds on Robinhood Chain and waiting.

One area is still growing: trading in perpetual futures, which allow investors to bet on price movements without owning the underlying tokens. DefiLlama's rolling seven-day figures showed about $7.35 billion in perpetual futures volume, up 26%.

The December 31 subsidy test

Robinhood has been trying to keep traders busy. Trading platform Arcus started handing out extra reward points on Oct. 1 for stock-token swaps made through Robinhood Wallet, and Robinhood pushed back the end of its fee promotion, which had been due to expire Sept. 29, CoinDesk reported.

Robinhood will now pay the network fees on any swap over 50 cents made through its wallet until Dec. 31. That gives the chain under three months to get its $1 billion in deposits trading again before users start paying their own way.

Robinhood launched the chain on July 1, 2026, 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. The network is an Ethereum layer-2 built using Arbitrum Orbit technology. The bigger test will come when the promotion expires: whether customers continue trading at the same pace once they have to cover those transaction fees themselves.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• CoinDesk, "Robinhood Chain slowdown spreads from fees to trading as transactions fall more than 40%" (Oct. 10, 2026), primary source
• growthepie, network transaction and address data cited by CoinDesk, secondary source
• DefiLlama, spot and perpetual futures volume data cited by CoinDesk, secondary source
• Bernstein, analyst note on Robinhood Chain fee revenue cited by CoinDesk, secondary source
• TradingView (Crypto Briefing), summary of the CoinDesk reporting on Robinhood Chain (Oct. 10, 2026), secondary source