Robinhood Chain nears $1B TVL as Uniswap drives liquidity: Standard Chartered

Robinhood’s partnership with Uniswap is helping the brokerage rapidly build liquidity on its new blockchain, potentially removing a key obstacle to attracting users and assets, according to Standard Chartered.

In a recent note, Standard Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick said Robinhood Chain has grown to nearly $1 billion in total value locked (TVL), which he described as the fastest growth of any blockchain by that measure. Virtually all of Robinhood Chain’s liquidity needs are being met through Uniswap V2, V3 and V4, Kendrick said.

The arrangement gives Robinhood access to established decentralized finance infrastructure as it scales its blockchain, potentially strengthening its ability to attract users without having to build liquidity from scratch.

The partnership is also having a significant impact on Uniswap’s token economics. According to Standard Chartered, protocol fees generated through Robinhood are now the largest source of UNI token burns.

The UNI burn rate has roughly doubled since a Robinhood-linked fee switch was activated on July 27, reaching an annualized pace of about $90 million. At UNI’s current price of roughly $3.50 apiece, that would translate to 25 million UNI tokens, or just over 4% of the circulating supply, being burned annually.

Robinhood Chain’s liquidity sources. Source: Standard Chartered

Robinhood Chain launched on July 1 with a focus on bringing real-world assets onchain. Adoption accelerated quickly after launch, reaching 194,000 daily active users during its first week.

Related: Robinhood Chain sees over $70M in ETH bridged during first week

Robinhood’s crypto push expands into tokenization and prediction markets

Robinhood Chain is part of the brokerage’s broader push beyond traditional stock trading, with the company expanding into crypto, prediction markets and tokenization. The strategy has drawn attention from Wall Street, with analysts at Bernstein raising their price target for Robinhood (HOOD) stock to $160 per share and identifying tokenization and prediction markets as key growth drivers.

HOOD shares were up more than 4% on Thursday, extending six-month gains to almost 30%. Source: Yahoo Finance.

The expansion has coincided with mixed trends across Robinhood’s crypto business. The company reported record revenue and earnings in the second quarter, even as crypto trading volumes and revenues declined. 

Related: Robinhood in talks with Crypto.com over prediction markets: WSJ