The first to catch the wave of the Robinhood Chain hype is Arbitrum, up nearly 20%
"ARB, the native token of Arbitrum, surged nearly 20% recently, emerging as a top-performing L2 token. This rally is attributed to the launch of 'Robinhood Chain,' a Real-World Asset (RWA) Layer 2 built using Arbitrum's technology.
The launch has brought renewed attention to the 'Arbitrum Expansion Plan' (AEP), a year-and-a-half-old program. AEP allows external projects to build their own chains using Arbitrum's Orbit technology. In return, these 'tenant' chains that do not settle on Arbitrum's main networks must share 10% of their net protocol revenue with the Arbitrum ecosystem—8% to the DAO treasury and 2% to the developer guild.
While smaller chains like Degen Chain previously triggered AEP, Robinhood Chain is the first major, high-profile tenant, making the revenue-sharing model economically significant for the first time.
Initial data from Robinhood Chain is impressive, with over 35 million transactions, 350,000 addresses, $2.5 billion in TVL, and over $1 billion in DEX volume shortly after launch. However, its current protocol revenue, at roughly $146,000 net, translates to only a minimal payout to Arbitrum DAO. The ARB price surge thus reflects the market's anticipation of future revenue as Robinhood's vast $324 billion platform assets potentially migrate on-chain.
This 'landlord' model mirrors Optimism's approach with its OP Stack and Superchain. However, Optimism's model faces pressure as its largest tenant, Base, announced plans to depart, causing a significant drop in OP's price. Similarly, analysts question Robinhood Chain's long-term dependence on Arbitrum, noting its daily sequencer revenue already nears three times that of Arbitrum itself. There is speculation that, like Base, it may eventually seek independence, with ETH potentially being its primary economic token rather than ARB."
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