Robinhood Chain gas fees surge 82-fold in 11 days, surpassing Ethereum and Solana

Gas fees on Robinhood Chain, a blockchain for trading and swapping digital assets, have surged 82-fold in just 11 days, reaching higher levels than Ethereum, Solana, and Tron combined. On September 2, users paid $4.45 million in fees, up from $54,254 on August 22, according to data from DefiLlama.

The sharp increase is largely due to a rise in the base fee, which jumped 23 times from its minimum of 0.02 gwei. This was driven by high activity from memecoin launches on the two-month-old network. While transaction counts rose by about 36%, the cost per transaction increased from under one cent to roughly 32 cents.

Robinhood covers fees for users until September 29

Robinhood is currently absorbing these fees for users swapping assets within its own wallet app. This promotion, which began at the launch of Robinhood Chain, will continue until 11:59 PM EST on September 29, 2026. The offer applies to crypto and stock token swaps over $0.50, with no additional limits. However, wallet-to-wallet transfers, bridge transactions, and actions taken through third-party apps or the dapp browser are not covered.

Pons and Uniswap drive activity

Much of the network’s activity comes from Pons V2, a launchpad exclusive to Robinhood Chain, which collected $6.09 million in fees in 24 hours and $26.33 million over seven days. Uniswap V4 on the chain also saw significant fees, totaling $6.65 million. The PONS token itself has risen sharply, with a 42.9% increase in 24 hours and a 2,727.3% surge over 30 days, reaching a market value of $413.8 million.

DEX (decentralized exchange) volume on Robinhood Chain hit $1.55 billion in 24 hours, up 88.1% over the past week. Total value locked on the chain stands at $819.6 million.

Gas fees now account for 23% of all chain costs

Gas fees have grown from a negligible portion of total fees to nearly a quarter of all costs on Robinhood Chain. On September 2, gas fees made up 23.3% of the $19.12 million in total fees paid on the chain. In comparison, gas fees accounted for just 2.5% of total fees on August 22. No other major blockchain currently has such a high proportion of gas fees relative to total costs.

Network capacity and governance

The ability to reduce fees by increasing the chain’s throughput is not solely in Robinhood’s hands. Robinhood Chain operates under a Security Council of eight signers, including Robinhood, BitGo, Chainlink Labs, and others. Routine changes to the network require approval from six of the eight signers, along with a seven-day onchain timelock. Emergency actions require seven of eight signers and skip the timelock.

Arbitrum benefits from fee surge

Robinhood Chain, built using Arbitrum’s technology, shares 10% of its gas fees with the Arbitrum DAO treasury and development funding under the Arbitrum Expansion Program. On September 2, Robinhood Chain retained $4.01 million of the $4.45 million in gas fees after accounting for Ethereum data costs and the 10% fee share. This results in roughly $356,000 flowing into the Arbitrum DAO daily at current rates.

Sources

• The Defiant