Robinhood Chain has undoubtedly become one of the hottest on-chain capital hubs. Memes, tokenized stocks, and high-yield protocols are taking turns gaining momentum, and many early participants have already reaped the first wave of rewards.
According to DefiLlama data as of September 2, Robinhood Chain's DeFi TVL has reached approximately $775 million, with a 24-hour DEX trading volume of about $1.45 billion and a 7-day trading volume of $7.78 billion, pushing its on-chain revenue into the top ranks among major public blockchains.
Currently the hottest trend is the "crypto-stock pair Meme": Meme coins are no longer just paired with ETH or stablecoins, but are now directly quoted against stock tokens like NVDA, AAPL, and SPCX.
For example, in the AI/NVDA pool, AI is priced in NVDA. The USD price of AI depends not only on its exchange rate against NVDA but also on fluctuations in NVDA’s own price. For instance, after $AI, $REAL, and other meme tokens were paired with NVDA in July, they significantly boosted on-chain trading volume for NVDA stock tokens; by the end of August, the market cap of $AI briefly surpassed $100 million.
But buying AI is not the same as holding NVIDIA. NVDA is merely an asset on the other side of the liquidity pool; AI has no equity or redemption rights in NVDA.
What makes this玩法 truly unique is that Meme can directly leverage a popular stock to create a narrative, while channeling Meme-trading capital into the liquidity of stock tokens. The Launchpad standardizes this process by initiating trading through a bonding curve or automated market maker (AMM).
Amid this surge of interest, some DeFi projects are also gaining traction on Robinhood Chain.
Pons: One of the hottest meme launch platforms
Official website: Pons
Document: Pons Docs
Pons can be understood as the Robinhood Chain version of Pump.fun. The project initially trades via a Bonding Curve and transitions to Uniswap V4 once certain conditions are met.
Its transaction cost is not a flat fee, but rather a base transaction fee plus a Creator Tax, with specific parameters determined by each project and cannot be increased arbitrarily after issuance.
New coin listings also have a snipe tax. According to the official documentation, the purchase tax in the earliest stage may reach approximately 25%, then rapidly decays to zero within seconds. Therefore, regular users don’t need to compete with bots for speed in the first second.
You should also consider price impact. Suppose the combined tax rate for buying and selling a Meme coin is 4%—even if the price remains unchanged, the theoretical loss from one buy and one sell is already close to 7.8%. When combined with slippage in a small liquidity pool, the actual loss could be even higher.
After Pons, PONZ was launched, introducing features such as a treasury, protocol-owned liquidity, and lending. The current borrowing rate for PONZ listed on the official website is approximately 0.5%.
The Index: Meme Fee Used to Buy Stocks
Official website: The Index
The Index is straightforward: buy or sell INDEX and pay a 3% ETH fee; the protocol then uses a portion of these fees to purchase tokenized stocks such as NVDA, AAPL, and TSLA, and distributes them to eligible INDEX holders.
That is:
INDEX trading → charges fees → buys stock coins → distributes to holders.
The official website shows that the protocol has accumulated hundreds of ETH in fees and distributed stock assets worth over a million dollars; DefiLlama records indicate that both the cumulative protocol income and holder income have also reached the million-dollar level.
The issue with this model is also straightforward: revenue is heavily dependent on INDEX's own trading volume.
Also, a 3% trading tax is not low. Assuming a 3% fee on both buy and sell, without slippage, the theoretical cost for a full round trip is about 5.9%. Therefore, if you're only doing short-term, frequent trades, the costs can easily eat up the so-called "stock distribution returns."
Ripe Protocol: Borrow against your coin shares and earn RIPE through Meme mining.
Official website: Ripe Protocol
Document: Ripe Docs
Ripe has recently gained attention, primarily due to two sets of strategies.
The first suite is stock token collateralized lending. Users can deposit assets such as NVDA, AAPL, GOOGL, TSLA, and SPCX, collateralize them, and borrow the protocol’s stablecoin GREEN, gaining liquidity without selling their stock exposure.
There is an approximate 0.25% origination fee for new loans, followed by ongoing interest payments.
The second set is Community Farms. You can deposit popular Robinhood Chain ecosystem tokens such as PONS, INDEX, AI, and CASHCAT to earn RIPE, with some pools still offering annualized yields in the tens of percentage points.
This type of farm is similar to the "Food Farm" of 2020, but note that the high APY is largely driven by RIPE token emissions and does not represent equivalent cash flow generated by the underlying project.
If you borrow GREEN using stock coins as collateral, pay special attention to liquidation. Liquidation fees for different assets typically range from 5% to 15%, plus a Keeper Reward for the liquidator, so the maximum loan-to-value ratio allowed on the interface does not equate to the recommended ratio for average users.
EARN: Let the stock coin earn market-making fees on its own
Official website and documentation: EARN
EARN automates market making for stock tokens.
Users deposit stock tokens, USDG, or both, and the Vault automatically deploys the assets into a concentrated liquidity pool, adjusting the trading range based on price movements. Earnings primarily come from real trading fees paid by traders.
The fee structure is clear:
85% of the liquidity fee revenue goes to treasury users, and 15% goes to the strategy provider.
The 15% is taken from the earnings, not directly from the principal.
However, there is another cost to providing liquidity that is not explicitly labeled as a fee: impermanent loss.
For example, as NVDA rises steadily, the liquidity pool will continuously sell portions of NVDA to acquire assets on the other side, potentially resulting in a scenario where “fees were earned, but returns underperformed compared to simply holding NVDA.” Therefore, when evaluating EARN, don’t just look at the APY—also compare the vault’s net asset value against the outcome of holding the asset directly.
Hoodfi: Hedge directional risk
Official website: hoodfi
Hoodfi's approach is more strategic.
Regular NVDA/USDG liquidity providers earn fees while still being exposed to NVDA price fluctuations. Hoodfi establishes hedging positions outside the liquidity position, aiming to reduce directional exposure to the stock itself and concentrate earnings more on trading fees.
Simply put, instead of betting heavily on whether NVDA will go up or down, you're betting that there will be ongoing trading of NVDA on-chain in the future.
The project is still in its early stages. The official website showcases liquidity and trading volume across markets, but these figures do not represent hoodfi’s own total value locked. Additionally, there is currently no clearly disclosed fee structure similar to EARN, making it more suitable for observation.
The most commonly overlooked point by casual players
The annualized yields on such project pages are often high, but when participating, it's best to add up all the costs first.
For the Index, a full round trip incurs nearly 5.9% in trading fees alone; Pons adds creator fees, sniper fees, and slippage on top of small-cap tokens; Ripe requires accounting for opening fees, borrowing interest, and potential liquidation costs; EARN deducts a 15% strategy performance fee and considers impermanent loss.
So when you see an annualized yield of 50% or 80%, it's best to first calculate:
Actual holding period return – trading fees – slippage – strategy fee – borrowing cost.
If you're only planning to hold for a few days, even a high annualized rate may not matter. A single 5%–8% trading cost could easily exceed the farming rewards you'd earn in those few days.
The recent on-chain activity of address 0x7e3ba illustrates just how aggressive this market rally has been. According to on-chain tracking data disclosed on September 1, this address first purchased 11.8 million CASHCAT tokens for approximately $106,500, then sold them all for about $672,600, realizing a profit of roughly $566,000 in a single transaction. It subsequently bought 10.2 million PONS tokens for around $113,700, sold only 1.1 million of them to recover $117,100—essentially recouping its initial investment—while still holding approximately 9.1 million PONS tokens, which were then worth about $4.2 million. Combined, the two investments totaled approximately $220,000, with both realized and unrealized profits peaking above $4.7 million.
This case certainly cannot be simply replicated, but the strategy is worth noting: rather than frequently switching between dozens of small-cap coins, it involved early positioning in a few leading tokens that had already begun to develop liquidity; after the price rise, a portion was sold to recover the initial capital, while the remaining position was left exposed to the high-volatility market.
For casual players with a principal of only a few thousand dollars, it’s more advisable to: first calculate trading fees and slippage, and control position size per trade; after the price rises significantly, recover your principal in stages, and don’t treat high annualized returns or paper market value as realized profits.
Author: bootly
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