ARB, the native token of Arbitrum, surged nearly 20% over the past week, outperforming most major Layer 2 tokens, driven by the launch of Robinhood Chain — a real-world asset (RWA) Layer 2 built on Arbitrum technology that activates a revenue-sharing mechanism known as the Arbitrum Expansion Program (AEP).
A dormant rule suddenly matters
The AEP, introduced in January 2024 by the Arbitrum Foundation and Offchain Labs, allows third parties to build chains using Arbitrum Orbit technology in exchange for a fee. Any Orbit chain that does not settle to Arbitrum One or Nova — for example, settling directly to Ethereum or Base — must pay 10% of its net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem: 8% to the DAO treasury and 2% to the developer guild. Chains that settle back to Arbitrum One or Nova, such as Xai and Sanko, are exempt.
While smaller chains like Degen Chain, Onyx, and Flynet have been paying this fee since early 2024, their contributions were negligible. Robinhood Chain is the first heavyweight tenant to make the revenue share meaningful at scale.
Impressive early metrics, modest revenue so far
According to Johann, Robinhood's head of international and crypto business, Robinhood Chain has processed over 17 million transactions, attracted more than 350,000 addresses, reached a total value locked (TVL) of approximately $250 million, and generated over $1 billion in DEX volume within its first week. However, the actual protocol revenue stands at only about $147,000, and after deducting the cost of settling data to Ethereum Layer 1, the net figure is around $146,000. Even with the 10% share going to Arbitrum DAO, the amount is trivial.
The recent ARB rally reflects market speculation on the future scaling potential of AEP revenue. Robinhood holds over $324 billion in total assets and $143.6 billion in custody assets, with tokenized stocks already expanded to over 2,000 tokens across 120 countries. If a fraction of these assets migrate on-chain, the revenue base could grow exponentially.
Landlord dynamics: Optimism's loss, Arbitrum's gain
Arbitrum's "rent-collecting" model mirrors Optimism's, which charges Superchain members — including Base, Zora, Mode, and Unichain — 2.5% of sequencer revenue or 15% of net profits, whichever is higher. However, Optimism's rental income has been declining, falling to about $2.9 million in Q1 2026 (with Base contributing roughly $1.4 million), down 21.5% from the previous quarter. In February 2026, Base announced plans to leave the OP Stack, causing OP's token to drop 28% in two days.
Arbitrum, meanwhile, has just activated its own landlord model with a major tenant. But concerns remain that Robinhood Chain could follow Base's path and eventually detach from Arbitrum Orbit. Robinhood Chain's daily sequencer revenue has already reached nearly $60,000, second only to Base's $72,000 among Ethereum L2s, and nearly three times that of Arbitrum itself. Additionally, Robinhood Chain has become the second-largest consumer of Ethereum DA (data availability) after Base, paying blob fees in ETH and permanently burning it. Some analysts argue that if the chain can only support one native currency, ETH is a more likely candidate than ARB.