Bernstein Maintains $160 Target on Robinhood as Its Blockchain Outearns Solana and BNB Chain
Robinhood Chain generated $33 million in fees over 15 days, topping both Solana and BNB Chain in the same period. Wall Street research firm Bernstein says that changes the investment case for HOOD stock.
Research firm Bernstein maintained an Outperform rating on Robinhood Markets (HOOD) on September 8, 2026, keeping a $160 price target that implies roughly 31% upside from the stock's September 7 close near $122. That target was raised from $130 in a July 2026 note, which at the time cited as much as 78% upside when the stock was trading at a lower base, making the September reaffirmation a signal of sustained rather than escalating conviction. The call is anchored in a single data point: Robinhood's own Layer-2 blockchain has generated more fees than any other network over the past 15 days, including Solana and BNB Chain, two of the most active chains in the world. Bernstein's note framed the chain's revenue output as a structural shift, describing fee generation as a direct earnings driver for the parent company rather than a speculative side project.
What the fee numbers actually show
Robinhood Chain collected approximately $33 million in fees over a rolling 15-day window ending in early September, compared to roughly $11 million for Solana and $9 million for BNB Chain in the same period. Daily fees set an initial record of $3.75 million on September 1, then surpassed that mark with a new record of $6 million on a single day in early September, up from near zero at the chain's July 1 mainnet launch. That 82-fold increase in 11 days drew attention across the industry. Annualized, the current fee run rate exceeds $800 million to $1 billion. Robinhood keeps approximately 89 to 90 percent of gross chain fees, with around 10 percent going to Arbitrum (the technology stack the chain is built on) and less than 1 percent flowing to Ethereum as settlement fees.
Broader on-chain metrics reinforce the scale of activity. The chain has processed more than 200 million cumulative transactions, logged $47 billion in DEX (decentralized exchange) volume, and holds roughly $738 million in DeFi assets locked in its protocols. Its peak daily active user count reached nearly 324,000 on July 21, settling to a more stable base of 115,000 or more active wallets by late August.
The memecoin problem and the tokenization opportunity
The fee surge has a complicated composition. More than 80 percent of the chain's first $9 billion in on-chain activity came from memecoin speculation, with over 22,600 new memecoin tokens launched on a single peak day in late August. The top fee-generating application at its peak was Pons, a memecoin launchpad, which alone produced $5.34 million in daily fees. Uniswap V4, Uniswap V3, and a trading bot called GMGN were the next largest contributors, generating approximately $2.68 million, $1.45 million, and $956,000 respectively.
The tokenized stock segment, which represents the longer-term commercial rationale for the chain, is smaller but growing within a market that is itself expanding rapidly. The broader tokenized stock market reached a $1.7 billion market capitalization in June 2026, up 149 percent year-to-date, driven in part by the SEC's March 2026 approval of Nasdaq rules permitting tokenized equity trading and by moves such as Bitwise's launch of non-U.S. tokenized stock portfolios in August 2026. Against that backdrop, tokenized U.S. equities on Robinhood Chain now hold a combined value of around $140 million, up from roughly $10 million two months ago, with more than 190 U.S. stock tokens available on the platform. The composition of that activity is also shifting: by August, 78 percent of real-world asset volume on the chain came from standalone stock token trades rather than memecoin pairs, a sign that the use case is maturing beyond speculation. Bernstein projects that the combined fee pool across tokenized equities, perpetual futures, prediction markets, and compute contracts could reach $70 billion industry-wide, making chain-level fee capture a meaningful part of Robinhood's future revenue mix. A July 2026 Bernstein note projected Robinhood will post a 32 percent revenue compound annual growth rate, a 47 percent EBITDA CAGR, and a 49 percent earnings-per-share CAGR between 2026 and 2028.
Not everyone is impressed. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko publicly responded to the fee model in terms that multiple outlets reported as "brain dead," arguing that congestion-based fee profits reflect poor design and pointing out that Solana processes comparable transactions for fractions of a cent, compared to Robinhood Chain's average of roughly $0.40 per transaction.
Who can actually access this, and at what cost
Robinhood Wallet and its stock token products are available in more than 120 countries, but Robinhood has explicitly excluded users in India, Pakistan, and African markets from all account types. Residents in those regions cannot access stock tokens, DeFi yields, or any other Robinhood product through its own applications.
The exclusion matters because the promise of tokenized U.S. equities is arguably most relevant for investors in markets where accessing Apple or Nvidia shares through traditional brokerages involves currency conversion costs, foreign investment limits, and significant bureaucratic friction. Robinhood Chain is built on permissionless smart contracts, meaning third-party developers anywhere in the world can technically deploy applications on its infrastructure. But building compliant front-ends that offer stock token access to users in South Asia or Africa would require navigating securities regulations in those jurisdictions, a significant barrier.
The fee gap also carries regional weight. At $0.40 per transaction, costs that are modest for U.S. retail investors can eat into smaller-value trades typical of retail activity in lower-income economies. Solana's sub-cent fee structure has been a meaningful driver of its adoption across South and Southeast Asia, and Robinhood Chain's cost profile works against similar traction in those markets.
What to watch next
Robinhood's gas subsidy program, which covers eligible transaction fees for users, runs through September 29. Post-subsidy data will clarify how much of the current fee volume reflects organic demand versus subsidized activity. If fees fall sharply after late September, the premise underlying Bernstein's earnings thesis will face scrutiny. HOOD stock has already climbed more than 21 percent during August alone, and Morgan Stanley holds a separate $150 price target on the shares, a second bullish institutional view but one that stops short of Bernstein's more optimistic call. October's on-chain data will be the first real test of whether the chain can sustain its revenue trajectory without support.