Morning Minute: Tokenized Stocks Jump 5x on Robinhood Chain

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors are green as Oil falls 8%; BTC at $65k, ETH $1,960
• ETH ETFs see $103M in net inflows last week compared to $33M for BTC
• BitMart shuts down its exchange, following BitMex
• ZEC Ironwood Upgrade set to launch tomorrow
• Pons captures 80% market share on Robinhood ahead of v2 launch; PONS hits new ATH

📈 Robinhood Chain’s Tokenized Stocks Jump 5x

Tokenized real-world assets (i.e. stock shares trading onchain) on Robinhood Chain have jumped roughly fivefold in under two weeks to about $70 million.

When Robinhood Chain launched on July 1, memecoins immediately took over, and it seemed that Robinhood had spent money building infrastructure only to attract speculation. That’s now shifting. A dozen tokenized stocks are each clearing more than $500,000 in daily volume, with five above $1 million, led by GameStop at $26.6 million a day, Nvidia at $14 million, and SpaceX at $6.4 million.

The broader chain has scaled fast alongside it. Total value locked (TVL) has roughly tripled since mid-July to about $312 million, the chain is clearing more than $600 million in daily DEX volume, and it’s logged over 138 million transactions in 30 days, putting it among the most active networks in crypto. On the tokenization side specifically, over 100 assets have been tokenized and total RWA value is nearing $25 million. Daily trading volumes have spiked from ~$5M/day to $60M/day (the biggest growth story).

What makes this more interesting and timely, is that Robinhood reports earnings this week. That puts Vlad Tenev on a call with Wall Street analysts days after this data landed, and he has every incentive to talk about it. Tenev has been the loudest voice hyping the chain, from the “Robinhood Summer is here” post to fanning the memecoin frenzy, and tokenization is the strategic story that justifies the whole build to shareholders. Expect him to lean hard into the RWA and tokenized-equity numbers.

The question for the market is if HOOD stock is pricing in this growth yet or not, and how exactly Vlad will spin it (and if they have any other surprises up their sleeve). My gut is—it’s not priced in. We will find out this week…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are very green as oil fell 7% on Iran peace progress; BTC +1% at $65k; ETH +4% at $1,960; SOL +2% at $76.5; HYPE +3% at $59.90
• PUMP (+18%), LIT (+11%) and ZRO (+10%) led top movers
• Oil -7% at $83; Gold +1% at $4,100
• Stock futures are very green with Oil dropping; DOW +1.1%, Nasdaq +1.5%
• Crypto exchange BitMart is shutting down after nine years, with its BMX token crashing 58% on the news, the second exchange closure in a week after BitMEX
• Strategy overhauled its Bitcoin metrics to show net exposure after senior claims, pegging its “Net Reserve” at $36.6 billion once $22.3 billion of preferred stock and convertible debt is stripped out, and permanently anchoring the equity-issuance threshold at 1.0x mNAV
• A $5 billion cluster has formed in Bitcoin options, which analysts read as a bullish setup heading into the Fed week
• A US regulator warned prediction markets against cutting corners on event contracts
• Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, plans crypto trading infrastructure by December
• Institutional trading platform LMAX is exploring a sale or IPO, working with Morgan Stanley and KBW to weigh its options
• Brazilian farmers tokenized dairy cows to get loans, bypassing bank lending limits, in the latest real-world tokenization use case

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were slightly green on the week with Shiba leading; DOGE +1%, SHIB +19%, PEPE +4%, PENGU +4%, TRUMP +2%, BONK +3%
• Shiba Inu surged 20% as South Korean traders fueled a rally
• Robinhood chain was led by PONS +7% to $45M and a new ATH; Cashcat -14% to $40M
• Solana leaders included Cate (+150x), EPIK (+3,000%) and Geod (+30%); ANSEM -10% at $175M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• ZCash’s Ironwood Upgrade is expected to go live tomorrow, with a new shielded pool and a turnstile mechanism to avoid counterfeit concerns
• Pons v2 is launching this week, with a new earning mechanism, rug-proof design, custom pairing assets and a new fee stream

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly flat; Punks even at 32 ETH, BAYC even at 8.6 ETH, Pudgy +1% at 4.14 ETH; Hypurr’s +5% at 195 HYPE
• StonkBrokers (+10%) and Creepz (+8%) led top movers
• FWA confirmed token buybacks are coming, that the token may become tradeable ahead of the 15-day window closing, and that Pokemon may come to the platform soon; FWA token at $20M