Arbitrum DAO reports $6.2 million in first-half income as Robinhood Chain adds new revenue stream

Arbitrum DAO generated $6.19 million in income during the first half of 2026, according to an unaudited report published by the Arbitrum Foundation on Wednesday. The result was drawn from four separate revenue lines: transaction fees on Arbitrum One, the Timeboost auction of priority access to the sequencer, Expansion Program licensing fees from chains using Arbitrum technology, and returns on treasury management.

Gross margins on protocol revenue came in above 97%, up from more than 90% for 2025, the report said. The DAO closed June holding $125 million in non-ARB treasury assets. The network processed 478 million transactions in the period, roughly 18% of its 2.7 billion lifetime total, while average monthly stablecoin transfer volume exceeded $70 billion. Stablecoin holders grew 40% to 10.5 million, and Arbitrum ranked first for tokenized real-world asset deployments with more than 2,000 assets live.

"The first half of 2026 shows the Arbitrum ecosystem's financial profile broadening," Brendan Ma, head of investment strategy at the Arbitrum Foundation, said in a statement. "The demand behind those numbers comes from the convergence of traditional finance and onchain finance that is happening today on the Arbitrum platform."

Robinhood Chain's growing contribution

Robinhood Chain, built on Arbitrum's technology stack, went live on mainnet on July 1. Expansion Program licensing fees brought in $360,000 that month, accounting for 35% of the DAO's income, the report showed. The program requires Arbitrum-based chains that settle outside Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova to return 10% of net protocol revenue to the ecosystem.

"Against subdued market conditions across the industry, the ecosystem's growth has accelerated since the half ended," Ma said. "On July's figures, total income for the third quarter is already on track to exceed the second quarter by more than 40%."

Activity on Robinhood Chain has continued to climb. Users paid a record $3.75 million in fees on Sept. 1, according to The Block's data dashboard, putting the chain ahead of Ethereum mainnet and Base, per Growthepie. Decentralized exchange volume on the chain topped $1.5 billion on Tuesday, also a record, with total value locked standing at just over $750 million. Before mainnet launch, Robinhood Chain processed more than 200 million transactions on its public testnet. Robinhood had previously issued its stock tokens on Arbitrum One.