Robinhood Chain Faces Outage and AMC Legal Challenge Amid Rapid Growth

On September 4, Robinhood Chain – an Ethereum layer‑2 network launched only two months earlier – halted block production for at least 14 minutes, pausing all transactions before activity resumed.

Revenue Surge and DeFi Activity

Despite the brief interruption, the network has become one of the highest‑earning layer‑2 chains. It has generated roughly $23 million in cumulative fees, including about $4 million in a single recent 24‑hour period. Token Terminal estimates that Robinhood Chain accounted for 78.5 % of layer‑2 blockchain revenue over the past 30 days, which would annualize to around $1.7 billion if the current pace persisted.

DeFi metrics show total value locked on the chain rose nearly 27 % in the past week to approximately $840 million, and decentralized exchange activity has accelerated as users move assets onto the network.

Stock Token Business Draws Corporate Pushback

Robinhood’s Stock Token product, which issues ERC‑20 tokens that track the price of U.S. equities and ETFs, has attracted criticism from companies whose shares are tokenized. AMC Entertainment’s CEO Adam Aron publicly demanded that Robinhood cease trading the AMC token, arguing that the tokens are not registered under U.S. securities laws. Robinhood’s chief legal officer responded that the company will not halt trading and is prepared to address legal questions.

The tokens provide economic exposure without granting legal ownership of the underlying shares, and they are issued by Robinhood Assets Limited in Jersey. Similar objections have been raised by other firms, such as OpenAI, but demand for tokenized stocks continues to grow.

Market Position and Future Outlook

Robinhood Chain now leads the tokenized‑stock market by holder count, with about 862,800 token holders, slightly ahead of Binance’s 827,200. Tokenized stocks generated roughly $6.4 billion in decentralized exchange volume over the past 30 days, with PancakeSwap and Uniswap handling the majority of trades.

Stablecoins on the network approach $1 billion, and active real‑world assets tied to Stock Tokens exceed $200 million. The September 4 outage highlights the importance of robust infrastructure as Robinhood expands its on‑chain financial products amid growing corporate scrutiny.