Arbitrum DAO generated $6.19 million in income during the first half of 2026, as one of Ethereum’s largest scaling ecosystems increasingly looks beyond transaction fees for revenue.
The Arbitrum Foundation said the income came from four sources: Arbitrum One transaction fees, Timeboost, licensing under the Arbitrum Expansion Program and returns from the DAO treasury. Combined gross margins on protocol revenue exceeded 97%, up from more than 90% for full-year 2025, according to its biannual progress report for the first half of 2026.
The figures show how Arbitrum is trying to turn its blockchain technology into a broader infrastructure business as financial companies build dedicated networks using its software.
“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 shared with AlexaBlockchain. “It now looks like a diversified economic enterprise, with four income lines at a blended gross margin above 97%.”
Robinhood Becomes a New Source of Revenue
That diversification accelerated after the reporting period ended.
Robinhood launched the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain on July 1. The Ethereum Layer 2 is built using Arbitrum technology and is designed to support tokenized assets, decentralized finance and other financial applications.
Under Arbitrum’s Expansion Program, chains that use its technology but settle outside Arbitrum One and Nova return 10% of their net protocol revenue to the ecosystem.
Robinhood Chain generated $360,000 in licensing fees for the ArbitrumDAO in July, according to the Foundation. That represented 35% of the DAO’s income for the month.
The contribution is significant because it gives Arbitrum a revenue model that does not depend solely on users transacting directly on Arbitrum One.
Robinhood Chain has also gained activity quickly. Robinhood said in August that the network had generated more than $18 billion in Dex trading volume and surpassed $840 million in total value locked since its July launch.
Transactions Reach 2.7 Billion
Activity on the broader Arbitrum ecosystem remained substantial during the first half.
Arbitrum-based networks processed 478 million transactions during the period, taking cumulative transactions to about 2.7 billion, according to the report.
The Foundation put what it calls “ecosystem GDP” — economic value generated by applications and protocols — at $206 million for the half and $1.7 billion since launch. An earlier update said cumulative chain GDP had risen about 45% from a year earlier.
Stablecoins have become another important part of that activity.
Average monthly stablecoin transfers exceeded $70 billion during the reporting period, according to the new report. The Foundation previously reported that Arbitrum had 10.5 million stablecoin holders and monthly transfers above $60 billion during the first half.
Traditional payment networks are also expanding onto the chain. Mastercard said in June that Arbitrum would be among the blockchain networks supported for settlement using regulated stablecoins including USDC, PYUSD and RLUSD.
Tokenized Assets Become a Bigger Focus
Arbitrum is also positioning itself as infrastructure for financial assets moving onchain.
The network had more than 2,000 real-world asset deployments during the first half, with roughly $850 million in RWA assets under management, according to Foundation data.
Robinhood is central to that strategy. Its chain was designed specifically around financial applications and real-world assets, after the brokerage began offering tokenized US stocks and ETFs to European customers through Arbitrum in 2025.
The DAO also held about $125 million in non-ARB treasury assets at the end of June, according to the report.
The above article “Arbitrum DAO Income Hits $6.2M as Robinhood Chain Adds Revenue” was first published on AlexaBlockchain. Read the complete article here: https://alexablockchain.com/arbitrum-dao-income-hits-6-2m-as-robinhood-chain-adds-revenue/
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