These Recent Moves Are Brilliant. Here's Why Robinhood Is the Most Important Player in Crypto Right Now.

Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD) is arguably the most important player in crypto. It's all thanks to its newly launched blockchain, the Robinhood Chain, which now rivals some of the largest blockchains in several key areas, specifically in its sums and trading volume of tokenized stocks.

One of the incumbents in that space, Binance, is the crypto exchange behind the BNB Chain and its BNB (CRYPTO: BNB) coin. A Binance Research report found that BNB Chain and Robinhood Chain together handled around 88.2% of tokenized stock trading on decentralized exchanges in early September, up from just 2.3% in June.

Robinhood is likely to steal from BNB's market share, not to mention the market share of other crypto-native networks that host tokenized assets. Given its massive pool of more than 28 million users thanks to its highly popular stock trading app, it's already positioned to become the company to beat in crypto. Here's how it's shaking up the competitive landscape in crypto, and how to think about whether its stock is worth buying.

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Robinhood is already in a position to displace Binance

Tokenized stocks are crypto tokens that track the price of a real share. It's generally desirable for those tokens to be tradeable quickly and cheaply, and preferably at the same pace and transaction cost regardless of whether the host chain is busy or quiet.

Robinhood Chain, launched July 1, is a layer 2 (L2) network. That means it's a fast, cheap chain whose transactions settle on Ethereum, which would be more expensive and slower to operate directly. Robinhood's network also runs on technology from Arbitrum, and it pays its fees in Ethereum's coin. There's already $146 million in tradeable tokenized stocks on its platform as of Sept. 18.

BNB's chain also began as a copy of Ethereum, but it runs as a separate network. It has around $1 billion in tokenized stocks parked on its chain.

Over the 30 days ending Sept. 18, it experienced tokenized asset outflows of $181 million, including assets other than stocks, whereas Robinhood saw $156 million in inflows. BNB Chain has been around for years, and if recent flows continue, it looks like it'll be lapped by Robinhood in tokenized equities within a couple of quarters at most.

Notably, Robinhood also outran Coinbase Global. Coinbase's layer 2 chain, Base, launched years ago, but it still has only $7.5 million in tokenized stocks. Given that Coinbase later moved into tokenized stocks, it's likely that Robinhood will continue to pull further ahead.

Is Robinhood stock the right way to invest in its crypto push?

Robinhood Chain has no token to buy, but investors can still buy the company's stock to capture upside, as it collects revenue from the network's activity.

The catch is that Robinhood's crypto revenue declined by 38% to reach $100 million in the second quarter of 2026, which is only about 7.6% of its $1.3 billion total for the quarter. So it'd take a fair amount of new revenue from on-chain fees to make the top line budge enough for shareholders to notice.

Then there's the issue of what happens when the free ride ends. Robinhood has covered gas fees for its wallet users, and that subsidy will end on Sept. 29. Some of the network's activity will likely evaporate when that happens. If it recovers within a few months, it'll be a very bullish sign.

Overall, Robinhood stock is worth buying for investors who want exposure to on-chain stock trading. Between its larger audience of users in its ecosystem to market new crypto trading services to, and its quick onboarding of large sums of tokenized assets, it's going to become a crypto juggernaut, and soon.

Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum. The Motley Fool recommends BNB and Coinbase Global. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.