Yakovenko: Robinhood Chain's $0.40 Fees Are 'Brain Dead' Congestion Profits

Anatoly Yakovenko, Solana's co-founder, has criticized the fees on Robinhood Chain, contending that the brokerage capitalizes on network congestion instead of charging customers openly in its own app.

Transaction costs on Robinhood Chain currently sit around $0.40 on average. In Yakovenko's view, Solana performs equivalent work at a cost of less than a cent.

What Is Driving Robinhood Chain Fees Upward

The Robinhood Chain mainnet launched on July 1, 2026. Built on Arbitrum technology, it settles transactions to Ethereum and relies on Ether (ETH) for gas fees.

Demand has risen sharply since then. On a single day, the chain generated $4.22 million in fees across roughly 10.4 million transactions, according to data, working out to close to $0.40 per transaction.

Median pricing tells a similar story. At $0.24, Robinhood Chain currently leads all 27 chains tracked, ahead of every competitor. That level is driven by congestion rather than a published fee schedule.

The uptick is partly about adoption. Grayscale has placed Robinhood Chain on a short list of the three leading venues for tokenized stock trading, together with BNB Chain and Solana.

Solana, by contrast, sets a base fee of 5,000 lamports per signature. A lamport is Solana's smallest denomination, with 1 SOL equal to 1 billion lamports.

With SOL trading near $102, that cost remains far below one cent. Solana (SOL) has slipped 1.64% on the day.

The Arbitrum Revenue Share Draws Yakovenko's Focus

Arbitrum also receives a cut of Robinhood Chain fees. Under its licensing agreement, the brokerage passes 10% of net revenue to Arbitrum, with 8% flowing to the Arbitrum DAO treasury and 2% supporting the Developer Guild.

That revenue has already revived Arbitrum's ARB token, which is up 90% from its record low. Yakovenko's argument is that the same 10% slice would cover Solana's transaction fees four times over.

What’s funny is that the 10% rev share to arb would have covered the solana tx fees 4 times over and rh could have given a totally gas less experience to users. https://t.co/QAt8LFMqTK

— toly 🇺🇸 (@toly) September 4, 2026

Not all observers see Robinhood Chain's pricing the same way. Martin Köppelmann, co-founder of Gnosis, observed that Robinhood is making money rather than donating the service, and he was skeptical the argument would win people over.

Yakovenko responded that front ends generally take 50 to 80 basis points. Uniswap, for instance, is one of the busiest apps on the network, along with Relay.

Fees are not the only pressure point. Block production on Robinhood Chain also paused briefly this week, and users still paid $0.40.

The broader issue is who ends up footing the bill. The $0.40 is covered by users, Ethereum takes its settlement cost, and Robinhood pockets the rest.