The Arbitrum Foundation reported that the Arbitrum network processed 478 million transactions during the first half of 2026, bringing its lifetime transaction volume to approximately 2.7 billion.
Arbitrum’s ecosystem generated $206 million in GDP during the six-month period, taking cumulative ecosystem GDP since launch to approximately $1.7 billion.
Average monthly stablecoin transfer volume exceeded $70 billion, while Arbitrum ended the period ranked first in tokenized real-world asset deployments.
ArbitrumDAO generated $6.19 million of income across four sources during the first half: Arbitrum One transaction fees, Timeboost, Arbitrum Expansion Program license fees and treasury income.
Collective gross margin on protocol revenue exceeded 97%, compared with more than 90% for full-year 2025.
Under the Arbitrum Expansion Program, Arbitrum chains settling outside Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova return 10% of their net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Robinhood Chain went live on mainnet on July 1, 2026. In July, Expansion Program license fees reached $360,000 and represented 35% of ArbitrumDAO income.
Before entering mainnet, Robinhood Chain processed more than 200 million transactions on its public testnet.
Arbitrum also ended the first half with more than 2,000 tokenized real-world assets deployed, according to RWA.xyz.
During the period, LG Electronics announced an onchain advertising network pilot using Arbitrum, Mastercard expanded stablecoin settlement support to assets on the network, and PayPal’s PYUSD reached a peak of $475 million on Arbitrum during the first quarter.
The Arbitrum Foundation participated in more than 15 capital markets events and engaged with over 150 institutional investors during the first half.
As of August 17, approximately 9.23 billion ARB, or 92.3% of total supply, had been unlocked or was held in the ArbitrumDAO treasury. The remaining 770 million ARB is scheduled to complete its original vesting cycle in March 2027.
ArbitrumDAO also held approximately $125 million in non-ARB treasury assets as of June 30, 2026.
The Foundation said it primarily deploys ecosystem capital through milestone-based funding. Less than $200,000 of its ecosystem grants during the first half were issued upfront without milestone requirements.
KEY QUOTE:
“The first half of 2026 shows the Arbitrum ecosystem’s financial profile broadening. It now looks like a diversified economic enterprise, with four income lines at a blended gross margin above 97% and an expansion programme that accounted for 35% of the ArbitrumDAO’s July income, the first month Robinhood Chain was on mainnet. The demand behind those numbers comes from the convergence of traditional finance and onchain finance that is happening today on the Arbitrum platform. Against subdued market conditions across the industry, the ecosystem’s growth has accelerated since the half ended. On July’s figures, total income for the third quarter is already on track to exceed the second quarter by more than 40%.”
Brendan Ma, Head of Investment Strategy at the Arbitrum Foundation
