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On August 11, the CFTC invoked emergency powers for only the seventh time in its history to keep Kalshi running after New York filed a $36 billion lawsuit calling prediction contracts illegal gambling. The clash between federal derivatives law and state gaming enforcement may define the regulatory future of every crypto-adjacent market in America.

When the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered a private company to ignore an active state lawsuit and keep its doors open, the agency crossed a line that no federal financial regulator had approached in more than four decades. The August 11 emergency order did not merely defend Kalshi, the New York-based prediction market that has become the fastest-growing derivatives venue in the United States. It declared, in language that left little room for interpretation, that the federal government alone decides which financial contracts Americans can trade and that state gambling law has no authority over products listed on a CFTC-registered designated contract market. For the broader crypto industry, the implications reach far beyond sports betting. If the CFTC’s preemption argument survives judicial review, it could create a federal safe harbor for every tokenized derivative, perpetual contract, and event market that secures a federal license, stripping states of the enforcement tools they have used against crypto platforms for the better part of a decade.

How the CFTC-Kalshi relationship reached a breaking point

Kalshi received its designation as a CFTC-registered contract market in 2020, becoming the first federally licensed exchange dedicated to event contracts. For its first three years, the platform offered markets on economic data releases, weather events, and policy outcomes, contracts that drew little attention from state regulators. The turning point came in September 2023, when the CFTC itself tried to block Kalshi from listing congressional election contracts, arguing they constituted illegal gaming. Kalshi sued, and in a ruling that reshaped the prediction market landscape, a federal district court sided with the company. The D.C. Circuit declined to stay the ruling in October 2024, and by early 2025 the CFTC had dropped its appeal entirely.

The political winds shifted dramatically. Under Chairman Mike Selig, appointed in early 2025, the CFTC reversed course. The agency withdrew its 2024 proposed rule that would have defined “gaming” to include election contracts, and in January 2025 Kalshi self-certified sports event contracts, the product category that would trigger the current crisis. What had been a regulator trying to restrain a market became a regulator racing to protect it.

The speed of the expansion caught state regulators off guard. Within months of launching sports contracts, Kalshi was processing billions of dollars in monthly volume on markets covering NFL, NBA, and MLB outcomes. The platform marketed these products aggressively, positioning itself as a regulated alternative to offshore sportsbooks. For state gaming commissions that had spent years building licensing frameworks after the Supreme Court struck down the federal sports betting ban in Murphy v. NCAA (2018), the message was unmistakable: a federally licensed exchange was offering the same product they regulated, without paying state taxes, without obtaining state licenses, and without following state consumer protection rules.

Robinhood’s growing onchain ambitions are getting a major assist from decentralized exchange liquidity—at least according to a new note from Standard Chartered. The bank says Robinhood Chain has nearly reached $1 billion in total value locked (TVL), and that most of its liquidity demand is currently being met through Uniswap’s v2, v3, and v4 infrastructure.

Beyond helping Robinhood scale faster, the same integration appears to be feeding back into Uniswap token economics. Standard Chartered also argues that protocol fees tied to Robinhood are now the largest source of UNI token burns, with the burn rate stepping up after a fee-related switch linked to Robinhood went live on July 27.

Key takeaways

• Standard Chartered estimates Robinhood Chain has grown to nearly $1 billion in TVL and calls its growth the fastest by that measure among comparable chains.
• According to the bank, nearly all of Robinhood Chain’s liquidity needs are being served through Uniswap v2, v3, and v4.
• Standard Chartered says Robinhood-linked protocol fees have become Uniswap’s biggest driver of UNI burns.
• A fee switch activated on July 27 is cited as roughly doubling UNI’s burn rate to an annualized pace of about $90 million.
• Robinhood Chain launched on July 1 with a real-world assets focus and reportedly reached 194,000 daily active users in its first week.

Uniswap liquidity becomes a scaling lever for Robinhood Chain

Robinhood Chain launched on July 1, with a focus on bringing real-world assets onchain. Adoption appears to have moved quickly after launch: Standard Chartered points to reported early traction, including 194,000 daily active users during its first week. Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph also highlighted the chain’s early momentum, including figures for bridged assets in the initial rollout period.

In its latest research note, Standard Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick said Robinhood Chain has grown to nearly $1 billion in total value locked (TVL). Just as important, he framed the liquidity situation as a key differentiator: the analyst said virtually all of the chain’s liquidity needs are being fulfilled via Uniswap versions 2, 3, and 4.

For investors and builders, that detail matters because DEX liquidity is often a bottleneck for new networks. If users cannot reliably swap tokens, volume and DeFi adoption can stall—even when token issuance or onchain activity is progressing. Standard Chartered’s assessment implies Robinhood did not have to “start from zero” on liquidity rails, which could reduce friction as new applications and tokenized asset products come online.

UNI token burns rise after Robinhood-linked fee changes

Standard Chartered also connected Robinhood’s growth to measurable changes in Uniswap’s UNI token burn dynamics. The bank claims that protocol fees generated through Robinhood are now the largest source of UNI burns.

More specifically, the note says UNI’s burn rate has roughly doubled since a Robinhood-linked fee switch was activated on July 27, reaching an annualized pace of about $90 million in burn value. Using UNI’s “current price” figure cited by Standard Chartered—roughly $3.50 per token—that pace implies approximately 25 million UNI burned per year, or just over 4% of circulating supply on an annualized basis.

This matters because token burns are often watched as one of the few onchain mechanisms that can influence long-term token supply narratives, especially when tied to real activity like trading fees. Still, readers should treat the figures as estimates anchored to the bank’s cited pricing and annualization method; actual burn outcomes will depend on fee generation and UNI price over time.

Robinhood’s broader crypto strategy: tokenization and prediction markets

Robinhood Chain is part of a wider strategy to push beyond traditional stock trading into crypto-linked products. According to the article’s linked coverage, analysts have pointed to tokenization and prediction markets as key growth drivers. Standard Chartered’s assessment of Robinhood Chain’s TVL and liquidity routing fits that framing: faster DeFi scaling can support tokenized asset workflows and the market infrastructure needed for new categories of trading.

That said, the picture for Robinhood’s crypto business appears mixed. While the company reported record revenue and earnings in its second quarter, Cointelegraph’s earlier reporting noted declines in crypto trading volumes and revenues. The contrast underscores a common dynamic in brokerage crypto: profitability can improve even when trading activity cools, particularly if the business shifts toward different revenue streams or broader engagement patterns.

Standard Chartered’s view effectively reframes the current phase of Robinhood’s crypto expansion as an infrastructure story—liquidity and execution—rather than purely a demand story. If Uniswap-backed liquidity continues to support trading and onchain activity, Robinhood may be better positioned to convert early user adoption into sustained DeFi participation.

What to watch next

As Robinhood Chain matures, the key open questions are whether the reliance on Uniswap liquidity persists across more trading pairs and tokenized asset categories, and whether Robinhood-linked fee activity continues to translate into elevated UNI burns. Investors should also monitor whether improvements in onchain infrastructure correspond to clearer rebounds in broader crypto trading performance—or whether the current “mixed trend” pattern remains.

Fund flows aren’t helping either. Spot bitcoin ETFs are bleeding again, with U.S.-listed funds shedding $333 million in net outflows so far this week. That reverses course from last week’s $853 million of inflows, which had hinted at returning institutional demand. On a year-to-date basis, investors have yanked over $4 billion from these funds.

Meanwhile, adding to the pressure are Treasury notes, which underpin global finance. On Thursday, a $25 billion auction of the U.S. 30-year note drew yields as high as 5.22%, according to the Treasury Department, a level some dealers called the highest since 2001. Rising long-term yields make capital costlier and raise the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like bitcoin, a dynamic that compounds an already shaky backdrop.

Taken together, stalled legislation, weak ETF demand and climbing yields suggest little room for an outright rally in cryptocurrencies, leaving majors such as XRP fragile.

The payments-focused cryptocurrency has somehow managed to hold on to the $1 support, which, if breached, could prompt holders to sell their coins. A large number of traders likely accumulated coins below this level in late 2024, anticipating a

That combination helps explain why XRP’s grip on $1 and bitcoin’s hold on its multi-week range both look increasingly fragile heading into the next session.