Arbitrum, an finance-native blockchain generated $6.19 million in income during the first half of 2026, with gross margins exceeding 97%, as its revenue sources expanded beyond transaction fees to include blockchain licensing, transaction-priority auctions and treasury management.
The figures, examined in a WisdomTree research report titled Arbitrum, a Licence to Build, show how the network has developed four income streams, three of which emerged within the past two years.
Arbitrum’s financial performance was also disclosed in the Arbitrum Foundation’s first-half progress report, which reported 2.7 billion lifetime transactions and approximately $70 billion in average monthly stablecoin transfer volume. The foundation said 18% of the network’s lifetime transactions occurred in the first six months of 2026.
Launched in 2021, Arbitrum processes transactions outside Ethereum’s main network before posting compressed transaction data back to Ethereum. This reduces transaction costs while allowing applications to operate within the Ethereum ecosystem.
WisdomTree’s analysis examines how Arbitrum is also generating income by allowing other companies to build independent blockchains using the same technology.
Arbitrum’s Four Revenue Streams Change Its Business Model
Transaction fees were originally Arbitrum’s primary source of income. Users pay fees in Ether (ETH), a portion of which covers the cost of settling transaction data on Ethereum, with the remainder accruing to the Arbitrum decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
The network has since added other sources of revenue.
One is Timeboost, a transaction-ordering mechanism that allows traders to bid for priority processing. Rather than giving faster-connected participants an automatic advantage, the system auctions priority access and directs the resulting income to the ecosystem.
Another is treasury management, through which the DAO earns returns on assets it holds.
The fourth source is blockchain licensing, which allows Arbitrum to earn revenue when businesses deploy independent networks using its technology.
Under the Arbitrum Expansion Program, companies launching qualifying networks pay 10% of their net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem. Of this, 8 percentage points go to the DAO treasury and 2 to the developer guild.
The revenue-sharing arrangement is calculated after eligible settlement costs, rather than on the entire amount collected from network users.
According to WisdomTree, the licensing model gives Arbitrum an additional income source without requiring it to build and operate a separate blockchain for every enterprise customer.
The shift is reflected in Arbitrum’s margins. The network reported gross margins above 90% in 2025, increasing to more than 97% in the first half of 2026. Its earlier 2025 transparency report recorded $23.49 million in annual gross profit.
Arbitrum’s Licensing Model Generates Millions in Fees
The research highlights Robinhood Chain as an example of how Arbitrum can earn income from networks built using its technology.
Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer 2 network using Arbitrum’s technology, opened publicly on July 1, 2026.
According to figures compiled by WisdomTree and Entropy Advisors, the network generated approximately $43.78 million in transaction fees during its first ten weeks, through September 10.
That activity resulted in approximately $4.37 million in licensing fees for the Arbitrum ecosystem, including about $3.5 million for the DAO treasury.
The DAO’s share alone was equivalent to more than half the $6.19 million Arbitrum had reported in income during the preceding six months.
The network’s transaction fees reached $1.92 million on September 1 before climbing to approximately $4.4 million the following day, according to the research.
WisdomTree also found that Ethereum settlement costs accounted for approximately 0.11% of Robinhood Chain’s transaction fee revenue during the measured period.
The licensing fees represent income generated after Arbitrum’s first-half reporting period and are separate from the $6.19 million recorded for January through June.
Further activity on Robinhood Chain can be examined through Entropy Advisors’ blockchain analytics.
Arbitrum Leads Ethereum in Tokenized Asset Deployments
Beyond its financial results, Arbitrum has developed a substantial presence in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), which include traditional financial assets represented on blockchain networks.
Using RWA.xyz data accessed on September 4, WisdomTree found that Arbitrum hosted 5,176 tokenized asset deployments, compared with 2,409 on Ethereum and 2,698 on Solana.
Arbitrum therefore hosted more than twice as many tokenized asset deployments as Ethereum at the time of the research.
However, Ethereum remained ahead by the total value of tokenized assets, holding approximately $17 billion compared with Arbitrum’s $1 billion.
WisdomTree attributed the difference partly to the roles the two networks serve. Ethereum prioritizes security and decentralization, while Arbitrum’s lower transaction costs make smaller deployments and high-frequency applications more economical.
The adoption of Arbitrum infrastructure also extends beyond financial applications.
The report cited LG Electronics’ onchain advertising pilot and Mastercard’s stablecoin settlement expansion as examples of enterprise activity involving the network.
It also reported that PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin reached a peak of $475 million on Arbitrum during the first quarter of 2026.
These activities contribute to network usage, although not every enterprise integration produces licensing fees. Applications operating directly on Arbitrum generally contribute through transaction fees instead.
ARB Holders Govern a Treasury Worth Hundreds of Millions
Arbitrum’s revenue is directed to its DAO, which is governed by holders of the ARB token.
According to WisdomTree, the DAO treasury was valued at approximately $450 million before rising to nearly $780 million within three weeks during a period of ARB price appreciation associated with developments involving Robinhood.
The increase was largely attributable to changes in the market value of ARB holdings, rather than additional operating revenue. The treasury subsequently declined from its peak as token valuations changed.
The distinction is important because ARB primarily functions as a governance token. Its holders can vote on treasury allocations and other protocol decisions, but the network’s income is not automatically distributed to them.
WisdomTree also reported that 92.3% of ARB’s token supply had been unlocked, with the remaining vesting scheduled to conclude in March 2027.
Arbitrum’s future revenue will depend partly on transaction activity across its own networks and the number of independent chains using its technology under revenue-sharing arrangements.
WisdomTree identified sustained demand following Robinhood Chain’s scheduled September 29 gas subsidy expiration, growth in tokenized equities and the addition of further enterprise chains as developments worth tracking.
The report’s financial analysis predates that subsidy expiration, so it does not establish how licensing revenue performed afterward.
For Arbitrum, the first-half results and subsequent licensing payments show that its income is no longer limited to transaction processing. The next indication of the model’s scale will be whether additional networks contribute meaningful revenue alongside its existing operations.
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