Arbitrum Foundation Courts European Institutions as WisdomTree Highlights New Royalty-Based Revenue

The Arbitrum Foundation met this week with a consortium of European banks, wealth managers, and family offices that collectively manage over €800 billion in assets. The meetings, aimed at showcasing the layer-2 blockchain's value proposition, coincided with the release of a new research report from asset manager WisdomTree analyzing Arbitrum's emerging business model.

Institutional Outreach

Brendan Ma, Head of Investment Strategy for the Arbitrum Foundation, spoke at roundtable events co-hosted with WisdomTree in Lugano and Milan. The Milan event alone gathered capital allocators representing more than €600 billion in assets under management, according to Investing.com.

Ma's presentation focused on the ongoing migration of financial markets to public blockchains and the necessity for token-based networks to establish sustainable business models with real cash flow and revenue. The discussions centered on the accelerating trend of financial asset tokenization, with institutions reportedly seeking blockchain networks poised to benefit from this infrastructure build-out.

WisdomTree Details New 'Royalty' Model

WisdomTree's report positions Arbitrum's technology itself as a standalone, high-growth business. It highlights a royalty-like fee structure where any chain that uses Arbitrum's technology and settles on Ethereum must pay 10% of its net revenue to the ArbitrumDAO.

Key financial metrics from the report include:

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• $6.19 million in total revenue for the ArbitrumDAO in the first half of 2026.
• A consolidated gross margin of over 97% during that period, an increase from over 90% in 2025.

The report cites the recently launched Robinhood Chain as the first to make a payment under this model. In its first 10 weeks of operation, the chain paid $4.37 million in licensing fees, with approximately $3.50 million of that flowing to the DAO's treasury. WisdomTree noted that this single chain generated more revenue in a few weeks than half of the entire organization's revenue over the previous six months.

Context and Market Implications

This institutional push and the focus on a tangible revenue stream come just a month after Standard Chartered initiated research coverage on Arbitrum in September, signaling growing interest from traditional finance. The developments highlight a shift in how layer-2 networks can monetize their technology beyond simple transaction fees.

For investors and market participants, the royalty model presents a new framework for valuing blockchain protocols based on recurring, high-margin licensing revenue. The key question, as posed by WisdomTree, is whether more companies will follow Robinhood's lead in launching their own dedicated chains on Arbitrum's technology stack, potentially creating a significant and scalable income source for the DAO.