Robinhood tackled Coinbase head-on then immediately inherited Base’s biggest problem

Coinbase is reshaping its Ethereum layer-2 community, Base, round buying and selling, funds and tokenized property as Robinhood’s new blockchain quickly positive factors customers and liquidity in lots of the similar markets.

On July 15, Base creator Jesse Pollak acknowledged that the community’s earlier emphasis on social merchandise had allowed it to lose floor in a number of of crypto’s fastest-growing monetary classes.

Pollak wrote on X:

“The total social aspect of the market that many people had been constructing in direction of — Farcaster, Zora, mini apps, and sure, creator cash — disintegrated utterly.”

Base will now focus on buying and selling, funds and tokenized property, bringing Coinbase into nearer competitors with corporations constructing blockchain infrastructure for monetary settlement.

Pollak recognized Robinhood and Stripe as formidable rivals as each develop their roles in tokenization and stablecoin funds.

Base loses floor throughout its social push

Over the previous years, Base had wager that Farcaster, Zora, mini apps and creator cash might type the inspiration of a consumer-focused crypto financial system.

The technique sought to show posts, profiles and different on-line content material into tradable property, permitting creators to develop direct monetary relationships with their audiences.

The mannequin initially generated substantial exercise. At its peak, Base turned the leading blockchain for daily token launches, briefly overtaking Solana for the primary time since 2023 as customers created and traded massive numbers of content material and creator cash.

However, that momentum proved troublesome to maintain. Interest in social tokens weakened as builders, customers and capital moved towards stablecoins, perpetual futures, prediction markets and different merchandise with clearer monetary makes use of.

The downturn uncovered a widening divide between the areas Base had emphasised and people attracting extra sturdy exercise throughout the trade. Artemis information confirmed that every day customers on Base fell sharply from their mid-2025 peak whilst capital continued to build up within the community’s monetary functions.

In view of this, Pollak acknowledged that Base made inadequate progress in tokenization and enterprise funds as exchanges, fintech corporations and monetary establishments elevated their deal with these markets.

He wrote:

“We realized how our deal with social had meant that Base had fallen behind in key areas that have been now more and more crucial.”

Base is responding to this example by separating the event of its shopper app from the underlying blockchain’s technique.

Pollak has returned oversight of the Base app to Coinbase, the place Jordan Fish, the crypto investor referred to as Cobie, will lead its growth. Pollak will focus on positioning the community as settlement infrastructure for world monetary exercise.

Fish based Echo, an onchain fundraising platform that Coinbase acquired for about $375 million in October 2025. Echo had facilitated greater than $200 million throughout roughly 300 offers earlier than the acquisition.

Coinbase mentioned on the time that Echo might assist it develop past token fundraising into tokenized securities and different real-world property. The handoff locations Fish accountable for the user-facing product whereas Pollak focuses on Base’s infrastructure and developer ecosystem.

Robinhood Chain positive factors early benefit

As Base resets its technique, Robinhood’s new blockchain is experiencing an unusually quick begin.

Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum layer-2 network constructed utilizing Arbitrum know-how, was designed to assist tokenized securities, lending, decentralized exchanges and different monetary functions. Transactions are processed on the community and settled by way of Ethereum.

Robinhood opened the community to the general public on July 1 with assist from Uniswap, Chainlink, and BitGo. It additionally launched inventory tokens that eligible clients in additional than 120 international locations can commerce across the clock by way of Robinhood Wallet and decentralized exchanges.

These merchandise helped draw early curiosity to the community, notably amongst Robinhood’s current worldwide person base.

By providing around-the-clock entry to tokenized equities by way of acquainted interfaces, the corporate was in a position to channel buying and selling exercise onto its blockchain extra rapidly than a community launching and not using a built-in distribution channel.

As a end result, month-to-month energetic addresses on Robinhood Chain elevated roughly tenfold in a single week to greater than 1 million, Token Terminal mentioned. The community additionally briefly overtook Base in every day transactions about 10 days after its launch.

At the identical time, greater than 62,000 distinctive addresses held inventory or exchange-traded fund tokens on Robinhood Chain inside about two weeks, representing 11.1% of addresses holding tokenized shares throughout the broader market, Token Terminal said.

Trading exercise expanded alongside adoption of the inventory merchandise. Decentralized exchanges on Robinhood Chain dealt with about $3.1 billion over seven days, in keeping with DeFiLlama data. This locations the community among the many main blockchains for spot buying and selling throughout the interval.

Stablecoin provide surpassed $300 million, whereas integrations with Morpho, Ethena and Uniswap helped direct capital into lending and buying and selling functions.

This early exercise has additionally begun producing income. Robinhood Chain produced greater than $800,000 over seven days, Arbitrum said. That would equal about $42 million yearly if the tempo continued.

While the early figures stay too restricted to exhibit lasting adoption, they nonetheless present how Robinhood has compressed tokenized property, lending and decentralized buying and selling right into a branded monetary community.

Memecoins complicate Robinhood’s early lead

Robinhood’s early lead turns into much less clear when the exercise is damaged down, with memecoins accounting for much extra buying and selling than the monetary property the community was constructed to assist.

Tom Wan, head of knowledge at Entropy Advisors, estimated that memecoins accounted for about 80% of spot buying and selling on decentralized exchanges on Robinhood Chain.

The focus means that a lot of the community’s fast transaction development has come from merchants rotating by way of risky tokens relatively than buyers transferring sizable inventory portfolios onchain.

CASHCAT turned the clearest expression of that demand. The cat-themed token, named after an early Robinhood mascot, reached a market value of about $150 million throughout its preliminary rally.

That was greater than 10 instances the mixed worth of tokenized shares held on Robinhood Chain on the time, illustrating the hole between the community’s acknowledged real-world asset technique and the exercise driving its early development.

The sample echoes Base’s personal growth. Memecoins and buying and selling functions helped appeal to customers after Coinbase launched the community in 2023, earlier than extra sturdy exercise shaped round stablecoins, decentralized exchanges and lending.

Base later placed greater emphasis on social products and creator tokens, triggering one other burst of speculative exercise that did not maintain demand.

Robinhood faces the same state of affairs and an added reputational danger due to its position within the 2021 meme-stock increase. Allowing memecoins to dominate its blockchain might reinforce Wall Street’s view of the corporate as a venue for speculative retail buying and selling relatively than a severe platform for tokenized finance.

Jon Ma, co-founder and CEO of blockchain information firm Artemis, noted that whereas memecoins can rapidly generate customers and charges, losses from short-lived tokens danger eroding belief and making it more durable for Robinhood to ascertain the longer-term monetary merchandise on the middle of its blockchain technique.

Base and Robinhood converge on the identical monetary markets

Coinbase and Robinhood are actually left to confront the identical problem of changing their distribution benefits into lasting monetary demand.

Coinbase started as a cryptocurrency exchange and has expanded into funds, derivatives, fundraising, tokenized property and machine-driven commerce. Base provides the corporate a blockchain on which these merchandise will be issued, traded and settled.

Pollak revealed that Base will manage its subsequent part round buying and selling, funds and synthetic intelligence brokers.

The buying and selling technique will span tokenized shares, memecoins, software tokens and different crypto-native property. Its funds push will deal with making stablecoins simpler for shoppers and companies to make use of throughout borders.

Base additionally plans to assist AI agents that may maintain and spend cryptocurrency, reflecting Pollak’s view that autonomous software program will turn out to be a rising class of financial participant.

According to Pollak, these efforts are geared in direction of constructing “Base into the blockchain for world finance” and “the place that the world’s cash settles over the following century.”

Robinhood is approaching the identical alternative from conventional brokerage. The firm is utilizing blockchain infrastructure to increase buying and selling hours, introduce self-custody and lending, and provides worldwide clients entry to property linked to US markets. Robinhood Chain provides it higher management over the infrastructure connecting these providers.

However, the corporate should transfer customers away from the speculative tokens that drove a lot of its opening quantity towards the inventory tokens, lending markets, and cost merchandise the community was designed to assist.

Ma argued that Robinhood might earn as much as $10 billion in income from such a spotlight if its enterprise grows to serve 100 million month-to-month customers and generates a mean annual income of $100 in annual income per person.

According to him, this is able to make Robinhood Chain turn out to be a gateway for worldwide clients looking for tokenized shares, stablecoins, prediction markets, and publicity to non-public corporations.

However, that situation rests on aggressive assumptions. Robinhood would want to develop far past its current buyer base whereas sustaining significant income per person throughout markets with totally different rules, charges, and buying and selling conduct.

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