To Robinhood: Don't Build a Memecoin Chain, Tokenized Stocks Are the Real Ten-Billion-Dollar Business
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To Robinhood: Don't Build a Memecoin Chain, Tokenized Stocks Are the Real Ten-Billion-Dollar Business
"Memecoin makes people lose money and destroys trust."
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Artemis Analytics
Translation: TechFlow
TechFlow Editor's Note: Robinhood Chain launched just one month ago and already ranked third in DEX trading volume, but wallets are stuffed with animal coins and junk tokens. A longstanding shareholder who invested in Robinhood back in 2019 is anxious: Don't repeat the mistake of the 2021 meme stock frenzy; tokenized stocks are the right path to reach $10 billion in revenue and serve 100 million users globally by 2030.
Dear Vlad and Johann:
Less than a month since launch, Robinhood Chain has started fast on "making finance accessible to everyone":
- Daily active addresses over 300,000
- Spot DEX daily trading volume over $1 billion (third on-chain)
- Stablecoin supply over $300 million
- Annualized daily on-chain fees over $40 million
- TVL over $300 million, contributed by protocols like Morpho, Ethena, Uniswap, etc.
I invested in Robinhood's pre-IPO round in 2019 while at Whale Rock hedge fund, and covered Coinbase's IPO roadshow in 2020. The purpose of founding Artemis was to focus people's attention on assets with lasting value in the crypto and stock markets, rather than trading Memecoins.
Last week I was both shocked and sad when I opened my Robinhood wallet—it basically only allows trading Memecoins, and after buying some $CASCHAT just three days ago, I was airdropped a bunch of meaningless tokens, one of which was even called "Pointless Coin".
Yes, Robinhood is now third in spot DEX trading volume.
But the bulk of DEX trading volume is still Memecoins (animal coins, Vlad and Robinhood themed coins, or various other Memes). So please, Robinhood, do not build a Memecoin chain.
Robinhood Crypto can learn a lot from Coinbase's Base chain—Base is still a much larger chain today.
Brian Armstrong even emphasized in his reply to double down on guiding people to truly lasting use cases.
I understand the temptation—Memecoins are indeed a good way to attract early users and partners to bring liquidity and volume (come for the Meme, stay for the real apps). Large independent projects like Aerodrome can thrive on Base, dominate trading volume, and establish real business models.
But Memecoins cause people to lose money and destroy trust.
Just look at those Memecoins launched on Base in early 2024—they fell another 90% this year, down 99% from their peak in early 2024.
Memecoins are not lasting, they hurt customers, and further drive retail investors away from blockchain.
Moreover, Memecoins on Robinhood Chain will deepen the stereotypes of Wall Street and hedge funds—that Robinhood is just that trading App deeply embroiled in the GME/Meme stock frenzy in early 2021.
Tweets like this don't help:
Wall Street already finds Robinhood hard to understand. Don't double down on the path that hurt the brand in 2021.
Instead, liquidity and attention should be focused on the Robinhood wallet and ecosystem, focusing on Arcus (former dydx team, an early leading perpetual DEX) and tokenized stocks.
I appreciate that Arcus allows anyone globally to trade spot tokenized stocks today.
These stocks have only gone up and not down in the past decade.
Please truly make RWA the focus of the Robinhood chain, allowing more investors to trade stocks and pre-IPO companies, expanding financial accessibility.
Teams like RWA.xyz and Artemis are happy to help highlight these use cases.
The biggest bear case for Robinhood is that it has saturated the US market—27 million funded accounts, and Wall Street predicts only 31-32 million by fiscal year 2028, not explosive enough growth.
My bull case for Robinhood is: reaching over 100 million international investors through Robinhood Chain, who can now invest in RWA, prediction markets, stablecoins, listed companies, and pre-IPO stocks, as the top of the funnel for the Robinhood App.
There is real demand for 24/7/365 tokenized stock trading—just look at Trade.xyz on Hyperliquid, where people mainly trade real enterprises like SK Hynix with $68 billion in annual revenue.
If through Robinhood Chain, Robinhood grows to 100 million MAU by 2030, with current ARPU at $171, assuming lower ARPU for international users (since they pay on-chain fees rather than trading via the Robinhood App, which has higher fees), calculating ARPU at $100, then consumer revenue alone could reach $10 billion in 2030, exceeding Wall Street's forecast of $8.78 billion for fiscal year 2029.
Vlad and Johann, you have the opportunity to realize the promise of cryptocurrency through asset tokenization—making finance accessible to anyone.
Please don't mess it up by turning Robinhood into a Memecoin chain.
Wall Street, your customers, and the whole world will thank you.
A Robinhood user since 2017
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