The Chain Wars: Robinhood vs Base

Earlier this month, 0xResearch published a report on Robinhood Chain and its blistering launch. Robinhood Chain had completely upended the L2 market and had become the number one L2 by revenue in just its first month of being live. At $3.6M of chain revenue and 38% of all L2 revenue in July, it was undoubtedly one of the most impressive launches of any chain in recent memory. 

However, underpinning this success was a massive wave of memecoin activity that accounted for over 50% of spot volume. Given how fickle and rotational memecoin activity can be, it is worth checking in on Robinhood Chain to see whether it is building on its successful launch or whether activity is decaying as memecoins rotate back to Solana. 

Based on its month-to-date run rate, Robinhood Chain is still projected to be the number one L2 by revenue in August, with $2.9M. However, one could argue that cracks are starting to emerge. Firstly, revenue is down 19% MoM, potentially a sign that July’s revenue numbers were in fact due to Robinhood Chain being the “new blockchain.” Second, this August projection is based on revenue through August 21. However, the last seven days show a different picture. Base generated $701,400 in revenue, surpassing Robinhood Chain’s $449,000. Perhaps the calls for the fall of Base were a bit too premature.

Anyways, one must tread with caution when examining a small data set of just three weeks, but a clearer picture of the L2 landscape is starting to emerge. Yes, Robinhood Chain is certainly here to stay, but it will have to fight tooth and nail with Base over the top spot. Its success is not pre-ordained, and Robinhood will need to have an ecosystem strategy more expansive than just its current slate of day-one launch partners and the sporadic marketing tweet from the Robinhood X account. This is especially true given that Base will directly be challenging Robinhood’s claim as the chain for tokenized equities as Coinbase looks to launch its tokenized equities on Base, making the offering of tokenized equities alone unlikely to be a strong enough moat for either L2.

The more likely deciding factor between Robinhood Chain and Base is which chain can cultivate an ecosystem of protocols that actually put tokenized equities to work, integrating them into the lending markets, DEXs, and other primitives crypto has already built, and which one can make that ecosystem feel cohesive rather than a loose collection of unrelated deployments. Cultivating an ecosystem of builders takes sustained effort from Robinhood, and it cannot be approached from the developer side alone. Those builders need users who are willing to try unproven protocols and put real money into them, which means Robinhood has to court the user side just as deliberately as it courts the teams. This is all especially pressing right now as crypto is beginning to turn and price action is improving, which is precisely when new users, new capital, and new teams are easiest to attract.

Despite being surpassed by Robinhood Chain over these past two months, Base still has a few advantages working in its favor. Not only does Base have a head start of a few years as it has amassed an ecosystem of applications that regularly earn 7 to 8 figures of revenue each month, but it also has an ace up its sleeve with a potential for a BASE token. Nothing can attract users, capital, and protocols quite like an airdrop and some token incentives. 

Nothing takes away from what has been a remarkable launch, and Robinhood Chain has clearly earned its place at the top of the L2 landscape, but earning that place and holding it are two very different things. Robinhood has every advantage it needs to build the leading onchain ecosystem, though it will have to fight for it rather than assume its launch momentum carries it the rest of the way.

— Ryan Graham