Base creator and co-founder Jesse Pollak acknowledged Robinhood Chain’s competitive edge but downplayed its threat in the race for tokenized stocks.
Pollak said in a recent statement:
One of the things Robinhood Chain did right was tokenizing stocks in the EVM environment. We are behind on this at Base and I am disappointed that this is the case.
Robinhood was one of the biggest players pushing US tokenized stocks into the European market despite opposition from many critics. The regret Pollak mentioned was a reference to his failed social betting rather than focusing on tokenization.
In fact, even Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong admitted that they missed the tokenization wave by putting too much effort into social experiments like creator coins. Base to fix your mistakes turned to tradetokenization, payments and AI brokers.
Despite Base’s delay, Pollak downplayed Robinhood Chain’s threat in the race for tokenized stocks.
We’re very close to solving this problem with Coinbase, and when we do, we’ll have 1:1-backed stocks (versus Robinhood derivatives) that should scale much better with trust, capital efficiency, and institutional acceptance.
It is worth noting that most tokenized stocks are synthetic or derivative products that offer exposure to price performance rather than voting rights.
Even Ondo’s tokenized offerings are backed 1:1 (meaning each tokenized offering is backed by the actual stock or ETF). But there are no voting rights and dividends are reinvested rather than shared directly.
It’s unclear how Base’s tokenized equity offerings will differ.
Robinhood Chain now rivals Base on fundamental metrics
However, Robinhood Chain is the latest Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) that is only three weeks old since its launch this month. However, it took advantage of the memecoin craze to catch on speculative attention Increasing network effects for tokenized equity schemes.
As of this writing, the chain competes with Base in key metrics. Looking at user activity, both L2s now have around 1 million weekly active users.
However, Robinhood Chain has seen much greater traction and DEX volume in the past few days. Comes with explosive traction, slightly over Base.
In other words, it took less than a month for Robinhood Chain to challenge Base’s position as the third largest chain in speculative trading.
Analysts think Robinhood’s distribution could provide a big advantage over Coinbase and Base. Robinhood was a stock broker before expanding into crypto.
The distribution moat will also push Robinhood’s HOOD stock as high as $160, according to Bernstein analysts. The broker has 27 million funded accounts and is in a ‘unique’ position to win as retail trade moves up the chain, according to analysts.
Final Summary
- Base co-founder Pollak envies Robinhood Chain’s first bet on tokenized assets
- Robinhood Chain now rivals Base on key metrics like DEX volume, users and revenue
