Base Says Its Distribution Edge Can Outlast Robinhood Chain’s Early Surge

A Fast Start, With Caveats

Within conscionable 4 weeks of its launch, Robinhood Chain has logged astir 230,000 regular progressive users, capable to walk Base’s number cleanly. Cumulative DEX volumes excessively person jumped past $9 billion, including a 24-hour highest of $877.6 cardinal connected July 12 that concisely made Robinhood Chain the second-largest concatenation globally, down lone Solana.

That said, much than 80% of this measurement has travel from memecoin trading, not the tokenized equities Robinhood marketed arsenic its signature feature, with the second lone accounting for 4% of its concatenation activity. In fact, by July 25 that metric had surged astir fivefold, but adjacent aft that, tokenized equities remained a specified fraction of the chain’s regular DEX turnover (with stablecoins inactive being the azygous largest category).

Base Owns the Miss

The timing of these numbers seemed to person enactment Base connected the backmost ft and done 2 lengthy X posts, co-founder Jesse Pollak admitted that the network’s stake connected onchain societal products (i.e. Farcaster, Zora, miniapps and creator coins) had “disintegrated completely,” leaving the task down successful cardinal areas that “were present progressively critical,” including perpetuals and prediction markets.

He besides conceded that tokenized equities successful an EVM situation were thing “Robinhood Chain has done right,” and that Base had been “behind connected this,” adjacent though a hole was close. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong made a akin concession earlier this month, noting that Base’s content-coin strategy didn’t work, noting:

Base has been focused connected trading, payments, and agents (in that order). I deliberation each 3 are inextricably intertwined. Most of the resources are going to trading close present fwiw. Maybe it doesn’t construe externally close now, but that’s the case.

The Case Put Forth

Base’s effect has leaned connected organisation built implicit its astir 3 years of being live, not a one-for-one reply to Robinhood’s DAU oregon DEX-volume numbers. Xen Baynham-Herd, Base’s caput of planetary growth, told Bitcoin.com News that the network’s x402 outgo protocol has already processed 187.8 cardinal agentic payments worthy $42.4 cardinal crossed much than 5,000 merchants.

He besides pointed to Visa adding Base to its stablecoin colony aviator alongside Polygon, Arc and six different chains, and to the project’s May “Azul” upgrade, which combined trusted execution environments with zero-knowledge multiproofs to chopped withdrawal finality to astir a day.

Traditional paper processors transportation fixed fees arsenic precocious arsenic 30 cents per transaction, a level that makes net micropayments impractical, Baynham-Herd said; x402 pushes protocol fees to zero and state costs to astir a hundredth of a cent, posturing Visa’s aviator arsenic a designation that bequest rails simply outgo more, not a selling favor.

Base’s organisation lawsuit extends beyond agentic payments to accepted stablecoin liquidity besides fixed that the web holds astir $3.9 cardinal successful stablecoins (about 90% of it USDC), putting it neck-and-neck with Arbitrum atop the L2 stablecoin rankings. Moreover, Shopify processes USDC payments connected Base, and JPMorgan settles its tokenized deposit merchandise determination too, luxuries Baynham-Herd pointed retired are not disposable to a four-week-old chain.

Lastly, helium signalled that the aforementioned figures measurement a furniture of enactment wholly antithetic from Robinhood Chain’s retail trading numbers, peculiarly machine-to-machine payments and endeavor colony alternatively than DAU oregon DEX volume, adding:

Builders spell wherever users are. Users spell wherever the apps enactment and adhd value. That flywheel is the moat. The azygous header I ticker is whether apps person users who travel backmost without being paid to. If they don’t, nary magnitude of TVL oregon DAU means anything.

What’s Next

Coinbase has announced tokenized stocks connected its centralized exchange, truthful the spread Pollak seems to beryllium alluding to is specifically the onchain, Base-native version, built connected a 1:1 share-backed exemplary with nary confirmed motorboat day of its own.

Robinhood’s tokens, by contrast, are structured arsenic tokenized indebtedness securities (i.e. holders get nary voting oregon shareholder rights and can’t assertion the underlying shares directly, lone currency redemption). Landing Base’s onchain merchandise would adjacent Robinhood’s clearest remaining edge.

That, positive Base’s organization and agentic-payments push, is the stake underlying Coinbase’s case: that Robinhood’s aboriginal lead, inactive much than 80% memecoin-driven, is easier to overtake than the organisation web Base has spent astir 3 years building. Whether that holds volition amusement up successful whether the latter’s tokenized-equities measurement keeps compounding erstwhile its motorboat numbers commencement to fade.