Robinhood Meme tokens see major pullback—is now the time to buy the dip?

Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Azuma (@azuma_eth)

After the frenzy, the Robinhood ecosystem Meme rally has finally seen a pullback that was hardly unexpected.

GMGN market data shows that as of 14:00 Beijing time on September 10, PONS's market cap has fallen to $460 million (accounting for buyback and burn shares), down 19.4% in 24 hours; AI's market cap has dropped to $197 million, down 12.1% in 24 hours; CASHCAT's market cap has fallen to $165 million, down 14.4% in 24 hours; MEME's market cap has dropped to $60.9 million, down 28.8% in 24 hours...

As the Meme rally cools, Robinhood Chain's fee revenue, after hitting a peak of approximately $5.6 million on September 4, has declined for seven consecutive days, shrinking to about $2.75 million over the past 24 hours.

The reasons for this pullback are actually not complicated. On one hand, during the past two weeks of frenzied trading, the unrealized gains on early positions have piled up higher and higher, and the potential selling pressure from profit-taking has continued to amplify; on the other hand, as ecosystems like Solana and BSC have deployed highly targeted strategies to divert traffic, new capital and new attention flowing into the Robinhood ecosystem have not continued to pour in at the same pace, and combined with the divergence in internal capital dynamics, the rally that was originally driven by sentiment and capital has begun to lose momentum, leading to concentrated profit-taking.

Of course, this decline by no means signals the end of the Robinhood ecosystem story. The current situation is more like a temporary pause in the first round of the most frenzied Meme accumulation — coins that rose the fastest and had the most crowded positioning have given back significantly, and market sentiment is gradually returning to rationality.

Looking further ahead, this chain that was born with Meme genes still has ample room for imagination. At the very least, its helmsman Vlad Tenev seems to have found a new source of liquidity.

At Goldman Sachs Conference, Tenev Sets His Sights on Billionaires

On the same day as the major Robinhood ecosystem Meme pullback, Robinhood co-founder and CEO Tenev attended the annual "Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference." The event is hosted by Goldman Sachs Group and is one of Wall Street's important investor exchange events for the tech and media industries, with participants mainly including institutional investors, analysts, and management of publicly listed companies.

At the conference, Tenev attended a one-on-one fireside chat hosted by Goldman Sachs analyst James Yaro (who is also a HOOD bull and has given HOOD bullish ratings multiple times). Interestingly, in such a serious interview setting themed around "technology" rather than "cryptocurrency," Tenev spent nearly half his time on Robinhood Chain.

Throughout the conversation, "Tokenized Stocks" was the keyword Tenev mentioned most frequently. Tenev stated that the core advantage of Robinhood Chain is not just moving traditional stocks on-chain, but enabling these stock tokens to truly enter DeFi, where they can be called upon and composed by third-party developers to further build new financial products. Currently, Robinhood Chain has listed over 200 tokenized US stocks, covering more than 120 countries and regions outside the United States.

Tenev also mentioned the position of Meme in this narrative.

When discussing some new玩法 (gameplay) that have recently emerged on-chain, Tenev noted that developers have begun combining tokenized stocks with crypto-native assets, such as Meme, some of which "exceeded Robinhood's initial expectations." In other words, in Tenev's view, Memes like PONS and MEME that recently exploded on Robinhood Chain are not entirely outside the official narrative — on the contrary, they precisely demonstrate the possibility that open on-chain assets can be recombined and repriced.

Building on the Meme热潮 (frenzy), Tenev clearly has a bigger goal — bringing institutional capital into Robinhood Chain. Tenev explicitly stated at the conference that one of the next-stage priorities for Robinhood Chain is to continue expanding liquidity and attracting more institutional participation. Previously, Robinhood mainly solved "how to make it easier for ordinary people to buy stocks"; in the future, it will be "how global users and institutions can participate in these assets through on-chain infrastructure."

This is also the most noteworthy aspect of this "evangelism" — Meme may just be the earliest traffic entry point on Robinhood Chain that most easily ignites attention, but in Tenev's plans, it may be far from the end goal. What Robinhood wants to do is turn this chain into infrastructure that connects traditional financial assets, DeFi, retail investors, and even institutional capital.

From this perspective, the current Meme pullback actually looks more like an opportunity for re-screening — which projects are merely speculative targets riding the momentum, and which can truly benefit from Robinhood Chain's subsequent liquidity and infrastructure dividends — that is the question the market truly needs to answer in the next phase.

So, Can You Buy the Dip Now?

Personally, I am still quite bullish on the long-term narrative of Robinhood Chain, and HOOD is also one of my long-term core holdings in the US stock market.

As for choices in the Meme sector, relatively speaking, projects that lean toward infrastructure and have clear buy-side support may currently offer a higher margin of safety. The reason is simple: Meme feeds on attention and sentiment, while infrastructure feeds on on-chain trading itself — as long as Robinhood Chain can continue to attract users, capital, and trading volume, the underlying infrastructure should theoretically benefit.

Taking PONS as an example, Pons currently still generates over $1 million in daily protocol revenue. Under a transparent buyback mechanism, a decline in PONS's price actually means an acceleration of the buyback pace, which to some extent can offset the selling pressure from profit-taking.

For pure Meme targets, the most important screening criterion right now is whether the "cultural meme" behind a specific Meme has long-term resilience — whether it will still be noticed when the next wave of frenzy arrives — MEME, which currently underpins the "Robinhood vs AMC" debate narrative, might be an option, after all, Tenev is still frequently taking jabs at AMC.

Ultimately, I don't think this rally on Robinhood Chain has reached its endgame, but at this stage, rather than chasing the next Meme that suddenly skyrockets, waiting for the market to squeeze out the bubble and then looking for targets that truly have revenue, buybacks, and an ecosystem position will be the more comfortable choice.