Robinhood Chain thành công chứng minh rằng Ethereum vẫn chưa chết

Original text from Ryan Berckmans

Translated by / Odaily Golem (@web3_golem)

The previous era of the crypto industry dumped tokens via infrastructure. Its next era will choose Ethereum L1+L2 to build real businesses.

Travis Kling posed a question this week: "Isn't it obvious now that companies doing real things aren't interested in L1/L2?" Robinhood was the first example he cited. But on the contrary, Robinhood is almost a perfect counter-example: When real companies make business decisions, they almost all choose the Ethereum L1+L2 model.

Robinhood chose an existing L1—Ethereum. Then, it built its own Ethereum L2 using Arbitrum technology. Robinhood Chain uses Ethereum blobs for data availability and ETH as its native gas token, with its security also provided by Ethereum.

Therefore, Robinhood didn't deny the Ethereum L1+L2 model; rather, the model is running as intended on Robinhood.

The 'buyers' choosing Ethereum have changed. Past crypto projects chose blockchains and technologies to sell their own tokens, while the emerging real-world on-chain economy is using the Ethereum L1+L2 model as the foundation for cash-flow businesses.

As the composition of buyers changes, I believe Ethereum's advantages will become even more apparent.

The Old Crypto Economy Was Token-Centric

By "real businesses serving real users," I mean a traditional corporate model: building products customers need, earning profits by serving those customers, and increasing equity value based on those profits.

Here, "real users" refers to consumption demand arising from ordinary economic needs, not primarily speculative demand generated by new token launches. Crypto-native users are obviously real users. This isn't a moral judgment on whether a protocol is useful or its developers are sincere, but merely a distinction regarding the goal of operating a real-world economy.

The value of a token can only come from three sources:

• Cash flows: A reliable claim on future cash flows, akin to on-chain equity or bonds;
• Utility: Access, control, governance, or other privileged participation rights in a valuable system. Even without cash flows, a token controlling something important clearly has value;
• Monetary premium: People hold the asset because they expect others to accept and recognize its value in the future. This asset is no longer just a claim that must eventually be exchanged for something else but becomes a store of wealth—a terminal value asset.

The monetary premium is real but extremely difficult to sustain. It requires deep network effects in trust, liquidity, distribution, integration, and utility. Gold, the US dollar, Bitcoin, and Ether have all built versions of this effect, while few other assets have achieved it.

In retrospect, since programmable cryptocurrencies became popular, the vast majority of industry participants were not ordinary cash-flow businesses. Their economic goal was usually to sell a token whose value was primarily based on utility, an expected monetary premium, or a distant promise of future cash.

Sometimes their plan was straightforward—launch a protocol and sell its token; other times, it was more indirect—receive a grant from a token-funded ecosystem and then cash out the tokens received. Sometimes, a project genuinely expected future profitability, but because the token's valuation was disconnected from any possible future cash flow, the actual business model remained confidence in the token itself.

This became the norm because almost every project was doing something similar, though there were exceptions.

Centralized exchanges are fundamentally cash-flow business platforms and are naturally multi-chain; connecting one more chain is like adding another deposit/withdrawal channel. Some stablecoin issuers are also cash-flow businesses, initially serving customers in the crypto space and now rapidly expanding into the broader economy.

But these exceptions precisely prove the point: Businesses targeting ordinary cash-flow profits will choose infrastructure that maximizes the business, not the token value.

Different Business Goals Lead to Different Projects

A company's ultimate goal determines its technological choices.

If the goal is a cash-flow business, then the blockchain is infrastructure, and the selection criteria are to reduce risk, improve the product, reach customers, and secure profits. If the goal is token monetization, there is much more freedom in blockchain choice. After receiving a grant from a public chain, the company can choose to build on the chain that funded it.

For example, if a protocol succeeds on Chain A, you can launch a similar protocol on Chain B so that investors can price your token by comparison. Want to generate hype for a new token? A new L1, L2, app chain, gas token, governance system, or some special tech stack can all become selling points.

The problem isn't the diversity of technology itself; the crypto industry will continue to see an explosion of applications, protocols, L2 architectures, and specialized execution environments. The problem is the tendency to turn every new idea into a sovereign, independent ecosystem (with its own L1 architecture, security validation, liquidity base, and monetary asset), regardless of whether the underlying product is independent.

As the crypto industry now transitions towards cash-flow businesses, these attempts will continue, but they will increasingly be built on shared infrastructure. Companies will specialize at the application or L2 level while relying on the Ethereum L1 layer for settlement, security validation, liquidity maintenance, and monetary asset management. The result isn't less innovation, but a balance: more diversity at the edges, more concentration at the base layer.

The traditional crypto economy often chose its architecture around the token it wanted to sell. The emerging on-chain economy will choose its architecture around the product it hopes customers will buy.

The Buyers Are Changing

The future of the crypto industry will be very different from its past because the "buyers" have changed.

The previous US administration actively suppressed on-chain activity, but that trend has now reversed. The GENIUS Act is now law, providing a legal framework for payment stablecoins, and Europe's MiCA regulatory framework is fully applicable. Brokerages, payment companies, banks, asset managers, and governments around the world are formulating strategies for stablecoins, tokenization, and on-chain transactions.

This doesn't mean all regulatory issues are resolved, but it does prove that large institutions can engage in more blockchain business experiments.

We are approaching the beginning of the S-curve for true crypto adoption.

When we emerge from this phase, crypto and traditional finance will no longer be distinct categories. Property, money, transactions, finance, identity, and trust will all be coordinated through a network of on-chain and off-chain systems. Ultimately, "Web3" will become an outdated term, just like "Web2," and everything will just be the internet.

As this process unfolds, a larger proportion of crypto market participants will be real-world businesses serving ordinary consumers in the broader economy. This proportion will be evident not just in the number of companies but also in capital scale, user numbers, asset size, and institutional influence.

These companies are no longer crypto projects seeking a business model to support a token, but businesses using crypto technology to optimize existing or new cash-flow operations. This dictates their technology choices; infrastructure choices optimized for a token economy do not serve well for a cash-flow economy.

Real-World Companies Won't Build Infrastructure from Scratch

Typically, real-world companies have limited budgets for venturing into experimental infrastructure. They don't want consensus mechanisms, cross-chain bridges, validator economics, gas, governance tokens, and liquidity bootstrapping to be six unrelated side projects. Every additional component must create customer value or it becomes a burden.

The chain should serve the business, not the business serve the chain.

Some businesses are inherently multi-chain. Exchanges, wallets, stablecoin issuers, and certain asset issuers may require broad distribution. Even so, "multi-chain" rarely means every chain is equally important; different chains usually have their own specialized domains for liquidity, issuance, settlement, product status, or deeper integration.

Most on-chain businesses will require a special commitment to one or a few chains. Their choices typically take three forms:

• Use Ethereum L1 when the on-chain business needs maximum decentralization, credible neutrality, risk minimization, or liquidity. L1 execution is costlier because it supports the most powerful shared environment;
• Build their own Ethereum L2 when they need control, customization, compliance, predictable unit economics, low latency, or high throughput. They can get a dedicated chain tailored to their needs while maintaining direct contact with Ethereum;
• Use one or more established shared L2s when they don't need their own L1 and building an L2 isn't necessary. Base, Arbitrum One, Robinhood Chain, and other mature Ethereum L2s have become common deployment platforms.

These on-chain enterprises will still bridge assets, "export products," and connect to other networks. Having a home chain doesn't mean isolation; imports, exports, and interoperability are core components of on-chain business. But the home chain remains crucial, defining the system's security, canonical state, liquidity relationships, operational model, and long-term dependencies.

Why the Ethereum L1+L2 Model Still Works

Ethereum separates the two key elements large enterprises need.

The L1 provides a highly decentralized, credibly neutral, and extremely liquid global hub. The L2 provides a market for fast, low-cost, specialized, controllable, and customizable execution environments.

The L1 remains neutral, while the L2s at the edge can adapt to different operators, jurisdictions, products, and users. L2s extend Ethereum not only technologically but also politically: organizations can operate on their own terms without needing the global center (L1) to become their private chain.

An independent L1 can offer control and performance advantages. In some cases, full sovereignty over consensus and data availability is worthwhile for a project, but achieving it isn't cheap.

A new L1 must create and maintain its own security system, validator or operator set, cross-chain bridges, liquidity, tools, integrations, and reputation. It creates a new security and liquidity silo, increasing the cost and friction of interoperability with Ethereum L1 and the broader L2 economy (i.e., the dominant on-chain economic network).

For the vast majority of enterprises, the value created by an independent L1 does not offset these costs.

A custom Ethereum L2 captures most of the business advantages that would lead a company to adopt an independent L1: high TPS, control over execution, upgrades, fees, ordering, latency, access rules, and product-specific features.

Furthermore, L2s offer advantages that independent L1s themselves don't have: Ethereum for settlement and data availability, a standard L1 bridge, proximity to Ethereum's assets and capital, and a foundation for achieving trust-minimized interoperability.

L2 design is still critical. Admin keys, upgrade keys, proof systems, and withdrawal guarantees determine the security users have at any given moment. But even an L2 controlled by a few operators can provide users with a solid settlement base on Ethereum L1. A company doesn't need to operate and maintain its own L1 just to run its business.

Ethereum L2s are simultaneously independent blockchains and part of the Ethereum economic system. They can own and customize their execution environment while leveraging Ethereum for settlement, data availability, and interoperability management.

L2s often deeply integrate ETH into their application economy, for instance as the native gas token. Canonical bridging patterns provide a trust-minimized path for capital and assets on L1 to enter the L2's "local economy." Each new L2 has a unique product interface, and Ethereum's network effects will continue to strengthen.

Robinhood Made This Business Decision

Robinhood's development path is highly instructive.

It first issued stock tokens on a mature L2, Arbitrum One. After validating the product and understanding its own needs, Robinhood launched its proprietary chain built on the Arbitrum platform.

This is likely to become a standard strategy for real-world enterprises: build business on an existing blockchain first, then upgrade to a dedicated L2 once scale, product demands, and unit economics reach a certain level.

Robinhood Chain is customized for the financial services industry. It uses Arbitrum technology, offering 100ms latency, predictable transaction pricing, high throughput, and infrastructure tailored to Robinhood's performance, security, and regulatory requirements.

Simultaneously, Robinhood Chain remains an Ethereum L2. It uses Ethereum blobs for data availability and ETH as native gas. Its official bridge to Ethereum requires no third-party validator set. This is what it looks like when a real-world company builds a genuine on-chain product.

Robinhood didn't need to launch a Robinhood gas token or convince the public that it deserved a lasting monetary premium. Robinhood itself has shares; its economic returns come from customers, products, assets, transactions, and cash flow. The blockchain is simply its infrastructure.

Using ETH as gas is a straightforward business decision. L2 services already pay L1 services in ETH. ETH is highly liquid, widely used, and the system's native token. Using a proprietary gas token would add distribution, liquidity, pricing, and legal challenges for Robinhood, and launching a token wouldn't improve its core product.

Robinhood's success will depend on its application layer and the off-chain businesses supported by it, not on its efficiency in creating a new monetary asset. So, it's inaccurate when people say Robinhood built its own blockchain and rejected existing L1 and L2 services.

Robinhood merely rejected sharing its dedicated execution environment with other projects. It didn't reject Ethereum; on the contrary, it chose Ethereum as the mother chain for its proprietary blockchain.

Earlier, Coinbase made a similar decision, launching Base. Coinbase is not an Ethereum maximalist, and Brian Armstrong is famously more outspoken about his passion for Bitcoin than Ethereum. Yet, when Coinbase chose the infrastructure for its on-chain business, it decided to become an Ethereum L2.

Base is arguably the strongest evidence that the Ethereum L1+L2 model is not just theoretical. Coinbase's decision was a business calculation, not an ideological one.

When companies build cash-flow businesses instead of conducting token sales, they make business decisions, and those decisions lead them to choose the Ethereum L1+L2 model as their infrastructure.

What Does This Mean for Ethereum and ETH?

This change in participant composition is extremely bullish for Ethereum.

Historically, the blockchain competitive landscape was dominated by teams whose incentives were focused on token creation, ecosystem grants, and token valuation. Looking ahead, the competitive landscape will be increasingly dominated by companies optimizing for security, customers, control, distribution, liquidity, and interoperability—all to serve cash-flow businesses.

This shifts demand towards Ethereum's "barbell" structure: L1 for minimizing risk and maximizing liquidity; L2 for scaling, customization, and operator control.

Ethereum didn't become a global universal platform by forcing all companies into a single shared execution environment, but by becoming the common settlement, security, liquidity, and asset layer underlying many environments.

This is also great news for ETH. ETH's success lies in building a monetary network and global trust. ETH is a superior staking asset and the native asset of Ethereum's global settlement layer. Across the ecosystem, it serves as collateral, a liquidity asset, a treasury asset, a productive asset, and is increasingly becoming a terminal asset.

As more real-world enterprises build applications on Ethereum, they will distribute ETH to more users, integrate it into more products, and put it to work in more areas. This strengthens ETH's liquidity and investor confidence, which in turn reinforces the monetary premium, ultimately evolving into a larger network effect.

Robinhood is not an exception; it's a beacon.

Real businesses will use Ethereum L1 when they need the world's most neutral, lowest-risk, and most liquid shared environment. They will build their own Ethereum L2 when they need control, customization, and high performance. And when their business isn't yet large enough to support building an independent chain, they will deploy on mature blockchains, typically Ethereum L2s.

This isn't because they are Ethereum fans; it's because they make rational business decisions.