Vlad nhấn nút theo dõi, Pons giành được ngôi vương bệ phóng Robinhood Chain?

Original author: KarenZ, Foresight News

On the morning of July 21, Robinhood co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev followed Pons founder @MEADGod. A few days earlier, Vlad also followed Ogle, an advisor to World Liberty Financial (WLFI) who is active in the Pons ecosystem.

Following the rapid growth in the number of token issuances and trading volume on Pons, these social media actions have once again turned the market's attention to this launchpad, which has been live for just about a week. Meanwhile, according to GMGN, the market cap of Pons' official token, PONS, briefly surpassed $39 million before retreating to around $27 million.

Although a Twitter follow does not equate to an official endorsement of Pons by Robinhood, in a still-evolving ecosystem landscape, Vlad's public interactions often serve as a market gauge for a project's attention level. However, whether Pons can convert this short-term hype into sustained issuance demand, trading volume, and protocol revenue remains to be seen.

Compared to pure social media buzz, Pons' stronger asset remains its growth rate. Based on current data, Pons is quickly capturing the market flow left behind after NOXA paused its token issuance.

According to Dune data, as of 16:00 on July 20, approximately one week after its launch, Pons had completed over 66,000 token issuances, with cumulative trading volume of issued tokens exceeding $380 million. Based on "launchpad token trading volume," Pons has maintained over 50% market share in the past two days. The platform has distributed approximately $3.56 million in fees to token creators.

What is the background of Pons?

The operating entity of Pons is registered as Pons Labs, LLC in the website terms, but the project has not disclosed a full doxxed team list. Currently, the core identifiable figure is the founder with the Twitter handle @MEADGod, also known as Ozzy.

Ozzy is also the founder of RootsFi. In May 2025, Ozzy described RootsFi on the Berachain official forum as a native Berachain lending protocol where users can mint the stablecoin MEAD by depositing yield-bearing assets as collateral. Currently, the Roots website repositions the project as a programmable money payment network, claiming the product is built on Canton and Tempo.

Another significant factor drawing attention to Pons is the consistent public statements from WLFI advisor Ogle. There is currently no evidence showing he serves as an advisor to Pons or participates in platform operations, but he was an influential holder and disseminator in Pons' early stages.

On July 18, Ogle disclosed his primary holdings on the Robinhood Chain, listing PONS as his second-largest holding, just behind Lighter. Subsequently, he repeatedly posted data on Pons' token issuance count, trading volume, protocol revenue, creator fees, and buyback/burn figures. On July 20, Ogle stated that within five days of launch, Pons had completed over 53,000 token issuances, with cumulative trading volume exceeding $300 million, protocol revenue surpassing $340,000, and approximately $2.65 million in fees distributed to creators.

How does Pons operate?

Pons can be understood as a system on the Robinhood Chain that offers "one-click token issuance, instant trading, and revenue backflow."

After creators fill in the token name, symbol, image, description, social links, and fee recipient address, Pons deploys both the token and its corresponding Uniswap V3 liquidity pool in a single transaction. According to official documentation, each token has a fixed supply of 1 billion, with a creation fee of 0.0005 ETH and a pool fee rate of 1%.

Unlike Pump.fun-style launchpads, Pons does not use a bonding curve, nor is there a step to migrate to a DEX after reaching a certain market cap. Tokens are directly launched into a WETH-denominated Uniswap V3 pool from the start, with the liquidity position automatically locked. All buying and selling always occur within the same pool.

To mitigate first-block sniping, Pons implements a protection window lasting two blocks: during the block of the launch, only the creator's initial buy can execute; for the remaining protection period, a single wallet can hold at most 5% of the total supply, with a cumulative buy limit of 5.5%. Selling and transfers between wallets are unrestricted, and all limits are automatically lifted after the protection period ends.

When the paired WETH in a pool reaches the default threshold of 4.2 ETH, the token is marked as "graduated." However, graduation does not trigger a liquidity migration, nor does it imply the project has been audited or endorsed. It merely indicates that the pool's assets have met the protocol's set threshold.

Pons' core competitiveness comes from its fee distribution mechanism.

For newly launched tokens, creators receive 70% of the liquidity fees, while the protocol receives 30%. Tokens issued under earlier versions retain the old ratio of 90% for creators and 10% for the protocol.

Of the protocol's share of fees, 80% is used to buy back and burn PONS via a TWAP mechanism, while the remaining 20% covers infrastructure costs and team expansion.

However, this mechanism is not entirely automated or immutable. The Pons documentation explicitly states that the 80% buyback ratio is not yet finalized; buybacks are currently executed via automated TWAP combined with manual management. The team plans to transform this into an immutable, decentralized process in a future version.

Pons also features a community takeover function. When the original creator abandons a project, the active community can apply to take over the social portal and, if permitted by the contract, become the new recipient of creator fees. The token, trading pool, and locked liquidity remain unchanged. This mechanism attempts to address the operational issues of Meme projects abandoned by developers, but the application still requires team review, making it a front-end service with centralized management traits.

How long can Pons maintain its lead?

Pons has temporarily secured a top position among launchpads on the Robinhood Chain, but this competition is far from over.

Different competitors are approaching from various angles: Flap seeks scale and issuance volume; Uniswap CCA targets price discovery; Circus leverages BONK's brand influence for attention. While Pons currently holds a data advantage, it is no longer facing a single alternative platform but rather multiple issuance mechanisms collectively diverting capital.

More notably, Pons' high issuance volume has not yet translated into a sufficiently strong wealth effect.

As of writing, Pons has issued approximately 67,000 tokens, of which only 529 have reached the 4.2 ETH graduation threshold, a graduation rate of less than 0.8%. Excluding the platform's official token PONS, only YOLO has a market cap exceeding $5 million. There are only three tokens with a market cap between $1 million and $3 million.

In other words, Pons has proven its ability to produce tokens at high frequency but has yet to establish a stable tier of top-tier assets. The vast majority of projects fail to graduate, and the proportion of projects breaking the million-dollar market cap barrier is very low. For a launchpad, the ultimate determinant of long-term user retention is whether the platform can consistently produce representative, high-market-cap projects. Top tokens not only create profitable examples but also attract new capital, extend trading cycles, and strengthen the platform's brand.

If users see an ever-increasing number of new coins but rarely see early projects achieve market cap growth, capital rotation will accelerate: traders will become more inclined to chase the next launch rather than hold already-issued assets; creators may also be lured away by incentives, branding, or new mechanisms on other platforms. At that point, a higher number of issuances might not indicate a stronger ecosystem but could instead exacerbate the dilution of attention and liquidity.

Vlad Tenev's attention is a double-edged sword.

For the still-early Robinhood Chain ecosystem, a single follow or interaction from Vlad can attract massive attention and capital in a short time frame. However, whether the price can be sustained ultimately depends on liquidity depth, token distribution structure, and subsequent buying pressure.

If early holders use the influx of new attention to exit en masse, and the project fails to generate new demand, the price spike triggered by the attention could quickly reverse into a decline. If such scenarios recur, the market will learn to anticipate and trade on this pattern: some capital positions itself before the interaction occurs and cashes out after the news spreads.

Gradually, as the market begins to interpret Vlad's attention as a short-term exit signal rather than a starting point for project growth, the marginal impact of each follow will diminish.

The battle for dominance among launchpads on the Robinhood Chain is far from over. Pons has secured a leading ticket, but it still lacks a crucial proof point to solidify its top position: can it evolve from the "platform with the most token issuances" into the "platform most capable of generating sustainable wealth effects," where creators are willing to launch first, traders are willing to stay long-term, ultimately forming a habit and reliance on the platform itself?