Original Title: Johann Kerbrat: Inside Robinhood's Crypto Strategy (Full Explanation)
Original Source: TheRollup
Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow
Conflict of Interest Statement
Johann Kerbrat is a Robinhood executive responsible for all crypto business product lines (including Robinhood Chain, tokenized stocks, staking services, perpetual contracts). His salary and equity incentives are directly tied to the $HOOD stock price. All discussions about Robinhood Chain in this episode involve business he directly oversees. The title uses 'Inside Perspective' rather than 'Analysis' to reflect this relationship.
Summary
Robinhood Chain has been live on mainnet for three weeks, with weekly DEX trading volume exceeding $3 billion, transaction count over 105 million, and TVL surpassing $300 million. Johann Kerbrat explains the chain's strategic logic for the first time on a podcast: why choose a 'barbell' layout (parallel development of meme tokens and real-world assets), why use the Arbitrum tech stack instead of building its own L1, and how to gradually migrate Robinhood's 27 million funded accounts onto the chain. He clearly states the focus of competition is 'growing the pie' rather than taking share from Base, and reveals tokenized stocks are now available in 120+ countries, covering 90+ assets, with future expansion planned for international stocks and private markets.
Key Quotes
"Our philosophy is to make the chain permissionless and open to everything. Memes, RWAs, and many other products are welcome. We are deeply integrating with the chain."
"Robinhood has 27 million funded accounts. For these users, DeFi is still too complex, requiring too much technical knowledge. We think about how to bring the good products of DeFi, while making them easy to use and accessible, without needing to create a wallet or manage private keys."
"I think competition is ultimately good for customers. When we launched crypto trading, we slashed fees dramatically. It's still too early on-chain, and discussing market share is premature."
"We've only been live for three weeks. If you're thinking about bringing tens of millions of users onto the chain, adding more utility, bringing things people actually use (not just temporary volatility), then you're thinking about a long-term revenue stream."
"We don't expect to see all of Robinhood's trading activity migrate to the chain next year. That's a bit of a pipe dream. But if we can find things that aren't possible traditionally, like international stocks, 24/7 trading, the chain can become the solution."
I. Three Weeks After Launch: $3B Weekly Volume Is Just the Starting Point
The host opens with numbers: After the Robinhood Chain mainnet launch, weekly DEX trading volume reached $3 billion, with over 50 million transactions, over 1 million addresses, and TVL exceeding $300 million.
Kerbrat responds directly: those numbers have already been surpassed. He said the transaction count that morning had exceeded 105 million. He described the team's mood as 'very excited,' with the core point being these numbers reflect strong market demand for on-chain products.
He particularly emphasized the ecosystem was ready to onboard developers from day one, not built first and then waiting for people to come. This differs from many L2 paths that launch empty and then slowly attract traffic.
II. 'Barbell' Strategy: Why Memes and RWAs in Parallel
The host mentions an interesting observation: Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev described the on-chain ecosystem on social media as a 'barbell' structure, with meme tokens on one end and real-world assets (RWAs) on the other, saying 'you have two wolves inside you.'
Kerbrat explains the internal thinking. The chain was set to be permissionless from day one, open to all types of applications. Meme tokens bring market makers and DeFi users, while RWAs serve users globally who cannot conveniently buy U.S. stocks and ETFs. They are not contradictory but attract different groups.
He also mentions several integrated products already live: Robinhood Earn (earning stablecoin yields via on-chain protocols within the main App) and tokenized stocks (tradable via Robinhood Wallet in 120+ countries).
The host probes into differences from traditional financial products. Kerbrat lists traditional system problems: wire transfers only possible between 9:30 and 4:00, commission-free brokers only operate during weekday market hours, options and futures contracts expire. The on-chain version is a better solution from a product perspective.
III. How to Migrate 27 Million Accounts On-Chain: The Fusion of DeFi and CeFi
Kerbrat shares a key number: Robinhood has 27 million funded accounts. Most of these users haven't touched DeFi because it's still complex, requiring significant technical knowledge.
His solution is 'the best of both worlds': use DeFi's underlying technology to provide yields, and use Robinhood's frontend to provide simple UX/UI and security. Robinhood Earn is an example; users can earn on-chain yields within the main App without creating a wallet or managing private keys.
He defines this trend as the 'fusion of CeFi and DeFi': centralized platforms leveraging blockchain technology to build better products while maintaining user-friendly experiences.
Regarding the technical implementation of tokenized stocks, Kerbrat reveals a 'just-in-time tokenization' mechanism. Traditional DEX listing requires pre-built liquidity pools, but because Robinhood is already a broker and holds these stocks, it can quickly tokenize them on-chain when users need to trade. Underneath, it uses a combination of prop AMM, standard AMM, RFQ, and classic pools to ensure good prices at any moment.
There are currently 90+ stock tokens on-chain, but he sees this as just the starting point, with future expansion to more asset classes like international stocks, private markets.
IV. Why Choose Arbitrum: The Logic Behind Not Building Its Own L1
The host asks a technical architecture question: why use the Arbitrum tech stack instead of building its own chain.
Kerbrat's answer is pragmatic. Robinhood wants to focus on what it's good at: making good UX/UI, building good financial products, not reinventing something that already exists. Achieving Ethereum-level security and decentralization takes a long time and involves many decisions (transition from PoW to PoS, collaboration of multiple foundations). Leveraging Ethereum's security and the EVM ecosystem's liquidity is the more sensible choice.
Reasons for choosing Arbitrum as the L2 tech stack include: Stylus (allows writing smart contracts in any programming language), extremely fast block times (financial products demand speed), low gas fees (can remain low even during high-volume periods). He also mentions proactively lowering gas fees during the chain's activity surge last week to ensure user experience wasn't affected.
Regarding the Ethereum 'rent' controversy (Robinhood Chain earned over $1M in revenue but only paid 1-2% to Ethereum), Kerbrat believes this is Ethereum's default mechanism setup, not about fairness. His perspective is long-term: if Robinhood can bring tens of millions of users on-chain, bring real use cases, this will ultimately become a long-term revenue stream for the Ethereum ecosystem.
V. Competition with Base: Growing the Pie, Not Grabbing Share
The host mentions the 'artificial competition' on social media between Robinhood Chain and Coinbase's Base. Base recently acknowledged its social experiments failed and is pivoting elsewhere, while Robinhood is also exploring possibilities for on-chain social trading.
Kerbrat's attitude towards competition is clear: competition is good for customers. When Robinhood launched crypto trading, it slashed fees dramatically, ultimately benefiting users. But it's too early to discuss market share now; Robinhood Chain is only three weeks old, Base has been running for a year or two.
He uses a number for comparison: currently, only a tiny fraction of the global population holds tokenized assets. His goal is to grow the pie, enabling more people globally to own assets, not fight for share in the existing small pie. Regarding Base's social experiments, he comments, 'It's normal to try new things; sometimes they fail, sometimes they succeed.'
Robinhood's focus is on financial products: Earn, spot trading, perpetual contracts. These are areas they are good at and can bring value.
VI. Logic for Choosing DeFi Partners
The host lists partners announced at Robinhood Chain's launch: Morpho (lending vaults), Lighter (perpetual contracts), 0x (aggregation & quote API), Chainlink (oracles), LayerZero (cross-chain).
Kerbrat explains three criteria for choosing partners. First, Robinhood is a public company holding multiple licenses globally; partners must understand compliance requirements and cooperate. Second, they must be able to build unique experiences. For example, the partnership with Morpho went far beyond simple API integration, requiring customized stable rates, insurance mechanisms, and dedicated UX, involving extensive deep discussions and joint development. Third, they must differentiate from competitors.
Regarding the timeline for perpetual contracts (perps) entering the U.S. main App, Kerbrat says they are still waiting for regulatory clarity; even if the CLARITY Act passes, perpetual contracts are another big issue. Currently, through the partnership with Lighter in Robinhood Wallet, users can experience perpetual contract trading. He also reveals Bitstamp (a European trading platform acquired by Robinhood) is already expanding perpetual contracts from crypto to commodities and ETF contracts.
VII. From Broker to Super App: The $HOOD Investment Thesis
The final topic returns to the investment perspective. The host asks: What does holding $HOOD stock mean now?
Kerbrat outlines Robinhood's 'super app' vision: stocks, options, futures, prediction markets, crypto, credit cards (just launched a platinum card that day), banking services, AI agent trading (MCP already available). The core is to make one App meet all financial needs at different life stages.
He particularly mentions the lack of financial education: young people don't learn about finance in school but need to start thinking about retirement planning after high school. Robinhood wants to push financial education, with IRA accounts as an example.
From a business model perspective, each business line is now generating nine-figure (hundreds of millions of dollars) revenue, with diversified income sources, no longer just a pure trading platform. Regarding the chain's own revenue, Kerbrat admits adoption rate is currently prioritized over pure revenue. Gas fee setting is a balancing act: too low invites spam and bot abuse, too high hinders adoption. Currently in a stage of 'optimizing for adoption' rather than 'optimizing for revenue.'
