Compiled & Edited by: Deep Tide TechFlow
Guest: Johann Kerbrat, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Crypto and International Business at Robinhood
Podcast Source: TheRollup
Original Title: Johann Kerbrat: Inside Robinhood's Crypto Strategy (Full Explanation)
Release Date: 2026-07-24
Interest Declaration
Johann Kerbrat is a Robinhood executive responsible for all product lines of the crypto business (including Robinhood Chain, tokenized stocks, staking services, perpetual contracts). His compensation and equity incentives are directly tied to the $HOOD stock price. All discussions about Robinhood Chain in this episode involve his direct area of responsibility. The title uses "insider perspective" rather than "analysis" to reflect this interest relationship.
Summary
Robinhood Chain's mainnet has been live for three weeks. Weekly DEX trading volume exceeded $3 billion, transaction count surpassed 105 million, and TVL exceeded $300 million. In this podcast, Johann Kerbrat detailed the strategic logic of the chain for the first time: why the "barbell" approach (meme tokens + real-world assets in parallel), why the Arbitrum tech stack was chosen over building a new L1, and how to gradually migrate Robinhood's 27 million funded accounts onto the chain. He clearly stated the competitive focus is "growing the pie" rather than competing for market share with Base. He also revealed that tokenized stocks are available in over 120 countries and cover 90+ underlying assets, with future expansion plans including international stocks and the private market.
Key Quotes
"Our philosophy is to make the chain permissionless and open to everything. Meme, RWA, 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 and requires too much technical knowledge. We're thinking about how to bring the good products from DeFi, while making them easy to use and accessible, without the need to create a wallet or manage private keys."
"I think competition ultimately benefits customers. When we launched crypto trading, we significantly cut fees. It's still too early in the chain ecosystem; 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, bringing 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 move onto the chain next year. That's a bit of a dream. But if we can find things that can't be done the traditional way, like international stocks, 24/7 trading, the chain can be the solution."
I. Three-Week Data: $3B Weekly Trading Volume is Just the Start
The host started with a set of numbers: After Robinhood Chain's mainnet launch, weekly DEX trading volume reached $3 billion, with over 50 million transactions, over 1 million addresses, and TVL exceeding $300 million.
Kerbrat's response was direct: those numbers have already been surpassed. He said the transaction count had exceeded 105 million that morning. He described the team's mood as "very excited," with the core point being these numbers reflect the market's strong demand for on-chain products.
He particularly emphasized that the ecosystem was ready to onboard developers from day one, rather than building first and then waiting for people to come. This differs from the path of many L2s launching empty and then slowly attracting liquidity.
II. The "Barbell" Strategy: Why Meme and RWA Coexist
The host mentioned an interesting phenomenon: 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 (RWA) on the other, saying "you have two wolves inside you."
Kerbrat explained the internal rationale. The chain was designed from day one to be permissionless, open to all types of applications. Meme tokens bring market makers and DeFi users, while RWA serves users globally who cannot easily purchase US stocks and ETFs. The two are not contradictory; they attract different groups.
He also mentioned several already-launched integrated products: 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 probed the difference from traditional financial products. Kerbrat listed issues with the traditional system: wire transfers can only be made between 9:30 and 4:00, commission-free brokers also only operate during market hours on weekdays, and options/futures contracts expire. The on-chain version is a superior solution from a product perspective.
III. Migrating 27 Million Accounts to Chain: The Fusion of DeFi and CeFi
Kerbrat dropped a key number: Robinhood has 27 million funded accounts. Most of these users haven't touched DeFi because it remains complex, requiring significant technical knowledge.
His solution is "the best of both worlds": using DeFi's underlying technology to provide high yields, and using Robinhood's front-end to provide simple UX/UI and security protection. Robinhood Earn is an example where users can earn on-chain yields directly within the main app, without creating their own 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 revealed a "just-in-time tokenization" mechanism. Traditional DEX listings require pre-built liquidity pools, but since Robinhood is itself a broker holding these stocks, it can quickly tokenize them when users need to trade. The underlying system uses a combination of prop AMM, standard AMM, RFQ, and classic pools to ensure good pricing at any moment.
Currently, there are 90+ tokenized stocks on the chain, but he sees this as just the beginning. Future expansions include international stocks, private markets, and more asset classes.
IV. Why Choose Arbitrum: The Logic of Not Building an L1
The host asked a technical architecture question: why use the Arbitrum tech stack instead of building a new chain.
Kerbrat's answer was pragmatic. Robinhood wants to focus on what it's good at: building great UX/UI, building great financial products, not reinventing something that already exists. Achieving Ethereum-level security and decentralization takes a long time and involves many decisions (transitioning from PoW to PoS, collaboration between multiple foundations). Leveraging Ethereum's security and the liquidity of the EVM ecosystem is a more reasonable choice.
Reasons for choosing Arbitrum as the L2 tech stack include: Stylus (allowing smart contract development in any programming language), extremely fast block times (financial products require high speed), and low gas fees (maintaining low fees even during periods of high activity). He also mentioned proactively lowering gas fees during last week's surge in on-chain activity to ensure the user experience wasn't affected.
Regarding the Ethereum "rent" controversy (Robinhood Chain earned over $1 million in revenue but only paid Ethereum 1-2%), Kerbrat believes this is the default mechanism set by Ethereum and doesn't constitute unfairness. His perspective is long-term: if Robinhood can bring tens of millions of users onto the chain, bringing real use cases, this will ultimately become a long-term revenue source for the Ethereum ecosystem.
V. Competition with Base: Growing the Pie, Not Grabbing Share
The host mentioned the "artificial competition" on social media between Robinhood Chain and Coinbase's Base. Base recently acknowledged the failure of its social experiments and pivoted elsewhere, while Robinhood is also exploring possibilities for on-chain social trading.
Kerbrat's stance on competition is clear: competition benefits customers. When Robinhood launched crypto trading, it significantly cut fees, ultimately benefiting users. But discussing market share now is too early; Robinhood Chain is only three weeks old, while Base has been running for a year or two.
He contrasted with a number: currently, only a tiny fraction of the global population holds tokenized assets. His goal is to grow the pie, enabling more people worldwide to own assets, rather than fighting for a share of the existing small pie. Regarding Base's social experiments, he commented, "trying new things is normal; sometimes you fail, sometimes you succeed."
Robinhood's focus is on financial products: Earn, spot trading, perpetual contracts. These are areas they excel at and can add value.
VI. The Logic Behind DeFi Partner Selection
The host listed partners announced at Robinhood Chain's launch: Morpho (lending vault), Lighter (perpetual contracts), 0x (aggregation & quote API), Chainlink (oracle), LayerZero (cross-chain).
Kerbrat explained three criteria for selecting partners. First, Robinhood is a public company with multiple licenses globally; partners must understand compliance requirements and cooperate. Second, the ability to create unique experiences. For example, the collaboration 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, the need to differentiate from competitors.
Regarding the timeline for perpetual contracts (perps) entering the US main app, Kerbrat said they are still waiting for regulatory clarity. Even if the CLARITY Act passes, perps are another major issue. Currently, through the partnership with Robinhood Wallet and Lighter, users can experience perp trading. He also revealed that Bitstamp (a European exchange acquired by Robinhood) is already expanding perps from crypto to commodities and ETF contracts.
VII. From Broker to Super App: The Investment Logic of $HOOD
The final topic returned to the investment perspective. The host asked: What does holding $HOOD stock mean now?
Kerbrat outlined Robinhood's "super app" blueprint: stocks, options, futures, prediction markets, crypto, credit cards (a platinum card was just launched that day), banking services, AI agent trading (MCP is already available). The core is building one app to meet all financial needs at different life stages.
He specifically mentioned the lack of financial education: young people don't learn about finance in school, but need to start thinking about retirement planning right after high school. Robinhood wants to focus on financial education; the IRA account is one example.
From a business model perspective, all business lines have achieved nine-figure (hundreds of millions of USD) revenue. The revenue sources are diversified, no longer just a pure trading platform. Regarding the chain's own revenue, Kerbrat admitted the current priority is adoption over pure revenue. Gas fee setting is a balancing act: too low risks abuse by spam transactions and bots, too high hinders adoption. Currently, it's in a stage of "optimizing for adoption" rather than "optimizing for revenue."
