As Robinhood Gains Traction, How Are Other Chains Responding?

Author: 0xFacai

$8.15 million in fee revenue in one day, $54.3 million in a week.

That's the profit data released today by Pons, the launchpad on Robinhood Chain.

Leading the "coin-stock pairing" and "token distribution to holders" narratives, the platform token has soared, and "golden dogs" keep emerging. Robinhood is attracting on-chain traders to reallocate their capital and time.

For established ecosystems, the threat is imminent. What countermeasures have they taken?

Solana Officially Steps In to Promote

On the launchpad front, Solana's key bet is StonkFun.

StonkFun allows meme coins to be paired with stock tokens and other crypto assets. Stock tokens like SPY and assets like ZEC can also serve as trading pairs. Meme trading volume then drives the circulation of these assets on Solana, providing a concrete scenario for coin-stock pairing and on-chain asset trading.

STONK is StonkFun's platform token, and a portion of StonkFun's revenue is used to buy back and burn STONK. The buyback panel shows that StonkFun has cumulatively invested approximately $2.82 million to buy back STONK, with the buyback curve accelerating noticeably in early September. Ecosystem trading heat can thus be converted into buying pressure for the platform token, and STONK's rise brings more attention to the launchpad.

The platform also uses a portion of trading fees to buy back and burn the top ten tokens by market cap within the ecosystem, weighted by market cap. This gives leading projects the opportunity to receive ongoing platform support, and trading heat can also be transmitted to ecosystem tokens.

ZCAT is one of the most closely watched among them.

An anonymous cat with a paper bag over its head embodies Zcash's privacy culture in a meme. It is paired with ZEC on Solana, while accumulating reward funds through a 3% transfer fee and converting them into ZEC, distributed proportionally to eligible holders. Players holding ZCAT have the chance to receive ZEC.

This is also the logic Ansem valued most when promoting ZCAT. On Sept. 7, he publicly stated that he had bought ZCAT the day before and had already received ZEC distributions. In his view, those bullish on Zcash continuing to rise and capturing this round of market attention would also look for related, more volatile meme coins. Placing this meme on Solana, where traders are already gathered, makes perfect sense.

Zcash holders and meme traders were not necessarily the same group originally. ZCAT provides an intersection for both sides: the former can see familiar assets and privacy symbols, while the latter gets a trading target that is easy to spread and also pays out ZEC during the holding period. Ansem's role is to bring this logic to a larger group of traders.

More striking than KOL endorsements is Solana's official stance.

On the evening of Sept. 7, the official Solana account rarely posted a meme-heavy image: a person in a suit with a paper bag over their head standing at a New York Stock Exchange podium, with the Solana logo behind them. The caption was just one line: "The bag stays on." The paper bag points to ZCAT, and the stock trading scene echoes STONK.

This image is part of a series of moves. Previously, the official Solana account and co-founder Toly had already interacted with StonkFun; Raydium integrated its issuance business and also posted a cat-themed tweet saying "I love cats," which the ZCAT community saw as a response. The launchpad, trading protocol, and ecosystem accounts all participated together, continuously amplifying ZCAT's heat.

With this series of developments, STONK and ZCAT successively hit new highs.

However, the official endorsement also drew dissatisfaction from the Solana OG meme community. KOL JW100X questioned that NEET had been operating for a year without such treatment, while a new hot topic took only two days to make everyone put paper bags on their heads.

The official side now needs to prove that this support for ecosystem memes can benefit more well-run projects. What can be seen now is that Solana has at least begun to actively exert effort to help the ecosystem.

Base's Inaction

On Base's side, the situation took a sudden turn as Hunter Biden announced he would launch LAPTOP on Base on Sept. 9.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the team receives 30% of the supply, locked for six months and then released over two years; airdrop recipients include wallets that lost money on TRUMP.

For retail investors who have already developed "PTSD" from celebrity token launches, it is hard to rebuild trust with just a new name and a small airdrop, especially since Hunter Biden is deeply in debt.

"Hunter Biden says he doesn't know how to repay his $15 million debt," now he knows

Solana has already experienced the subsequent trauma of celebrity coin mania. The boom and bust of political and celebrity tokens dragged down the ecosystem's reputation, and disputes over meme issuance and trading have gone to court. The "Pump.fun case" even once listed Solana Labs, the Foundation, and related executives as defendants. Although the claims against these Solana entities were dismissed on Aug. 31, the reputational and litigation costs Solana paid serve as a precedent for Base.

Moreover, Base's own market is in disarray.

Among this round's popular Base memes, Basecat and BLUECHIP are two representative high-market-cap targets. After the LAPTOP news broke, both prices fell noticeably, with 24-hour declines of 26.46% and 8.99%, respectively.

Before new buyers appear, the celebrity token announcement first competes for the attention of existing players. Those preparing to participate in the new launch need to free up funds, while existing memes still need to fight for buying pressure and maintain community confidence. For the already weakening Basecat and BLUECHIP, this competition is closer to draining existing liquidity, hardly something to celebrate as an ecosystem positive.

Cobie quickly clarified for Base, stating: "Launching a token on Base does not require Coinbase's permission, and LAPTOP is not a joint issuance by Hunter Biden with Jesse, Coinbase, or Base. The appearance of a token on a permissionless chain does not in itself represent official endorsement."

But this does not answer Base's passive position in this round of competition. The official side cannot decide who launches tokens, but it can decide where official marketing resources and product capabilities are deployed. Traders expect an ecosystem worth staying in: existing projects have room for sustained operation, new applications can capture new demand, and new hot spots allow participants to see more opportunities.

In this specific meme market, Base has so far failed to deliver a response proportionate to the Robinhood threat, instead letting an unlaunched celebrity token dominate the discussion. The community's dissatisfaction stems precisely from this gap.

BSC, on the other hand, has its own rhythm. It relies on a relatively fixed listing path for expectation management and a stable Chinese retail base. Coupled with the rise of fomo, Chinese token narratives have fertile ground for continuous spread, and topics originally confined to Chinese circles can be seen by more people. BSC's overall momentum is steadily improving.

Only Base is falling behind, watching helplessly as Robinhood becomes the ecosystem it dreamed of becoming.