Offchain Labs and Solana co-founders debate the economics of Robinhood Chain's choice to build on Arbitrum versus Solana, disagreeing on fee capture and user subsidy models.
Tech & Launches ·
Steven Goldfeder of Offchain Labs and Anatoly Yakovenko of Solana have clashed over Robinhood Chain's decision to build on Arbitrum rather than Solana. Yakovenko contended that Arbitrum's 10% revenue share would be modest enough to fund Solana transactions at quadruple the rate, enabling Robinhood to eliminate gas costs for end users entirely. Goldfeder dismissed this as flawed reasoning, emphasizing that Arbitrum allows Robinhood to retain roughly 90% of gas revenues, whereas Solana would leave it with none of the base-layer fee stream and force direct spending to cover user costs. He framed the choice as one between operating as a landlord with fee-capture rights and operating as a tenant.
The disagreement hinges on fee economics and revenue models. Yakovenko proposed that Robinhood could monetize through its interface while reducing expenditure via a cheaper underlying chain. Goldfeder countered that the bulk of fee-generating activity occurs outside Robinhood's interface—activity that would yield no revenue to Robinhood if it operated as a tenant, even if Robinhood had been the source of those users in the first place.
The debate reflects a fundamental tension between infrastructure capture and fee distribution. Neither party has indicated a shift in position, and the implications for how chains structure developer economics remain unresolved.