The race to bring users onchain is heating up, but the competitors couldn’t be more different.
Coinbase, a crypto-native giant with deep infrastructure and institutional partnerships, is going head-to-head with Robinhood, a retail-focused fintech now making aggressive moves into tokenized assets and blockchain rails.
Their visions overlap (tokenized stocks, perpetuals, custom chains) but the strategies, philosophies, and user bases differ sharply.
In this episode, Laura speaks with Diogenes Casares (Klyra Protocol) and Ryan Yi (ex-Coinbase Ventures, CoinFund) to unpack:
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How these two companies will compete
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What levers they have to increase their profits
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How Base became a liquidity black hole for Ethereum
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Why Coinbase may have already won the “flows” game
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And how stablecoins, social, and tokenization could decide the winner
Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com
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Diogenes Casares, founder of Klyra Protocol and advisor at Patagon Management
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Ryan Yi, ex Coinbase, Coinbase Ventures, and CoinFund
Timestamps:
🎬 0:00 Intro
🏦 4:17 What really separates Coinbase and Robinhood’s strategies
🛠️ 6:43 How Robinhood’s new chain should try to compete with Base
🔥 14:49 Why the competition between Robinhood and Coinbase is heating up fast in the U.S.
🤔 16:44 Whether Robinhood can catch up to Base’s head start and network effects
🧱 23:48 Why both companies chose to build on Ethereum—and what that signals
📉 36:04 How launching perps in the U.S. could reshape the landscape for both companies
🎮 44:43 How social features and gamification could give one app an edge
🎯 51:31 Why Robinhood is already working with prediction markets and Coinbase isn’t
💰 55:40 How their product differences impact profits and positioning
🤝 1:05:11 Why Ryan believes Coinbase should’ve acquired Circle
🔌 1:10:48 Why Stripe might be eyeing a crypto integration
📊 1:13:57 How Base benefits with small-cap tokens
🚀 1:18:46 Why Ryan says we’re at a real inflection point for crypto
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