Coinbase and Robinhood Are Converging, but Who Wins the Onchain Fintech War? - Ep. 864

29 snips

Jul 8, 2025

Guest

Ryan Yi

Guest

Diogenes Casares

Diogenes Casares, founder of Klyra Protocol, and Ryan Yi, an investment expert from Coinbase Ventures, dive into the fierce competition between Coinbase and Robinhood. They explore how both companies are transforming the fintech landscape with tokenized assets and their distinct strategies. Discussion includes liquidity challenges for Ethereum, the role of stablecoins, and how user engagement may determine dominance in the market. With insights into perpetual contracts and regulatory impacts, the future of onchain fintech looks more thrilling than ever!

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INSIGHT

Different Origins Shape Strategy

Coinbase is a crypto-first, full-stack platform serving retail and institutional clients.
Robinhood started as an equities broker and is now adding crypto capabilities for their users.

INSIGHT

Contrasting Chain Designs and Focus

Robinhood's chain acts like a 'Fed chain' with strong KYC and permissioning.
Base allows more pseudonymous interactions, reflecting fundamentally different approaches.

INSIGHT

Divergent Goals for On-Chain Expansion

Coinbase built Base to foster developers and new crypto products integrated with Coinbase users.
Robinhood uses its chain primarily to expand equity brokerage offerings into new geographies, like Europe.

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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:

How these two companies will compete
What levers they have to increase their profits
How Base became a liquidity black hole for Ethereum
Why Coinbase may have already won the “flows” game
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

Bitwise
Ledn

Diogenes Casares, founder of Klyra Protocol and advisor at Patagon Management
Ryan Yi, ex Coinbase, Coinbase Ventures, and CoinFund

Unchained:

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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