Unchained
Unchained
Laura Shin
Coinbase and Robinhood Are Converging, but Who Wins the Onchain Fintech War? - Ep. 864
1 hour 25 minutes Posted Jul 8, 2025 at 4:00 pm.
Intro
What really separates Coinbase and Robinhood’s strategies
How Robinhood’s new chain should try to compete with Base
Why the competition between Robinhood and Coinbase is heating up fast in the U.S.
Whether Robinhood can catch up to Base’s head start and network effects
Why both companies chose to build on Ethereum—and what that signals
How launching perps in the U.S. could reshape the landscape for both companies
How social features and gamification could give one app an edge
Why Robinhood is already working with prediction markets and Coinbase isn’t
How their product differences impact profits and positioning
Why Ryan believes Coinbase should’ve acquired Circle
Why Stripe might be eyeing a crypto integration
How Base benefits with small-cap tokens
Why Ryan says we’re at a real inflection point for crypto
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Show notes
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:
Hyperliquid Reignited Interest in Crypto Perps. Can Coinbase and Robinhood Capitalize?
Robinhood Is Building Its Own Layer 2 Blockchain
Why the Arbitrum Stack Won in the Race to Support Robinhood Chain
Why Perps Will 'Eat the World' + Tokenized Stocks - Bits + Bips
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