Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder has taken to X to respond to Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko (Toly) regarding the fees associated with Robinhood Chain. Goldfeder stated that under Arbitrum's architecture, Robinhood can retain 90% of gas fees. In contrast, on Solana, Robinhood would earn no gas fee income and would have to bear the cost of subsidizing user transactions. Goldfeder emphasized that Robinhood chose Arbitrum precisely because it wants to be a 'landlord' rather than a 'tenant'—meaning it seeks to generate ongoing revenue from on-chain activity rather than just paying fees.
Yakovenko countered that Robinhood could charge fees at the application front-end while using a cheaper base layer, thereby avoiding the need to share a large portion of revenue with Arbitrum. Goldfeder responded: "A significant amount of on-chain activity does not pass through Robinhood's front-end. If Robinhood is merely a 'tenant' of the base layer, it will not be able to capture revenue from those peripheral activities."
The debate originated from a previous post by Yakovenko. He had written on X that the 10% revenue share Robinhood Chain pays to Arbitrum is enough to cover roughly four times the Solana transaction fees for the same period. If that revenue were redirected to subsidize user transactions, Robinhood Chain could even offer a completely gas-free experience. Yakovenko questioned the economic rationale of Robinhood's partnership with Arbitrum, suggesting that Robinhood might be paying excessively high gas fees.