Robinhood’s New Blockchain Is Already Creating Crypto Winners

By Mark Gough

I haven’t been quiet about the narrative I believe has the most potential this coming cycle: tokenization. 

That is, the process of turning traditional assets into digital tokens tradable on the blockchain, 24/7 and without a middleman.

In fact, I’ve written several times about the sector as a whole. And the specific blockchain-native projects I believe will benefit the most. 

But one of the most explosive early winners riding this train isn’t a true real-world asset play. 

It’s a memecoin launchpad. 

Let me explain …

First, an Introduction: Robinhood Chain 

Robinhood Chain launched its mainnet on July 1 as part of Robinhood’s broader push to connect traditional finance with decentralized finance.

The goal is to bring stocks, crypto, tokenized real-world assets and other financial products on-chain in one easy-to-use platform. 

Whether it ultimately succeeds remains to be seen.

But Robinhood already has something most new blockchains would kill for: distribution.

It already has millions of investors and traders using its products. If even a relatively small percentage of that activity eventually moves on-chain, applications that establish themselves early could benefit enormously.

And Pons (PONS) is one of the first to show meaningful traction.

Pons is a token launchpad and trading platform built on Robinhood Chain. The closest comparison is Pump.fun (PUMP) on the Solana (SOL) network. 

To be clear, PONS isn’t Robinhood’s token, and Robinhood doesn’t own the project. 

Rather, Pons is an independent application that can give token holders exposure to one of the earliest platforms to gain serious traction within Robinhood’s new blockchain ecosystem.

Pons Revenue Has Exploded

Crypto has no shortage of tokens with enormous valuations and promises about what they might eventually build. 

But, as my colleagues pointed out last week, the difference between the thousands of tokens and one truly worth your attention are the ones tied to projects generating real revenue.  

PONS now firmly falls into that category.

PONS protocol revenue has accelerated sharply over the past seven days. Source: DefiLlama.

According to DefiLlama, PONS has generated approximately 181.2 million in cumulative fees and $33.2 million in protocol revenue.¹

Those figures represent a 258% and 199% increase, respectively, in just the past month.

In that same time, it’s seen:

• $143.9 million in fees
• $24.8 million in protocol revenue
• $2.4 billion in DEX trading volume

Now, we shouldn’t simply multiply one exceptional month by 12 and assume the trend continues forever. 

That’s not an honest data point. And this is still the notoriously volatile crypto market: Activity can disappear just as quickly as it arrives.

But when we look at the 30-day, seven-day and 24-hour figures together, one thing is clear:

Activity is accelerating dramatically.

And the PONS token is designed to benefit from that uptick directly.

The Buyback-and-Burn Mechanism

PONS began with a maximum supply of 1 billion tokens. Today, only around 682 million remain in circulation², with almost 317 million already removed from the original maximum supply.³

It’s important to understand though that not all of that reduction came from revenue-funded market buybacks. PONS also has an ongoing economic buyback mechanism funded by actual protocol activity.

And that caught my interest.

Under PONS V1, part of protocol revenue buys PONS on the market and sends those tokens to the burn address. DefiLlama currently estimates that around 80% of V1 protocol revenue goes toward buying back and burning PONS.

That creates a potentially powerful flywheel:

More trading → more fees → more revenue → more PONS buybacks → lower supply.

That’s exactly the kind of value-accrual mechanism I want to see.

V2 Could Expand the Opportunity

PONS has also deployed an upgrade, V2, which introduces a new bonding-curve model. More importantly for the longer-term thesis, it now allows custom trading pairs rather than limiting launches to Ethereum (ETH).

Why does that matter?

Because Robinhood Chain is ultimately being built around tokenized financial assets.

If tokenized stocks, real-world assets and other on-chain financial products become a major part of Robinhood Chain, PONS could eventually develop into something broader than “Pump.fun on Robinhood.”

That opportunity is far too early to include in today’s valuation. But it should be on your radar if early altcoin opportunities like this are what you’re looking for.

Could PONS Reach a $1 Billion Market Cap?

PONS currently trades near 53 cents with a market cap near $370.2 million. With roughly 682 million PONS tokens currently in circulation, the math is fairly straightforward …

• $500 million market cap would see token price around $0.73, a 36% gain from current prices
• $750 million: around $1.10, a 105% gain
• $1 billion: around $1.47, a 174% gain
• $1.5 billion: around $2.20, a 311% gain

Though I should note the exact prices will change if more PONS is burned.

So, could PONS reach $1 billion?

I think it’s achievable. 

That doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. But from its current valuation, PONS would need to increase by roughly 3x. 

More importantly, we now have actual economics we can use to judge whether such a valuation could eventually be justified …

Peer valuations shown for comparison only, not as PONS price targets. Source: State of Blocks.

At the recent $76 million annualized protocol revenue run rate, a $1 billion valuation would be roughly 13x annualized protocol revenue.

That doesn’t strike me as unreasonable for a rapidly growing crypto application.

The bigger question is whether PONS can sustain anything close to the current level of activity.

That’s what we now need to find out.

What to Watch from Here

Four things matter most going forward …

1. Robinhood Chain growth: If the network continues to attract users, liquidity and applications, Pons’ potential market expands with it.
2. Pons market position: Competition will arrive. I want to see Pons remain one of the dominant launch and trading platforms on Robinhood Chain.
3. Revenue sustainability: Nearly $1 million of protocol revenue in one day is impressive. What matters more is whether Pons can keep it up and generate millions per month once the initial frenzy subsides.
4. Value flowing back to PONS: Revenue is useful, but token holders ultimately care about how much economic value reaches the token through buybacks, burns and declining supply.

If those trends continue to move in the right direction, the $1 billion valuation case becomes considerably stronger.

Best,

Mark Gough

P.S. My Next Crypto Superstar members were able to bag multiple rounds of gains on PONS — including a 10x win! — earlier this year. 

That’s the power of finding promising projects early.

But the truth is, in both crypto and TradFi, most early hopefuls fizzle out quick. In fact, Weiss research shows that over the past 15 years, only 1 out of every 10 IPOs delivers results for first-day investors.

That’s why I suggest you sign up for my colleague Chris Graebe’s urgent briefing, Apex IPOs: The 25X Advantage.

This Tuesday, Oct. 6, Chris — a private investment specialist who has successfully guided his Deal Hunters Alliance members through four exits — will reveal how you can spot a successful company in its earliest days on the public market. 

It’s free to attend. Just be sure to save your seat today.

¹https://defillama.com/protocol/pons

²https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/pons?chart=type%3Dprice%26mode%3Dline%26timeframe%3Dd30

³https://stateofblocks.com/dashboards/pons-terminal/