For L2 Tokens, Will Robinhood Be To Arbitrum What Base Was To Optimism?

When Coinbase’s Base announced it was leaving the Optimism Superchain, 94% of Optimism’s daily commission income disappeared.

Optimism built the infrastructure, Coinbase built Base on top of it, Base grew until it no longer needed the arrangement — and is now leaving. It was a rational business decision by a counterparty that had outgrown the deal — and a predictable one.

To be fair, OP did win new business around the same time. EtherFi, one of the more serious protocols in the liquid restaking space, migrated its Cash product from Scroll to OP Mainnet. That is a real protocol with real TVL choosing their chain. 

Could that close the gap?

And if not, is the problem OP is facing with Base a one-time event or a structural feature of the generalized L2 business? If the latter, that has implications not only for Optimism, but also for Arbitrum, newly home to Robinhood Chain.

In the rest of this piece, you will find:

• The graduation trap by the numbers: what the Superchain actually generates without Base, what the buyback program is worth at current revenue levels, and why the math doesn’t work at today’s market cap
• What EtherFi actually means: why the migration from Scroll is a real win for OP — and whether it can fill the hole Base left
• ARB and the Robinhood question: whether Arbitrum’s arrangement with Robinhood represents a genuine new revenue model or a three-year countdown to the same outcome OP had with Base
• What the market is pricing: why OP Mainnet’s headline multiple doesn’t tell the full story

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