Arbitrum and Solana Co-Founders Debate Robinhood Chain's Fee Model

ME News reports that on September 6 (UTC+8), Arbitrum co-founder Steven Goldfeder and Solana co-founder Toly debated the fee model of Robinhood Chain. Background: As an Ethereum L2 built on Arbitrum Orbit, Robinhood Chain is required to allocate 10% of its net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem—8% to the DAO treasury and 2% to a development fund—while Robinhood retains approximately 90%. Recently, fees on Robinhood Chain have surged, with average gas costs reaching around $0.40 per transaction and daily fees hitting millions of dollars—far exceeding Solana’s typical ultra-low fees. Solana co-founder Toly argued that the 10% paid to Arbitrum already exceeds four times the cost of equivalent transactions on Solana. Had Robinhood Chain been built on Solana, Robinhood could have offered users completely gas-free transactions. The frontend should generate revenue within its own app, not profit from底层 congestion-driven price hikes. Toly labeled Robinhood Chain’s model as “brain dead,” and challenged Goldfeder: Why not let the app charge users directly? Must lowering congestion and scaling necessarily mean sacrificing revenue? Arbitrum co-founder Steven Goldfeder countered that Toly’s view is absurd. On Arbitrum, Robinhood retains 90% of gas fees; on Solana, the base fees go to validators or the network, leaving Robinhood with 0%—meaning offering fully gas-free transactions would require Robinhood to pay out of pocket. Robinhood chose Arbitrum to be the landlord, not the tenant—controlling its own sequencer and capturing most fees for itself. (Source: BlockBeats)