Vlad Tenev Follows Pons Founder Amid Launchpad Growth on Robinhood Chain

Original author: KarenZ, Foresight News

On the morning of July 21, Robinhood co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev followed @MEADGod, the founder of Pons. A few days earlier, Vlad had also followed Ogle, an advisor active in the Pons ecosystem at World Liberty Financial (WLFI).

Following a rapid increase in Pons's issuance volume and trading activity, these social actions have once again drawn market attention to the platform, which has been live for only about a week. Meanwhile, according to GMGN, the official PONS token's market capitalization briefly surpassed $39 million and has since retreated to around $27 million.

Although Twitter follows do not constitute an official endorsement of Pons by Robinhood, in the current phase of an unstable ecosystem, Vlad’s public interactions often serve as a benchmark for market perception of project attention. However, it remains to be seen whether Pons can convert this short-term hype into sustained issuance demand, trading volume, and protocol revenue.

Compared to mere social hype, Pons’s greater advantage remains its growth rate. According to current data, Pons is rapidly capturing the market traffic left behind after NOXA paused its token issuance.

According to Dune data, as of 4:00 PM on July 20, Pons has been live for approximately one week, facilitating over 66,000 token launches, with a cumulative trading volume of over $380 million on tokens issued via the platform. Over the past two days, Pons has consistently held more than 50% market share in terms of "launchpad token trading volume." The platform has distributed approximately $3.56 million in fees to token creators.

The entity operating Pons is registered as Pons Labs, LLC in the website terms, but the project has not disclosed a complete list of its real-name team members. The only clearly identifiable core figure currently is the founder, Ozzy, whose Twitter handle is @MEADGod.

Ozzy is also the founder of RootsFi. In May 2025, Ozzy described RootsFi on the official Berachain forum as a native Berachain lending protocol enabling users to mint the stablecoin MEAD by collateralizing yield-bearing assets. Currently, the Roots website positions the project as a programmable payment network built on Canton and Tempo.

Another significant factor drawing attention to Pons is the continued advocacy by WLFI advisor Ogle. There is currently no evidence that he serves as an advisor to Pons or participates in the platform’s operations, but he was one of the more influential holders and promoters during Pons’s early launch phase.

On July 18, Ogle disclosed his major holdings on Robinhood Chain, listing PONS as the second-largest holding after Lighter. Subsequently, he repeatedly shared data on PONS’s token issuance volume, trading volume, protocol revenue, creator earnings, and buyback and burn figures. On July 20, Ogle stated that within five days of its launch, PONS had facilitated over 53,000 token issuances, accumulated trading volume exceeding $300 million, generated over $340,000 in protocol revenue, and distributed approximately $2.65 million in fees to creators.

Pons can be understood as a "one-click token issuance, instant trading, and revenue recycling" system on Robinhood Chain.

After the creator enters the token name, symbol, image, description, social links, and fee recipient address, Pons deploys the token and its corresponding Uniswap V3 liquidity pool in a single transaction. According to the official documentation, each token has a fixed supply of 1 billion units, a creation fee of 0.0005 ETH, and a trading pool fee rate of 1%.

Unlike Pump.fun-style launchpads, Pons does not use a bonding curve, nor does it require migrating to a DEX after reaching a certain market cap. Tokens are immediately placed into a Uniswap V3 pool priced in WETH upon creation, with liquidity positions automatically locked, and all buys and sells occur within the same pool.

To reduce front-running on the first block, Pons has implemented a two-block protection window: only the creator’s initial purchase can be executed in the launch block; during the remaining protection period, no single wallet may hold more than 5% of the total supply, with a cumulative purchase limit of 5.5%. Selling and transfers between wallets are unrestricted, and all limits are automatically lifted after the protection period ends.

When the paired WETH in the pool reaches the default threshold of 4.2 ETH, the token is marked as "graduated." However, graduation does not trigger liquidity migration, nor does it imply project approval or endorsement—it simply indicates that the pool's assets have met the protocol's specified threshold.

Pons's core competitiveness stems from its fee allocation.

For newly launched tokens, creators receive 70% of the liquidity fees, while the protocol receives 30%; tokens issued in earlier versions retain the original ratio of 90% to creators and 10% to the protocol.

Of the protocol fees collected, 80% are used to buy back and burn PONS via TWAP, while the remaining 20% are allocated to infrastructure costs and team expansion.

However, this mechanism is not fully automated or immutable. The Pons documentation explicitly states that the 80% buyback ratio is not yet finalized; buybacks are currently executed through an automated TWAP combined with manual oversight, and the team plans to transition it into an immutable, decentralized process in future versions.

Pons has also launched the community takeover feature. After the original creator abandons a project, an active community can apply to take over the social entry point and, if permitted by the contract, become the new recipient of creator fees. The token, trading pool, and locked liquidity remain unchanged. This mechanism aims to address operational challenges following developer abandonment of meme projects, but applications still require team review, making it a frontend service with centralized management elements.

Pons currently holds the top position on the Robinhood Chain launchpad, but this competition is far from over.

Different competitors are approaching from distinct angles: Flap aims to capture scale and issuance volume, Uniswap CCA targets price discovery, and Circus leverages BONK’s brand influence to gain attention. Of course, Pons currently leads in metrics, but it now faces not just a single alternative platform, but multiple issuance mechanisms collectively diverting capital.

More concerning is that the issuance of Pons has not yet generated a strong wealth effect.

As of the time of writing, Pons has issued approximately 67,000 tokens, of which only 529 have met the graduation threshold of 4.2 ETH, resulting in a graduation rate of less than 0.8%. Excluding the platform’s official token, PONS, only YOLO has a market capitalization exceeding $5 million, and only three tokens fall within the $1 million to $3 million range.

In other words, Pons has demonstrated its ability to produce tokens at a high frequency, but has yet to establish a stable cohort of leading assets. The vast majority of projects fail to graduate, and only a small percentage achieve a market capitalization exceeding one million dollars. For a launchpad, what truly determines whether users remain long-term is the platform’s ability to consistently produce representative, high-market-cap projects. Leading tokens not only generate tangible return examples but also play a crucial role in attracting new capital, extending trading cycles, and strengthening the platform’s brand.

If users see a constant stream of new coins but rarely witness early projects achieving significant market cap growth, capital will rotate faster: traders will be more inclined to chase the next launch rather than hold already issued assets; creators may also be drawn to other platforms’ incentives, branding, or novel mechanisms. At that point, a higher number of launches does not necessarily indicate a stronger ecosystem—it may instead exacerbate the dilution of attention and liquidity.

Vlad Tenev's attention is similarly double-edged.

For Robinhood Chain’s still-early-stage ecosystem, a single mention or interaction from Vlad is enough to attract significant attention and capital in a short time. However, whether the price can be sustained ultimately depends on liquidity depth, token distribution, and subsequent buying pressure.

If early holders exit en masse amid increased traffic, and the project fails to generate new demand, the price surge driven by attention could quickly reverse. Once such patterns recur, the market gradually becomes familiar with them and begins to trade ahead of the trend: some capital positions itself before the interaction occurs and exits en masse after the news spreads.

Gradually, as the market began to interpret Vlad’s attention as a short-term exit point rather than the beginning of project growth, the marginal benefit of each increase in attention also diminished.

The battle for Robinhood Chain’s launchpad is far from over. Pons has secured an early lead, but it still lacks one crucial proof: Can it evolve from “the platform with the most token launches” into “the platform that most easily generates sustained wealth effects,” convincing creators to launch here first, traders to stay long-term, and ultimately fostering habitual use and dependence on the platform itself?