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Leading DeFi researcher questions Ethereum’s Layer 2 strategy: Robinhood’s revenue has surged, yet Layer 1 settlement layer revenue remains low—Is this a problem?

2026.09.06 12:02:51

Renowned DeFi researcher Ignas points out that Robinhood’s Layer 2 (L2) network paid just around $722 to its underlying base layer yesterday, while Robinhood itself posted a record $6 million in fee revenue that same day—roughly 10% of which went to Arbitrum, with nearly negligible amounts reaching Ethereum’s Layer 1 (L1). Against this backdrop, Ignas questions: Is this structure, where platforms rake in massive profits while the settlement layer gets almost nothing, actually a problem for Ethereum? Ethereum may currently be using low fees to onboard TradFi players into its ecosystem, planning to raise revenue shares once user migration costs become sufficiently high. If Ethereum’s official roadmap does include a strategy of first attracting a large number of L2s, then monetizing on L1 after switching costs rise, this could be positive for ETH—but such an approach is not visible in Ethereum’s current roadmap.

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