Why Robinhood Built on Ethereum Instead of Launching Its Own L1

**Amanda Cassatt** (0:00)
You mentioned benefiting from the security and the decentralization. If you can reverse and freeze transactions, what's the decentralized aspect or the security aspect that you're benefiting from?

**Johann Kerbrat** (0:11)
On our side, it's permissionless. We don't enforce KYC at the protocol level. It will be on the front end.

**Amanda Cassatt** (0:15)
I'm Amanda Cassatt, and you're watching Endgame. So if you are creating a cypherpunkness spectrum amongst the corporate governed L1s and L2s, is the Robinhood L2 the most cypherpunk?

**Johann Kerbrat** (0:31)
I don't know about it, but I think we're trying to make it adaptable to every use cases basically, but really focusing on real-world assets and making it compatible with AI from the get-go. So if you want to use your agents, if you want to create your wallets, being able to transact, you should be able to do it on the chains. We launched the Testnet in February. So far, we've seen about 135 million transactions. So we are seeing a lot of excitement for people to build on it and to develop on top of the chain. On top of that, we are creating interfaces for people to connect their agents with Robinhood. So just recently, we launched our own MCP where you can actually connect your agent to Robinhood and use all the APIs and all the brokerage system that we have through this MCP system.

**Amanda Cassatt** (1:22)
We can start? OK, it works. If you are ready, I can try to speak in French if you want.

**Johann Kerbrat** (1:28)
No problem.

**Amanda Cassatt** (1:28)
Are you French?

**Johann Kerbrat** (1:31)
I am French. I am from Nice.

**Amanda Cassatt** (1:33)
Very good. Do you like going to ICC every year?
It was great. Two years ago, you had a big party in Cannes.

**Johann Kerbrat** (1:46)
It was the last year, yes. That's when we had the big party.

**Amanda Cassatt** (1:51)
Okay, just to launch in, for our English speaking audience. Robinhood, just backing up. The Robinhood myth, steal from the rich and give to the poor. That's how Robinhood launched. Zero fees.
How does Robinhood differentiate itself these days, when there are a lot of different places to buy stocks and crypto that also offer zero fees?

**Johann Kerbrat** (2:16)
Yeah. I think for us, it was mostly the idea of having this all-in-one application with a very unique UI and UX that makes it easy to use, combined with education so that anyone, even a new investor can actually utilize the platform and understand how to use it.
But there are not actually that many platform that allows you to do brokerage, options, retirement account, crypto, prediction markets and more. So I think Robinhood is still pretty unique. And I think every time that we build product, we really think about the customer, we talk to them, we try to understand how they use it, what are the issues that they find, and we also think about how to bring most of the value back to the customer. So it started with zero commission for trading stocks, for example, but on crypto we have two options, you can also have zero commission or you can use a fee structure if you write your order to exchanges, and you can have fees as low as three basis points. So that's really the idea for us, is how do we bring most of the value to the customer?

**Amanda Cassatt** (3:18)
Would you say that you're the lowest fee place to on-ramp and off-ramp crypto these days, to buy crypto? What would you say there?

**Johann Kerbrat** (3:25)
Yeah, we are one of the lowest place to buy and sell crypto in average.
And the reason for that is it's going to depend on what you're doing on the platform. So for example, if you're a very active trader, you can already get these fees, like I was saying, as low as three basis points. And if you're less active, it's still going to be a lot cheaper than some of our competitors. So we are trying to make sure that for the people that are interested in crypto, the barrier to entry is not the fees, but we want to remove all the barrier to entry if you think about it. So the first time you're going to open the app and you want to trade crypto, we are going to show you what is Bitcoin, what is a cryptocurrency.
When you place an order, we are going to show you the distinction between a limit order or market orders, all these kind of things that are helpful for new investors because we think it's very important. A lot of people want to control their finance. They want to actually start thinking about investing. They are just worried about doing it. Most of the time, they just stop there and they don't try to invest. A lot of the investors on Robinhood are actually new investors. We want to make sure that for them, it's not scary to actually do something with the platform.