Robinhood Chain’s fee model has triggered a wider debate involving Solana, Arbitrum and BNB Chain, with the three ecosystems taking different views on how blockchain networks should make money. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko criticized Robinhood Chain’s relatively high transaction costs, arguing that under its revenue-sharing arrangement with Arbitrum, Robinhood could have provided customers with a gasless experience and discounted fees.
Nina Rong of BNB Chain and Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Arbitrum, concurred that sustainable business models are becoming more and more important for blockchain networks.
Zooming out on the debate of “what’s best for Robinhood”, I really want to point out further lowering gas fee is no longer the highest priority of the blockchain industry.
The real priority of all blockchains today is finding sustainable business model that feeds back into its… https://t.co/ic6Ixr5bPs
— Nina Rong (@nina_rong) September 6, 2026
On July 1, 2026, the Arbitrum Orbit-built Ethereum Layer 2 Robinhood Chain became live. As per the agreement, the network retains 90% of its net protocol income and gives 10% to the larger Arbitrum ecosystem. Eight percentage points are awarded to the Arbitrum DAO and two more to the Arbitrum Developer Guild.
The disagreement intensified after Robinhood Chain’s transaction fees climbed sharply. During one period, the network generated about $4.22 million in fees from roughly 10.4 million transactions, putting the average cost at around $0.40 per transaction.
Yakovenko argued that the money going to Arbitrum could instead have been used to cover transaction costs on Solana several times over. In his view, Robinhood could have made money through its brokerage platform while keeping blockchain transactions effectively free for customers.
Solana, BNB Chain And Arbitrum Clash Over Robinhood Chain Fee Model
Robinhood (@RobinhoodCrypto) Chain’s revenue model has sparked a wider debate about blockchain economics.
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko previously criticized Robinhood’s revenue arrangement with Arbitrum.… pic.twitter.com/hkU1ijwPOy
— BSCN (@BSCNews) September 7, 2026
Goldfeder offered a very different interpretation. He argued that Robinhood chose Arbitrum because it could operate its own network and retain most of the revenue generated by that network. Under Solana’s model, he said, Robinhood would not have received the same direct share of network fees and would have had to absorb the cost of subsidising transactions.
The argument is about more than one company’s fee structure. It raises a larger question about who should benefit economically when a financial company builds its own blockchain infrastructure.
BNB Chain’s Nina Rong used the debate to make a broader point. She argued that the industry should look beyond simply making transactions cheaper and focus more on business models that can support networks over the long term.
That issue could become increasingly important as banks, brokerages and other financial companies build blockchain-based services. If networks become revenue-generating infrastructure for the companies operating them, transaction fees could become part of the business model rather than simply a cost paid to maintain blockchain security.
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