"Platform + Proprietary Top Applications" integrated model will create conflicts of interest.

Written by: Jonah

Translated by: Luffy, Foresight News

Should developers build on the Robinhood public chain or the Stripe-backed Tempo public chain? These two projects share the same core commonality: the operators control the underlying public chain platform and also hold the largest applications in terms of on-chain traffic.

From the past cases of Amazon, Microsoft, to the Base chain under Coinbase, this "Platform + Proprietary Top Applications" integrated model creates conflicts of interest, negatively impacting resident developers: developers take on the risks of platform control in exchange for traffic benefits but face the platform's fluctuating profit orientation. This article will dissect the conflicts of interest, the actual impact on developers, and the corresponding risk avoidance strategies.

Enticing Pitch: Traffic Distribution Support

What was the original intention of developers choosing enterprise public chains? Some public chains provide high entrance subsidies directly; in more cases, the core selling point of the public chain is traffic support. Taking Coinbase Base as an example, its core external promotion logic is: by entering the Base ecosystem, the platform will promote developers' projects through the Coinbase wallet or app. Robinhood public chain and Stripe’s Tempo also follow this logic.

Theoretically, this is a win-win scenario: acquiring customers from scratch is extremely difficult, and developers can leverage the platform’s existing traffic for a quick cold start; meanwhile, public chains can extract transaction fees from projects and earn additional promotional shares if the platform directs traffic to those projects, effectively monetizing developers' R&D results.

However, various problems arise post-implementation, primarily because platforms inherently prioritize supporting their own native products over third-party developers. Coinbase allocates resources to its own exchange and wallet; Robinhood prioritizes its own brokerage and wallet; Stripe fully promotes its in-house payment system. Below are five major risks analyzed one by one.

Risk One: Direct Competition Between the Platform and Developers

Companies operating both the underlying platform and on-chain applications have a well-documented history of suppressing third-party developers. The Wall Street Journal previously disclosed that Amazon's management would access third-party sellers' operational data to filter popular products and launch its own competing versions. Merchants validate market demand on Amazon's platform, while Amazon competes alongside them leveraging exclusive data advantages.

Another classic case is Microsoft versus Netscape. Netscape completely relied on the Windows system for user acquisition, and Microsoft then pre-installed the IE browser in its operating system, completely defeating the competitor. Enterprises like Base, Robinhood public chain, and Tempo inherently possess these conflicts of interest with the third-party projects that deploy on them.

Risk Two: Supporting Wallets Will Not Be Bound to a Single Public Chain

Wallets have no motivation to solely promote projects on the developer's chain. The core competitiveness of a wallet product is to provide users with full industry support for crypto asset services; if it only supports a single public chain, the product's competitiveness will be significantly weakened, and users will switch to multi-chain wallets. Thus, the Coinbase wallet must be compatible with Solana, and Robinhood, as well as Tempo affiliated wallets, will also face similar compatibility pressure in the future.

This means that wallets will inevitably showcase assets and applications from other public chains. In fact, the optimal product strategy for wallets is to directly integrate top applications within the sector — just like how Phantom wallet integrates Hyperliquid perpetual contract trading, even if that application is not deployed on the wallet's affiliated public chain.

This logic directly undermines the traffic advantage that enterprise chains promote: wallets, driven by their own development needs, will select high-quality applications across the network for unified exposure, allowing non-native chain projects to also benefit from traffic, significantly reducing the unique value of deploying on that enterprise chain.

Risk Three: Platform Competing Products Will Exclude Developers' Products

Industry players in competition with the enterprise have no incentive to promote projects within its ecosystem. Why support a competing ecosystem? USDC previously faced a similar dilemma: due to its association with Coinbase, many third-party platforms were reluctant to list that stablecoin. Similarly, projects deployed solely on the Robinhood chain would not see active promotion from the Coinbase wallet, and vice versa.

Risk Four: Platform Controls Users and Divides Developers’ Profits

There is a general rule in the crypto industry: the party that controls the end users typically earns much more than the protocols that connect to the platform, continually squeezing protocol profits until they approach marginal costs. I discussed this business model in my articles on "Value Capture Logic" and AI agents. Even if developers settle on enterprise chains and the platform fulfills its traffic support promises, fully relying on a single platform distribution channel remains highly risky — the platform holds user power and possesses strong bargaining power, constantly compressing the profit margins for developers.

A safer route is to build their own distribution channels, viewing third-party platforms merely as traffic accelerators. Hyperliquid and Polymarket are typical examples: they build independent user outreach channels and then expand their protocols across major platforms through developer incentive codes.

Risk Five: Promised Traffic Support May Completely Fall Through

The traffic exposure promised by the platform may turn out to be completely unfulfilled. Many developers have complained that the Coinbase wallet has long prioritized social functionality, providing almost no exposure resources for projects on the Base chain; although Base's official statement indicates it will rectify this, it suffices to prove that strategic adjustments at the corporate level directly determine the effectiveness of traffic support policies.

How Should Developers Respond?

In comparison, the advantages of purely neutral public chains are particularly pronounced. Ethereum and Solana do not present such platform risks, as they are completely neutral layers: any developer deploying on Ethereum does not need to worry about the Ethereum officials launching similar applications to compete with them. This neutrality is a long-underestimated core advantage.

So, should developers settle on enterprise public chains?

There are a few ways to mitigate the risks associated with conflicts of interest:

• The platform offers high entrance subsidies (this model is more common in public chain foundations and less so among enterprise chains), allowing developers to weigh whether subsidy benefits can cover potential risks;
• The platform provides a strong written commitment, ensuring there will be no direct competition and affirming traffic support (but business history proves that the binding power of such agreements is extremely weak and prone to failure);
• Independently diversify risks: multi-chain deployment + building their own traffic channels. This grants the freedom of multi-ecosystem choices while protecting their profit space.

From this perspective, enterprise public chains are suitable for the initial cold start phase of projects, leveraging platform traffic to achieve a cold start, but the core goal should be to cultivate and retain their own users instead of being continuously dependent on the platform.

The business models of enterprise public chains are still in the early stages, and in the future, platforms may introduce solutions to alleviate existing conflicts while also giving rise to entirely new risks.