Robinhood Chain Squeezes Out the Hype: From Meme Frenzy to a "Patchwork Story" Hard Landing As the countdown to the 90-day free gas subsidy ended on September 29, Robinhood Chain finally faced its most realistic stress test: token prices and trading volumes declined, speculative funds exited, and the narrative tone among KOLs collectively shifted. Secondary market status: - Market leaders pulled back: PONS dropped approximately 56%-58% from its September 5 peak, with market cap falling from its high to around $290M–$410M. CASHCAT fell over 50% from its peak. AI, MEME, NET, INDEX, and others saw even larger retracements, with some dropping 70%-90% from their highs. - Daily trading volume on the chain's DEX fell from a peak of about $3.7B in early September to around $1.9B by mid-to-late September. PONS token issuance and transaction fees in the second half of September through early October were halved or even dropped by over 70% compared to the first half. Meme stock-token pairs once hit a daily trading volume of about $440M but quickly declined afterward. On-chain growth mainly came from crypto-native terminals and token issuance schemes, with the Robinhood Wallet's main app path accounting for only about 1%-2% of total on-chain transactions at its peak. The end of the gas subsidy on September 29 further suppressed high-frequency wash trading. On-chain analyst Wazz also linked approximately 53 token issuance schemes from July 10 to September 21 into a single extraction path, estimating a total siphoning of 7,447 ETH (around $18.43M). While this isn't directly tied to the official framework, it highlights the "dark forest" nature and low speculative costs of the ecosystem's early days. In September, Robinhood Chain leveraged "high subsidies + a wild meme engine" to deliver an exceptionally impressive growth report card. But as October rolls in, it must confront the harshest question: without gas subsidies and the allure of quick riches, what can truly sustain liquidity for tokenized U.S. stocks and compliant on-chain finance?