Author: Mr. Z (@168MrZ)
Liquidity is returning, but the market is still in a high-PVP, non-consensus early bull; Robinhood's first wave relied on Meme and Launchpad for user acquisition, the second wave will depend on Hooks, Agent Trading, and Tokenized Stock DeFi, while the secondary market returns to PMF, new trends, and new consensus.
On October 14, 2026, 168X invited Amber Group Advisor Haotian (@tmel0211) to talk about Robinhood Chain and a new round of altcoin market action.
Over the past month, Robinhood quickly moved from the first wave of wealth effects in PONS, Meme, and Launchpad into a cooling-off period. At the same time, the market began discussing a potential 9-figure Ecosystem Grant, Hooks, AI Agents, Tokenized Stocks, and who exactly will take over in the next stage.
Haotian's judgment: the bull market may have already begun, but it is still an early bull market with tentative liquidity return, narratives that have not fully played out, and extremely heavy PVP. The easiest thing to understand in the first stage is Meme and Launchpad, but if Robinhood really wants to go from a short-term hotspot to a long-cycle ecosystem, the second baton must be handed to real Infra.
Similar changes are also taking place in the secondary market. The previous model of earning a premium simply through high FDV, VC backing, and a distant Roadmap is failing, and the new screening method is actually simpler: Is there PMF? Is it a new trend? Has the market formed a new consensus?
I. The bull market has already arrived, but making money is harder: this is now a "non-consensus + high PVP" early bull
Mr. Z: On the one hand, you think the bull market may have already begun; on the other hand, the on-chain experience is extremely PVP. How exactly should we define this market right now?
Haotian: I think this is still a fairly typical early bull market, and moreover a non-consensus stage. Many trends are still being explored. How Meme pairs with stocks, how AI Agents integrate, and what can truly drive the next round of market action have not yet formed a definite answer.
Haotian: Liquidity is indeed returning tentatively, but it is far from "fully returning." ETFs have net inflows, and they also see net outflows again during sharp sell-offs, so the problem now is not that there is no money at all, but that people cannot yet be sure whether this money can be sustained.
Haotian: More importantly, after a full year of downturn, the active capital that remains in the market is itself inclined toward speculation. This is also why a large number of projects that emerged in Robinhood's first stage easily turn into pure PVP. It is very difficult to treat these assets with a Holder mindset, because they are inherently driven by short-term capital and short-term Attention.
Haotian: So the arrival of a bull market does not mean making money immediately becomes easy. Bull markets are often born in doubt, hesitation, and low positioning; by the time everyone confirms that "the bull market is here," the easiest money in the first leg is often already gone.
II. Do not Price In Robinhood's 9-figure Grant yet: beyond money, what matters more is who gets the resources
Mr. Z: What the community is most excited about recently is Robinhood's potential Ecosystem Grant, with rumors even reaching the 9-figure, $100 million level. Is this worth Pricing In in advance?
Haotian: I think it is too early to talk about the amount right now. Vlad's AMA and some statements are indeed giving the community expectations, but at least when we were talking, the official side had not truly fully landed this matter, so rumors cannot be treated as established facts.
Haotian: And even if $100 million is ultimately put on the table, I think the amount itself is not the most critical thing. What is truly critical is how the money is spent and how resources are allocated. Is it for listing resources on the main site? Support for Meme? Support for Infra? Or for teams that can truly Build over the long term? These are completely different outcomes.
Haotian: If the market has already priced in advance according to a "9-figure Grant," and the official side ultimately does not deliver, it will instead create negative sentiment. So this kind of thing must wait until it lands, and then we look at how the funds combine with Robinhood's own Distribution, Listing, and Developer Support. Cash is just a number; resource allocation is what determines whether this money ultimately becomes Alpha.
III. Do not look only at TVL for Robinhood's 100-day data: what you should really watch is Tokenized Stock retention
Mr. Z: The data Robinhood Chain released at 100 days actually looks very good: more than 190 Stock Tokens, 200,000 Holders, coverage of more than 120 countries and regions, Stock Token DEX Volume of about $15 billion, and TVL also reaching $1 billion. Do you think this is already enough to prove that the ecosystem has taken off?
Haotian: Looking at these Snapshots alone, I think their reference value is not that high. For example, if a chain generates very high DEX Volume in 100 days, it is possible that 80% of it is concentrated in the hottest 15 days, and then decays all the way afterward. So you cannot look only at cumulative data; you have to look at how the entire Curve moves.
Haotian: These data at least show that Robinhood attaches great importance to this chain and is also actively giving the market confidence. But if you ask me what I most want to see, I actually want to see the actual retention scale and growth rate of Tokenized Stocks on Robinhood, and when it can clearly surpass competitors such as xStocks and Ondo.
Haotian: Because the biggest Narrative for Robinhood in this cycle was originally stock tokenization. If the most core assets ultimately do not truly settle on-chain, then no matter how large the Meme Volume or how beautiful the DEX Volume, it may all just be short-term FOMO.
Haotian: The truly indicative metric is not how much money everyone speculated with on this chain, but how many real stock assets are willing to stay here for the long term.
IV. The first stage of PONS / Launchpad completed user acquisition: the second wave must move from Meme to Infra
Mr. Z: If you treat Robinhood's first 100 days as the first stage, how would you summarize it?
Haotian: The first stage is actually easy to understand: sentiment and wealth effects move first. At the earliest it was Meme, and later Launchpad, PONS, and other things that everyone can immediately understand took off, because in a bear market the models everyone is most familiar with are exactly these: there is trading volume, there are fees, there are buybacks, and there is token issuance.
Haotian: The greatest value of this model is that it first brings Attention and capital into the ecosystem. But it has a natural problem, which is that it depends heavily on ecosystem dividends. Once new capital slows down and the quality of launched projects declines, Launchpad revenue and Token Buyback will also fall accordingly.
Haotian: So I actually do not want the second wave to be PONS, Meme, and Launchpad repeated again unchanged. If the second wave still relies on unlimited token issuance, trading taxes, and buybacks, then it means the genes of this chain have not changed at all, and the market action is very likely to still rise fast and die fast.
Haotian: A truly healthy bull market cannot have only PVP players; in the end it must also let Builders, Developers, and long-term capital find something they are willing to participate in. So if the second stage really is to take off, I would rather see Infra take over the baton.
V. Why HOOKR has begun to take over the baton: capital is shifting from Launchpad to Hooks
Mr. Z: You are especially bullish on Hooks on Robinhood right now, and you were paying attention to HOOKR very early. Why?Haotian: Actually, I didn't start paying attention to Hooks only after Robinhood came out. After Uniswap v4 launched, I had already been looking at this narrative for a long time. It's just that at the time the whole market was still in a bear market, there was no liquidity, and no one was willing to pay for something relatively infrastructure-oriented like this.
Haotian: When Robinhood's first wave took off, part of the ETH I first transferred in went into buying HOOKR. At the time I hadn't even fully researched the project itself; it was simply because I was very certain that the Hooks narrative would sooner or later be put back on the table.
Haotian: In the first stage it didn't become the main character, because the market was only willing to buy the easiest-to-understand Launchpad and Meme. But recently the situation has started to change. After the previous batch of mainstream Robinhood tokens pulled back, HOOKR instead rebounded from a low of around $5 million to above $20 million, and even began challenging its previous high, while other Hooks-related projects also started to appear.
Haotian: This doesn't necessarily mean HOOKR has been confirmed as the leader of the next round, but at least it shows one thing: existing capital is actively looking for new growth points after the first stage, and Hooks has already entered their field of view.
6. The endgame of Hooks is not anti-sniping: it is upgrading "token issuance" into "programmable financial rules"
Mr. Z: But why exactly are Hooks important? If they are only understood as anti-sniping and changing trading taxes, there doesn't seem to be that much imaginative space.
Haotian: I think Hooks cannot be viewed merely as some single feature. In the previous cycle I mainly researched Layer2. At that time, various technical concepts such as Modular and Chain Abstraction could become a complete narrative because they could continuously spawn new protocols and new applications.
Haotian: Hooks actually has a similar possibility. In the past, Launchpad solved "how to issue a token," but Hooks further solves: after this asset is issued, can the trading rules, fees, liquidity, buyback, anti-MEV, permissions, and even subsequent behavior be programmed?
Haotian: This upgrades from "issuing a coin" to "designing a set of financial rules." For builders, it is finally no longer just about speculating on Memes, but about building products around these primitives.
Haotian: So I have always felt that pure Meme can handle attention in the early bull market, but it is hard for it to run through the entire cycle. By the middle stage, there must be a main line that can simultaneously accommodate speculative capital, developers, and longer-term capital. Whether Hooks can take on this role, I think we are only just beginning to verify now.
7. AI Agent is the biggest narrative, and also the easiest narrative to lose money on: consensus is too strong, implementation is too slow
Mr. Z: Another thing you pay close attention to is AI Agents. But you yourself also said that in the past few waves of AI × Crypto, you actually lost quite a bit of money. Where exactly is the problem?
Haotian: The biggest problem with AI × Crypto is that it is too sexy. It is very hard to falsify, and everyone's first impression is that this story is very reasonable.
Haotian: AI is moving from competition in compute and large models toward the implementation of Agent applications. Once Agents begin executing trading, payments, asset management, and various tasks, people naturally think: how is its identity verified? How are its actions recorded? How are permissions restricted? How are assets managed? It seems Crypto can plug into every one of these places.
Haotian: Precisely because this logic is so smooth, the market has continuously produced all kinds of AI Agent projects over the past two years. But many actually remain at the experimental stage, and some do not even have a real product. Just because everyone thinks a narrative is reasonable does not mean it has reached the point where it should be priced at a high valuation.
Haotian: I myself am a very good counterexample. I have been shouting loudly about AI all along, and I have indeed lost relatively large amounts of money on some related tokens. Looking back later, maybe the direction was not wrong, but everyone kept paying in advance for a very distant milestone.
Haotian: Still, I think AI × Crypto will be a major long-term main line. The only difference is: do not ignore how far today is from the endgame just because the endgame is very big.
8. The answer Venice gives: AI × Crypto should first solve real demand, then talk about Autonomous Agents
Mr. Z: Something like Venice is more interesting. It does not start by telling you about "fully autonomous AI, digital immortality." It first finds a demand that Web2 AI users can also understand, such as privacy, inference, and API credits, and then uses Crypto to solve identity, payment, or token incentives.
Haotian: This model is relatively subtle, because it lets Crypto natives and AI users find a balance. People in the AI circle will not feel that you are forcibly stuffing Crypto into the product, and Crypto users can also find places where tokens or on-chain payments truly play a role.
Mr. Z: When investing, you also need to look at another layer, which is where value accrual actually is. An AI project having revenue does not mean the revenue necessarily accrues to the token. Venice is a very good example: token, API credits, and company equity are different things. You cannot directly infer that the token will definitely capture all the value just because the product is strong.
Haotian: So once AI × Crypto truly matures in this cycle, I think fewer and fewer people will pay for the four words "AI + Token," and instead will ask: who are the real users? What problem does Crypto actually solve? Where is the cash flow? And where does the value ultimately go?
9. Agent token issuance cannot be entirely handed over to AI: Human-in-the-loop may be the correct form
Mr. Z: Then if we go back to Robinhood, what do you think of the above gameplay such as Agentic Launchpad and AI automatically managing funds?
Haotian: I recently took a relatively big loss because of a token with a similar concept, so I have been thinking about it quite a lot. I originally thought that an Agent managing funds itself, automatically executing buyback, burn, and airdrop, with all rules completely transparent, would be very sexy.
Haotian: But after it actually runs, you discover a very realistic problem: AI's "rule justice" is not necessarily consistent with the needs of the human market. AI can mechanically buy a little token according to parameters, and in theory it is completely transparent, but this buyback may have no meaning at all for the price. The human market needs judgment, rhythm, and dynamic adjustment, and pure AI rules are sometimes instead too rigid.
Haotian: So now I would rather look at Human-in-the-loop. For example, the basic rules are automatically executed by the Agent, but humans can adjust some parameters or input new instructions within a public, transparent, and traceable framework.
Haotian: The next generation of Agent Launchpad may not be "AI replacing humans," but rather humans responsible for judgment and AI responsible for transparent execution, and every human intervention can also be verified. I think this may be the truly more reasonable balance point for Agent token issuance.
10. For secondary market coin selection, only look at three things: PMF, new trends, and new consensus
Mr. Z: Pull your view back from Robinhood to the entire secondary market. You have recently traded strong assets such as HYPE, LIT, STX, ZEC, NEAR, and STRK. What is your core framework for selecting Alts now?Haotian: The biggest lesson from the last cycle is already very clear: projects with high VC control, high FDV, huge Token Unlock, and no PMF at the same time carry very high risk. In the last cycle, the market could give them very long-dated valuations; in this cycle, people are no longer very willing to do so.
Haotian: So you just look in reverse. First, it has a Product and real PMF; second, it has hit a new trend; third, it is forming new market Attention and consensus.
Haotian: This is also why some old projects from the last cycle, although they survived, do not necessarily still have opportunities; by contrast, some assets that have already proven their Product, if they also hit a new Narrative, may instead become targets that both institutional funds and retail funds in this cycle can accept.
Haotian: This cycle is not "all Alts rise together"; rather, as garbage increases, the real gold will instead gain higher capital concentration.
XI. Four main lines in the coming months: Privacy, PerpDEX, AI, Post-Quantum
Mr. Z: If you were to rank from the secondary market the main lines most worth watching in the coming months, which ones would you look at?
Haotian: I think the big direction is actually already relatively clear. The first is Privacy, assets like ZEC that are being re-understood by the market; the second is PerpDEX, Hyperliquid, Lighter, and these are directions with real Product Innovation; the third is still AI. Whether it is new projects or old chains like NEAR, as long as they want to regain market attention, AI will become a very important angle.
Haotian: The fourth is Cryptography / Post-Quantum, which has recently begun to emerge. As AI's mathematical capabilities become stronger and stronger, the market will naturally rethink the security of existing Cryptography. When I saw the related discussions, my first reaction was to look for cryptography-related assets, and I also took positions in directions like STRK.
Haotian: This kind of Narrative often cannot be fully predicted just by writing a Research Report a year in advance; it may suddenly be ignited by the market because of a technical event. So in addition to a long-term Thesis, you must also retain the ability to quickly Re-underwrite.
Haotian: If I compress it, what I look at now is: Privacy, PerpDEX, AI, Cryptography. As for specific Assets, it always still depends on who actually has the product, capital, and market consensus at the time, rather than just looking at which label it belongs to.
XII. Why HYPE / LIT can still be revalued: PerpDEX is one of the few Crypto Infra with real product strength
Mr. Z: Then why is PerpDEX so high in your priority ranking? HYPE and LIT have already risen quite a bit, so why can they still be looked at further?
Haotian: Because the biggest difference between PerpDEX and many Narratives is that it truly solves a problem, and people are truly using it. Products like Hyperliquid and Lighter are not telling stories through white papers; they have real Volume, users, and innovation in market structure.
Haotian: It has even begun to bring in assets beyond Crypto, including stocks, Pre-IPO Pricing, and other new trading demands. This means its TAM is not just "how much Crypto Perp can be taken from Binance," but whether the entire 24/7 On-chain Derivatives Market can continue to expand.
Haotian: And one very interesting thing about this cycle is that there are not many projects that can truly survive the last cycle and then become core assets of the new cycle. The more garbage projects there are, the easier it is for capital to concentrate toward a small number of Winners.
Haotian: So you can no longer look at these leaders in the way of assigning a fixed Market Cap Ceiling as in the last cycle. When there are fewer high-quality assets to choose from, the valuation ceiling of Winners with real PMF may instead be reopened.
XIII. "Crypto VC has disappeared": the next cycle's VC will become the number one player on-chain
Mr. Z: In this cycle, Launchpad, on-chain financing, and Hyperliquid are all weakening the role of traditional VC. Do you think Crypto VC will still exist in the future?
Haotian: If you ask me about that kind of Crypto VC in the traditional sense, I think it has already disappeared, so don't fantasize. But this group of VC capital will not disappear; it will just be reborn in another way.
Haotian: The way VC played in the last cycle was early funding, getting very low-cost chips, waiting for TGE, and exiting through high FDV. But the market has already become disgusted with this playbook, so in the next cycle VC may directly enter the market to do on-chain projects, participate in Incubation, or even wait until a project has already reached a $20 million or $30 million market cap, and then enter through OTC or by directly buying Token.
Haotian: From this angle, it looks less and less like traditional Venture Capital, and more like a number one player with a larger amount of capital. It may not even need to publicly reveal who it is, nor carry the burden of a 4-year Unlock, and can compete in the same game as secondary and on-chain capital.
Haotian: Another group of VC will still continue to do early-stage projects with real technical barriers, such as new PerpDEX, AI, and Cryptography. But no matter which type, simply "I have money, I can buy primary" is no longer an Edge.
Haotian: VC also has to prove again why it is qualified to get Alpha.
XIV. Robinhood vs Solana: one competes on asset innovation, the other competes on capital efficiency
Mr. Z: If Robinhood, Solana, Base, and BSC all start competing for Tokenized Stock and on-chain trading, what will each of these chains ultimately rely on to win?
Haotian: I think you definitely have to look at each chain's own underlying character. Robinhood's core advantage is very clear, which is Tokenized Stocks + Distribution. So what it should really do is build out the Rights, Liquidity, and DeFi Composability of stock tokens, and then let on-chain products grow around these assets.
Haotian: Solana is a completely different kind of advantage. Its greatest capability is that capital efficiency is too high. Funds move from CEX to on-chain very quickly, and Stablecoin depth is also sufficient, so once a Narrative starts to FOMO, it can easily push Market Cap very high very quickly.
Haotian: This is also why many Narratives may not first appear on Solana, but in the end the largest wealth effect is instead captured by Solana. It may not be the first innovator, but it may be the one best at amplifying innovation.
Haotian: So this cycle's Tokenized Stocks may also see a similar script: Robinhood competes on innovation and asset entry points, Solana competes on Liquidity and the height of speculation. As for Base and BSC, for now I would not put them at the same priority, at least because their respective advantages are not yet as clear as those of the first two.
XV. Robinhood's real Alpha in the next three months: Hooks, Agent Trading, Stock DeFi, don't be led by FOMO
Mr. Z: Finally, if you look at the next 3 months to half a year, what exactly is most worth watching about Robinhood?Haotian: First is still Tokenized Stock. But don't just look at "who says they're doing Stock DeFi" — look at whether real stock assets have actually settled on top of it. In the future, if stock tokens achieve further parity with traditional stocks in areas like Dividend and Voting Rights, and combined with sufficiently deep on-chain Liquidity, then the Lending, Collateral, Yield, and Liquidity Protocol built around them will truly be meaningful.
Haotian: Second is Hooks. If Robinhood wants Phase 2 to not repeat Meme and Launchpad, it needs projects with real technical backgrounds and stronger sustainability to emerge. Hooks is the line I most want to see validated right now.
Haotian: Third is Agent Trading. Robinhood itself has invested heavily in Agent automated trading, so from an Ecosystem Incentive perspective, this is very likely also a direction the official team is willing to push in the next phase.
Haotian: But finally, I want to give a special warning about something — Social Trading Apps like FOMO. It does bring in new capital, new traffic, and new trading methods, but it also extremely amplifies Emotional Trading. When a top KOL calls it, a coin can instantly pump 30%, and in extreme cases even several times over. If you wait until you see the signal and then rush in, it's very easy to lose 10% on your very first trade.
Haotian: So Social Trading can be used to observe Signal — don't treat it as a mindless Copy Trade tool. The platform is called FOMO, but that doesn't mean you should actually FOMO.
Haotian: I think what the market needs most right now is precisely not more emotion, but to wait for the real Infra of Phase 2 to run. The most dangerous thing in the early bull market is treating the money-making methods of Phase 1 as rules that will remain effective throughout the entire bull market.
Mr. Z: At the end of this episode, I'll condense Haotian's framework into 4 judgments. First, this is still an early bull market with high PVP and tentative liquidity return, so "the bull is here" doesn't mean all Alts will rise across the board; second, Robinhood completed traffic acquisition in Phase 1 through Meme and Launchpad, but what truly needs to be validated in Phase 2 is Hooks, Agent Trading, and DeFi that can settle real Tokenized Stocks; third, the screening criteria for the secondary market have shifted from VC backing and high FDV to PMF, new trends, and new consensus. Privacy, PerpDEX, AI, and Post-Quantum are currently the lines most worth continuously tracking; fourth, the easiest way to lose money this round may not be getting the direction wrong, but FOMOing too early within the right direction. First find the trend, then confirm Product and Value Accrual, and only then decide when to bet. Thanks to Haotian for coming to 168X!