Update, October 12, 2026: Refreshed with how the launchpad war played out, Pons stock pairs, the Coinbase listing, current volume and revenue, and my updated take.
Full disclosure before we start: I bought a PONS position at around a $23 million market cap, after it dropped hard on the launchpad “drama” versus Uniswap’s Pools.trade. I sold my stack in pieces on the way up, and I hold no position today. From experience, these situations are usually an overreaction. This one was.
With that out of the way, let’s dig into what Pons crypto actually is, why it became the number one launchpad on Robinhood Chain, and how its war with the biggest DEX in crypto played out.
What Is the Pons Launchpad?
Pons is a non-custodial token launchpad built exclusively for Robinhood Chain. Anyone can deploy a fixed-supply token in minutes, no coding required, and trade it from the first block. Think pump.fun, but for the Robinhood ecosystem. The interface is operated by Pons Labs, while users keep full custody and sign every transaction from their own wallet.
The timing of its launch was perfect. Robinhood Chain’s public mainnet went live on July 1, 2026, and Pons deployed just days later. When Noxa, the early market leader, suddenly halted new token launches on July 11, Pons absorbed most of the displaced activity. Within weeks it became the busiest launchpad on the chain, with around 58,000 daily active addresses. That is more than its two nearest rivals combined.
We first covered Pons back in July in our meme coin coverage on Robinhood, when it was still fighting for the top spot. Since then, the platform shipped its V2 upgrade: an ETH-denominated bonding curve, a Uniswap v4 hook, creator payouts in ETH by default, and support for tokenized stock pairs like NVDA, AAPL, and HOOD. Ironically, that deep Uniswap integration is now at the center of the beef. More on that below.
The PONS token itself trades on Robinhood Chain with a 1 billion max supply. It ripped over 1,100% from under half a cent to an all-time high near $0.049 in July, before the launchpad war knocked it back down. It then recovered and reached roughly $0.88 in September. Today it trades around $0.43, with about 32% of the supply burned.
Pons Fee Structure
The fee model is where Pons genuinely stands out, especially for creators.
Launching a token costs a flat 0.0005 ETH. From there, every trade in a Pons pool pays a 1% fee. That fee gets split 70% to the token creator and 30% to the protocol. On top of that, 80% of the protocol’s share goes into automated PONS buybacks, which ties platform activity directly to the token.
Compare that with Pools.trade, where creators can switch on an optional 0.05% cut. A creator on Pons earns roughly fourteen times more per dollar of volume than a creator on Uniswap’s launchpad. Traders pay more per swap on Pons, sure. However, if you are a creator deciding where to launch your coin, the math heavily favors Pons. This is the core trade-off in the entire launchpad war: cheaper trading versus better creator rewards.
Since V2, creators collect those fees in ETH by default instead of accumulating them in their own token. Small change on paper, big quality-of-life upgrade in practice.
Want to launch a token yourself? Our creator guide walks through the steps.
More details on the $PONS token in our guide.
The Data So Far
The numbers behind Pons stayed impressive. The team announced over 250,000 launched coins back in August. Since then, cumulative volume through the Pons hook pools has passed $6 billion, counting graduated tokens only. Revenue tells a more mixed story. Daily revenue peaked near $2 million in late August and early September. By early October, it had fallen to roughly $240,000. Our PONS revenue update covers the likely causes.
For a ranking against the other launchpads, see our Robinhood launchpad ranking.
Daily volume has regularly run above $50 million during peak activity, and the platform processed $52 million on August 5 alone, the day the war kicked off. In its first weeks, Pons had already pushed past $116 million in cumulative volume across 1.68 million trades and nearly 98,000 wallets. Those figures have grown substantially since.
Runners keep degens coming back. CASHCAT, the flagship memecoin of Robinhood Chain, remains the biggest name trading in the Pons ecosystem. Behind it, tokens like TENDIES, DAHOOD, and ROBINHOOD have printed multi-hundred-percent runs, with TENDIES posting 26% days even in a choppy market. As always with launchpads, thousands of coins go to zero for every runner. If you are new to this game, read our guide on what makes a good meme coin before aping into anything.
The War Against Pools.trade
Here is where it gets spicy. Pons built its entire product on Uniswap’s infrastructure. Version one ran on Uniswap v3, and the V2 upgrade moved everything to a Uniswap v4 hook. Uniswap even featured Pons in its own launchpad aggregator, Uniswap Launches. Six days later, Uniswap Labs launched Pools.trade, a direct competitor, on the same chain.
Crypto Twitter did not take it well. “They did Pons dirty” became the consensus take, with many framing it as Uniswap eating its own ecosystem. The comparison to Apple “Sherlocking” its third-party developers came up repeatedly. Uniswap’s zero launchpad fee and 0.25% trading fee undercut everyone, and Hayden Adams openly defended the model as extracting far less from traders. On day one, Pools.trade out-launched Pons with 10,506 new tokens against 7,210.
The market reaction was brutal. PONS dumped 49% on the week as traders rotated toward the shiny new competitor. We broke down the full launch and backlash in our Pools.trade guide, so I will not rehash everything here.
The market’s verdict came fast. PONS bounced hard from those panic lows. It climbed from a mid-20 million market cap to a peak near $0.88 per token in September, and Coinbase opened spot trading on October 7, as our listing breakdown explains. Today the market cap sits around $286 million (re-check this live). Pools.trade still competes, however, and newer rivals have joined the fight. Our STONK vs PONS breakdown and Pons vs Pump.fun comparison cover them.
Stock Pairs: What Pons Added After the War
Pons V2 lets creators quote a launch in a tokenized stock instead of ETH. The list started with NVDA, AAPL, and HOOD. It has since grown to include tickers such as SPY, SPCX, DJT, GME, and TSLA. As a result, a meme can trade as a ratio against Nvidia or the S&P 500 fund. Pons aims to be the main place where these memestocks launch. Our Pons stock pairs guide explains how
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My Take
The dust did settle, as it usually does in launchpad wars. I entered around a $23 million market cap, and I sold my stack in pieces all the way up to roughly $280 million. That was one of my best trades of the summer. Today I hold no position. I still watch PONS closely, though. Revenue has cooled from its September peak, which slows the buyback engine. Before I consider another long, I want to see a bottoming structure and buyers defending a level.
As for the launchpad itself, I still think Pons has the better creator rewards and the stronger support from Crypto Twitter. Creators follow the money, and communities follow the underdog. Both Pons and Pools.trade can grow if Robinhood Chain volume keeps rising. So the real variable is chain activity, not the rivalry.
Final Words
Pons went from zero to the number one launchpad on Robinhood Chain in a single month, built a fee model that creators love, and then got blindsided by its own infrastructure provider. It survived the blow, added stock pairs, and landed a Coinbase listing. Revenue has cooled since September, though, so the next test is whether launch activity returns. For traders and airdrop farmers, that is the real signal. Watch the revenue, respect the risk, and remember that in launchpad battles, the chain usually wins either way.
If you enjoyed this blog, check out the story behind StonkBroker NFTs, the first trending NFT on Robinhood to reach a floor of 7.5 ETH.
FAQ
What is Pons crypto? Pons is a non-custodial token launchpad on Robinhood Chain that lets anyone create and trade fixed-supply tokens. PONS is the associated token, which benefits from automated buybacks funded by platform fees.
How much does it cost to launch a token on Pons? The launch fee is a flat 0.0005 ETH, plus network gas. After launch, trading pays a 1% pool fee, with 70% going to the token creator.
How many coins have launched on Pons? According to the team, over 250,000 coins have launched on the platform since it went live in July 2026.
Why did the PONS price drop? PONS fell 49% in a week after Uniswap launched Pools.trade, a direct competitor on Robinhood Chain. Traders rotated to the new platform and repriced the competitive risk. The token then recovered and reached roughly $0.88 in September.
Is Pons better than Pools.trade? Pons pays creators far more per trade, while Pools.trade offers cheaper trading fees. Creators tend to favor Pons, and traders favor Pools.trade, so the winner depends on which side drives the market.
What are the biggest tokens on Pons? CASHCAT is the largest token in the Pons ecosystem, followed by runners like TENDIES, DAHOOD, and ROBINHOOD.
Does Pons support stock pairs? Yes. Creators can quote a launch in ETH, USDG, or approved tokenized stocks such as NVDA and SPY, and the list keeps growing.
Is PONS listed on Coinbase? Yes. PONS-USD spot trading opened on October 7, 2026.
