Shift or expand spending from tokenomics to talent, and go all-in on Robinhood Chain

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[EDIT: sorry not clear enough. I know there is USDG soon, but what I am referring expanding to robinhood is that lets do it intensively.
Also to add, if we use big money to lure big talents over, I am sure existing devs may be unhappy over the wage-gap. Let them leave if they are unhappy. We need to think big like Google, Apple and etc.]

Hi all,

First, credit where it’s due. Q and the team clearly know tokenomics. The buybacks, the $10M treasury deployment, and the GT Points airdrop to GMX stakers show real skill in supporting the token.

I’m here to kick the hornet’s nest anyway.

Buybacks and points support the price of what we already have. They don’t build what we need next. The protocols winning right now are winning on shipping speed and distribution, not token mechanics. I’m proposing we move a meaningful slice of spending, a few million dollars, with the exact figure set by Q and the team, from tokenomics into people.

The evidence: talent and focus beat everything else

  • Hyperliquid reportedly made over $900M in profit in 2025 with a core team of about 11 people and no VC money. Jeff Yan has said that hiring the wrong person is worse than hiring no one. Their edge is not headcount. It is the quality and speed of a few exceptional builders.
  • Big Tech has already priced elite talent. Meta reportedly offered Matt Deitke around $250M over four years. It offered Andrew Tulloch a package reported at up to $1.5B over six years, and he later joined. It also paid a reported $200M+ to hire Ruoming Pang, who led Apple’s foundation models team. These companies have concluded that one great builder is worth more than almost any other spend. We should think the same way at our scale.

What I’m proposing

  1. A headhunting budget and top-tier pay packages to recruit senior engineers from Hyperliquid, Lighter, and other leading perp DEXs. These should be competitive offers with long-vested GMX so new hires are tied to our success.
  2. The same for business development and account managers from Binance, Bitget, and other major CEXs and DEXs. These people bring market makers, listings, and institutional flow with them.
  3. More engineering capacity, without lowering the bar. Hyperliquid shows a small elite team can outship a large average one. But we are clearly building several things at once. The launch of SPY and QQQ a few months after SPCX shows how slow we are. We need more hands on these products while keeping the hiring standard high.
  4. A public face for GMX. Jeff Yan gives Hyperliquid a visible, trusted founder voice. GMX needs someone in that role: on podcasts and on X, and in front of partners. Visibility drives trust, and trust drives volume.
  5. A dedicated BD team for Robinhood Chain, led by someone with fresh eyes and a mandate to challenge our assumptions. (See below.)

Why Robinhood Chain, and why now

Robinhood Chain went live on mainnet on July 1, 2026. It brings what no other chain has: a regulated broker with about 28 million customers, Stock Tokens trading 24/7 in more than 120 countries, and a user base that already wants to trade stocks. That user base is exactly the market for our SPY, QQQ, and SPCX markets.

Two facts make this urgent:

  • It’s built on Arbitrum’s stack. We know this technology better than almost anyone. Deploying there is a low-cost extension of our strength.
  • Lighter is already there. Robinhood Wallet already offers perpetual futures through Lighter for eligible users. The slot we should want is being taken while we’re still deciding.

Our multi-chain bets so far haven’t delivered the results we hoped for. That isn’t a reason to stop expanding. It’s a reason to bet on distribution, not just technology. Robinhood is the one chain partner that brings its own retail users. We should fight for that partnership and give it our best people.

What I’m asking the team

  1. Would you consider moving part of the tokenomics budget to a talent and BD budget, with a figure you’re comfortable with?
  2. Is there a plan for Robinhood Chain, and if not, what would it take?
  3. Could the community get a rough view of current headcount and hiring priorities, so we can judge where the gaps are?

Happy to be told I’m wrong. But I’d rather we argue about this now than look back in a year and wish we had.

Sources:

PS: I used AI to check all my facts, tidy my grammar and improve the presentation. Hopefully GMX is using AI too. I believe AI should 10x the productivity of each coder / builder.