Two Financial Superapps, Two Radically Different Bets on Your Future

Robinhood just launched prediction markets. Nubank just crossed 100 million customers. Both companies are racing to build what they call "financial superapps."

Only one of them understands what that actually means.

Look, we've seen this playbook before. Tech company gains traction in one vertical, achieves product-market fit, then frantically expands into adjacent products to justify their valuation. The superapp strategy isn't new—WeChat wrote the manual, Grab and Gojek perfected it in Southeast Asia, and now every fintech with a decent user base thinks they're next.

But here's what most people miss: Not all adjacent products are created equal. The difference between building a sustainable superapp and building a house of cards comes down to one deceptively simple question:

Are you solving problems or manufacturing dopamine hits?

The Nubank Model: Building Adjacent Products That Deepen Trust

Let's start with Nubank, because their strategy is almost boring in its rationality.

They started with a credit card in Brazil—a market where traditional banks treated customers like inconveniences and charged fees that would make a loan shark blush. They offered something revolutionary: transparency, no annual fees, and an app that didn't feel like it was designed in 1997.

Then they added checking accounts. Then personal loans. Then insurance products. Then investment accounts. Each expansion made perfect sense. Each product solved a real, tangible problem that their existing customers already had.

You need insurance. Not want—need. You need credit. You need somewhere to park your savings that doesn't evaporate through inflation or predatory fees. These aren't luxury features or entertainment add-ons. They're essential financial infrastructure.

This is adjacency done right. Each product makes you more dependent on the ecosystem, but in the way a good ecosystem should make you dependent. It's solving more of your problems. It's consolidating complexity. It's becoming genuinely useful in more areas of your life.

And here's the kicker: These products are sticky because they're essential. When your mortgage, insurance, credit, and savings are all in one place, churn becomes expensive—not just financially, but cognitively and emotionally. The switching costs are real. Nubank is optimizing for lifetime value, and it shows in their customer retention metrics.

The Robinhood Model: Building Adjacent Products That Increase Engagement

Now let's talk about Robinhood, because this is where things get uncomfortable.

Commission-free stock trading. Then options. Then crypto. Then fractional shares of meme stocks. Now prediction markets where you can bet on election outcomes and cultural events.

See the pattern? Each product is more exciting than the last. Each feature is designed to keep you coming back for another hit. Another trade. Another bet. Another dopamine spike.

This isn't financial infrastructure. This is gamification dressed up in a business suit.

Don't get me wrong—Robinhood innovated in real ways. They democratized access to markets. They forced the old guard to drop their commission structures. They proved that trading apps didn't need to look like Bloomberg terminals. All good things.

But somewhere along the way, the mission shifted from "democratizing finance" to "maximizing session time." And that shift reveals everything about what kind of superapp they're actually building.

Prediction markets are the tell. You know what prediction markets are optimized for? Engagement. Virality. Getting people to check the app constantly to see how their bets are performing. It's Draftkings with a ticker symbol.

The Uncomfortable Truth: Utility vs. Entertainment

Here's the core tension in every superapp strategy, and it's the part most founders don't want to acknowledge:

One model optimizes for lifetime value. The other optimizes for session time.

Nubank's adjacency creates dependency. You can't easily leave when your entire financial life is integrated. Your credit history is there. Your automatic payments are there. Your insurance policies are active. Leaving would require dozens of hours of work, multiple phone calls, and the kind of bureaucratic hassle that makes people give up before they start.

Robinhood's adjacency creates entertainment. And entertainment is the first thing people cut when money gets tight. Or when they've lost enough to learn an expensive lesson. Or when the gamification stops feeling fun and starts feeling like what it actually is: a mechanism designed to extract trading fees from your attention span.

This is the core tension in every superapp strategy: Are you building a utility or a casino?

Utilities compound. They become more valuable over time. They integrate deeper into your life. They're boring, essential, and almost impossible to replace once they're embedded in your daily routine.

Casinos extract. They provide short-term excitement at the cost of long-term value. They're thrilling right up until they're not. And when the thrill fades, there's nothing left to keep you there.

Why This Matters Beyond Just Two Companies

This isn't just about Nubank versus Robinhood. This is about a fundamental fork in the road for every company pursuing a superapp strategy.

The temptation to optimize for engagement is everywhere. Daily active users look great in pitch decks. Session time impresses advertisers. Viral features generate headlines and downloads. But none of that matters if your customers leave after six months because they've either lost money or realized they were being played.

The companies that will still be standing in ten years are the ones building boring, essential utility. They're solving real problems. They're reducing friction in people's lives. They're becoming infrastructure rather than entertainment.

Nubank is betting you'll stay because you have to. Robinhood is betting you'll stay because you want to.

Guess which one scales better when the market crashes? When interest rates rise? When the meme stock bubble pops for the third time? When people suddenly need actual financial stability instead of another way to bet on whether AI will achieve consciousness by 2030?

The Verdict

History has shown us this movie before, and we know how it ends.

Companies that become essential utility—the boring infrastructure of daily life—compound value over decades. They become monopolies not through predatory behavior but through genuine dependency. Think Visa. Think utility companies. Think, increasingly, Nubank.

Companies that optimize for engagement might have spectacular runs. They might even IPO at impressive valuations. But when the tide goes out, you discover who's been building utility and who's been running a very sophisticated slot machine.

One hundred million customers is impressive. But the real question isn't how many people sign up—it's how many people can't imagine leaving.

Robinhood has users. Nubank is building dependency.

Only one of these strategies ages well. Choose wisely which one you're betting on.