The new battleground after the disappearance of commissions: whoever masters the "discovery layer" will control the future financial gateway

Early 2025, a funding round from top Silicon Valley venture capitalists has prompted a reevaluation of the social trading track. Benchmark’s $17 million investment in Fomo is not just about backing a trading tool but investing in a nascent new infrastructure—an integrated closed-loop of “discovery, discussion, and trading” for retail investors. The underlying logic behind this warrants in-depth exploration.

How New Players Are Reshaping Retail Investors’ Behavior

The rise of social trading platforms is no accident. From Blossom to AfterHour to Fomo, these platforms are doing the same thing: connecting the originally fragmented “discovery phase” and “execution phase” through community power.

Blossom’s Mandatory Account Binding Experiment

Blossom launched during the peak of the 2021 GameStop frenzy, when Reddit discussions were anonymous, and no one could verify whether the hot stocks discussed were held by real investors or just hype. The founders realized a key issue: Information needs credibility endorsement.

They made a seemingly crazy decision—requiring users to link real brokerage accounts to join the community. This “gate” was expected to lose users, but the opposite happened. Today, Blossom has 500,000 registered users, with 1 million accounts linked to brokerages managing nearly $4 billion in assets.

The composition of portfolios on the platform is interesting: nearly half are concentrated in S&P 500 ETFs, with the rest spread across dividend funds, options ETFs, crypto ETFs, and individual stocks. Users generally adopt a “core-satellite” strategy—using broad indices as the core and building around specific themes.

This “mandatory binding” inadvertently created a culture: almost all active users share their real holdings. In contrast, a larger discussion platform later added account verification but as an optional feature, resulting in much lower adoption than Blossom.

Balancing Anonymity and Transparency—AfterHour’s Approach

AfterHour took a different route. This platform attracts active traders who want to share trading ideas but do not want to reveal their identities. But there’s a clever twist: Users can display anonymously, but underlying brokerage accounts must be verified as real.

A well-known social trader grew an account from $35,000 to $8 million, sharing each trade under an anonymous ID. This high level of transparency in trading records attracted many followers.

In mid-2024, the platform secured $4.5 million in funding from prominent VCs, with 70% of daily active users opening the app daily. The platform has sent over 6 million trade signals, with assets linked to accounts exceeding $500 million.

Crypto Natives’ New Choice—Fomo’s Multi-Chain Strategy

Fomo targets “native” users within the crypto ecosystem. These users want to trade any token on any blockchain, 24/7, with an extremely open ecosystem.

The platform integrates Apple Pay, allowing users to start trading immediately after download. Key data points illustrate the impact:

• Less than three months after funding, daily trading volume surged from $3 million to $20–40 million
• Monthly average revenue increased from $1.5 million to a stable level of $1.5 million (indicating a stable business model)
• User count surpassed 120,000

Fomo’s 0.5% trading fee is highly competitive, and the platform covers on-chain gas fees, providing a significant user experience upgrade for those accustomed to traditional market “trading barriers.”

Why Brokers Are Starting to Panic

Traditional large brokerages are also acting. In September 2025, a leading broker announced the launch of social features—sending a signal: When the biggest players start copying new entrants’ features, it confirms the direction has been validated.

The CEO of this platform declared at a Las Vegas conference: “We are not just a trading platform; this is your financial super app.” Features launched afterward include:

• AI-driven customized indicators
• Futures trading and short positions support
• Social updates and real-time trade validation
• Night index options
• Multiple account management

But the issue is: these are defensive additions on an existing framework, not a true overhaul of the underlying logic.

The Hidden Truth: Data as a Commodity

Blossom’s quarterly “retail capital flow report” has become a reference for institutional investors. Data shows how much retail capital flows into specific ETF categories and which fund types are bleeding.

The key point: This data comes from real, verifiable portfolios, not surveys.

Traditional market research relies on questionnaires, which are prone to selection bias and recall bias. Blossom, through API access to real brokerage accounts, obtains a mirror of actual retail trading activity.

This is why ETF issuers like BlackRock and Vanguard are willing to pay for this data—they can see whether retail investors are truly buying their products, rather than relying on market research guesses.

The $500 million assets linked on the AfterHour platform represent real purchasing power. When a well-known trader on the platform takes action, followers respond immediately—directly translating “opinions” into “capital allocation.”

Fomo’s trading data reveals which tokens in the crypto market have actual trading activity and which are just hype. This is valuable for market makers, exchanges, and research institutions.

Why the Platform Business Models Are Different

Blossom’s Model: Licensing Fees

Unlike traditional exchanges that charge based on trading volume, 75% of Blossom’s revenue comes from ETF issuers. The logic is straightforward:

• State Street pays Blossom to promote retail penetration of SPY
• VanEck pays for promoting thematic ETFs
• Global X pays for promoting their proprietary funds
• Currently, about 25 issuers cooperate with the platform

These fees are not advertising but are payments for actual retail holdings data.

AfterHour’s Model: Monetizing Trade Signals

The platform does not earn from trading fees but from trade execution. Each signal and comment implicitly verifies real trades. The more active the platform, the more accurate the signals, and the higher their value.

Fomo’s Model: Charging at the Execution Layer

A 0.5% fee plus gas subsidies may seem simple, but it is an optimization of crypto trading costs. Compared to traditional DEX fees and network costs, Fomo attracts cost-sensitive users.

Why the “Discovery Layer” Will Dominate the Future

A key observation: User purchase decisions no longer happen within broker apps but on social platforms.

Imagine this scenario:

1. You see a position posted by a trusted trader on AfterHour
2. You see verified trade records and their historical performance
3. You decide to follow the signal
4. You execute the trade in your brokerage app (any traditional platform)

In this process, brokers have become merely “pipes”—providing accounts and clearing services. The real value and user stickiness are in the discovery layer.

This is why players like Robinhood and Charles Schwab are adding social features. But their disadvantage is: social features are added after the fact, whereas Blossom, AfterHour, and similar platforms start with social, with trading execution as a natural extension.

Different Platforms, Different Users, Same Logic

These platforms may seem competitive but are actually carving out their niches:

• Blossom serves long-term investors and index fund enthusiasts, emphasizing the authenticity of holdings
• AfterHour attracts active traders, emphasizing trading transparency while protecting privacy
• Fomo targets crypto traders, emphasizing frictionless, 24/7 access

Commonality: all require verified real holdings and establish direct links between community discussion and trade execution.

Unexpected Regulatory Benefits

These platforms avoid many regulatory burdens faced by traditional brokerages—they do not hold assets, do not clear trades, and do not act as counterparties. Their core value lies in information aggregation and community operation.

Of course, as this track develops, regulation will follow. But early players have already built network effects and data moats.

Conclusion: The Next Decade’s Financial Infrastructure

From the zero-commission environment after the 2008 financial crisis to today’s social trading, the retail investment landscape is undergoing a radical transformation. The competitive advantages of brokerages are disappearing one after another—trading costs are approaching zero, product choices are standardized, and mobile experiences are fundamental.

The remaining competition will be in the “discovery layer.” Who can help retail investors find information, participate in discussions, and execute trades will define the future of financial gateways.

Benchmark’s decision illustrates this perfectly: they are not investing in a trading app but in a new, emerging market infrastructure layer. This layer is neither purely media nor purely exchange but a fusion of both—a new order built on real holdings and community trust.

The future development path is clear: more vertical social trading platforms will emerge, each serving specific investor types. Winners will not be those trying to serve everyone but those deeply understanding their users, designing products around their real needs, and building data moats.

This war is not retail investors versus institutional investors but new information infrastructure versus old trading infrastructure. The outcome is already irreversible.