Robinhood has launched a public testnet for Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum-based layer-2 built on Arbitrum, with a broader rollout planned later this year. The firm’s blockchain aims to support 24/7 trading and self-custody of tokenized stocks, ETFs and other assets via Robinhood’s crypto wallet, while enabling access to DeFi applications on Ethereum. The new network, called Robinhood Chain, is built on Arbitrum and is designed to support tokenized real-world assets including equities, ETFs and other assets. Developers will be able to publicly build on the network for the first time after six months of private testing, ahead of a future mainnet launch.
With the chain, Robinhood aims to allow users to trade 24/7 and self-custody their assets in Robinhood’s own crypto wallet. Users will also be able to bridge across different chains and to decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on Ethereum. The timing comes as Ethereum’s core roadmap shifts more attention back to the base layer. “For us, it was never really about scaling Ethereum or doing faster transactions,” Kerbrat said.
“We’ve always been building with the idea that there are different compliance requirements based on the jurisdiction, and all these things can be embedded into the chain.” The move builds on Robinhood’s earlier steps into tokenization. Last year, the company rolled out token versions of U.S. stocks and ETFs for European users with dividend payments and extended market hours. Those assets — almost 2,000 stocks and ETFs, according to data by Entropy Advisors on Dune Analytics — were initially issued on Arbitrum.
Leave a Reply