Robinhood has moved its blockchain ambitions out of testnet and into production, unveiling the public mainnet for Robinhood Chain — an Ethereum Layer 2 built with Arbitrum tech — and rolling out on-chain tokenized stocks plus decentralized perpetual futures.
What launched
- Robinhood Chain: A permissionless, “AI-native” Ethereum Layer 2 aimed at real-world assets. Built on Arbitrum’s stack to institutional standards, the network integrates with Alchemy, BitGo and Chainlink and includes DeFi primitives such as lending and borrowing.
- Liquidity partners: Uniswap will deploy a dedicated automated market maker as the chain’s primary public liquidity protocol, while Pleiades will operate a separate AMM as the primary proprietary trading venue.
- Tokenized stocks: A new version of Stock Tokens lets eligible users trade tokenized equities 24/7 on-chain and use the tokens as collateral across DeFi, including lending pools. Robinhood says these Stock Tokens are tokenized debt securities issued by Robinhood Assets (Jersey) Limited and provide economic exposure to underlying shares — but not legal ownership or beneficial rights.
- Perpetual futures: Through Robinhood Wallet, eligible users in selected jurisdictions can access Ethereum-based perpetual futures via Lighter (an on-chain DEX). Lighter has allocated $11 million in native LIT tokens to the Robinhood community; traders earn points that convert into LIT, and trades executed through Robinhood Wallet earn double points versus Lighter’s web app.
Background and rollout
- The mainnet announcement was made at Robinhood’s “The World is Flat” event in London, where CEO Vlad Tenev called the initiative the company’s most ambitious global expansion and product strategy to date.
- Robinhood Chain previously ran a public testnet in February; Tenev said it processed more than four million transactions in its first week and already attracted developer experimentation with tokenized equities and DeFi apps.
- Classic Stock Tokens — the earlier tokenized-equity product introduced at Robinhood’s Cannes event in June 2025 — will remain available inside the Robinhood Europe app while the new on-chain Stock Tokens operate on Robinhood Chain.
Availability and restrictions
- Eligible users in more than 120 countries can access the new Stock Tokens via Robinhood Wallet, with spot trading available on decentralized exchanges including Uniswap, Rialto, Lighter, 1inch and Arcus (built by the team behind dYdX).
- The new products are not available to U.S. users and remain restricted in a number of jurisdictions, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and sanctioned regions. Perpetual futures via Lighter are additionally restricted in Singapore and other markets specified by Robinhood.
Why it matters
Robinhood’s mainnet launch signals a major push to fuse traditional financial products—like equities exposure—with decentralized infrastructure at scale. By pairing Arbitrum-layer throughput with institutional integrations and third-party liquidity providers, the company is betting on an on-chain route to broaden global access to tokenized financial instruments — while navigating a complex patchwork of regional regulatory limits.
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