Robinhood is making moves. The trading app officially launched Robinhood Chain, a layer-2 blockchain built on Arbitrum that it’s been testing since February. The company is calling it “AI-native and purpose-built for real-world assets.”
Here’s what else is happening. Robinhood plans to launch crypto trading in the UK soon. Its tokenized stock products are already live in over 120 countries through its wallet app. CEO Vlad Tenev has been talking up tokenized stocks for months, saying they could prevent the kind of trading freezes that hit traditional exchanges.
The timing is interesting. Robinhood cut 10% of its workforce a few weeks ago as part of a restructuring. And its crypto transaction revenue dropped nearly 50% year-over-year, from $252 million to $134 million. The company reports Q2 earnings on July 29.
Robinhood also introduced Robinhood Earn, a DeFi product that lets users lend USDG stablecoins through a self-custody wallet at an estimated 7% APY. Shares rose about 8% on the news.
The L2 space is getting crowded. Base, the Coinbase-backed network, is the second-largest L2 with about $11 billion in total value secured — but it suffered two outages in June from a sequencer bug. Robinhold is entering a competitive market with ambitious goals.
