Robinhood Launches Chain as Crypto Push Expands

Robinhood Chain brings tokenized stocks onto new rails

Robinhood Chain launched with Uniswap deploying a dedicated automated market maker as a primary public liquidity protocol. Pleiades is also deploying a proprietary automated market maker as a primary proprietary trading venue. Robinhood said the network includes integrations with Alchemy, BitGo and Chainlink, giving it developer, infrastructure, custody, security and oracle support at launch.

Robinhood said the chain will include “out-of-the-box DeFi primitives,” including lending and borrowing. The design places tokenized assets inside a broader onchain financial system rather than limiting them to synthetic balances displayed inside an app.

Stock Tokens are now live for eligible users through Robinhood Chain. Robinhood said the tokens allow eligible users to trade tokenized stocks around the clock directly on the network and access them through Robinhood Wallet in more than 120 countries, subject to jurisdictional limits.

Robinhood’s disclosures say Stock Tokens are tokenized debt securities issued by Robinhood Assets (Jersey) Limited. The disclosures say the products provide economic exposure to underlying securities but do not grant legal or beneficial rights in the underlying stocks.

Stock Tokens are not available in the United States or to U.S. persons. They are also subject to restrictions in Canada, the UK, Switzerland, the UAE and sanctioned jurisdictions.

Eligible users can trade Stock Tokens through decentralized exchanges and venues including Uniswap, Rialto, Lighter, 1inch and Arcus, which was built by the team behind dYdX. Robinhood said users may use tokenized equities across decentralized finance applications, including lending protocols and trading collateral.

Robinhood’s earlier generation of tokenized U.S. equities was introduced at the “To Catch a Token” event in Cannes in June 2025. That launch switched on more than 200 stock and exchange-traded fund tokens for users across the EU and EEA. Those products traded inside the existing Robinhood app on Arbitrum One.

Robinhood said the earlier tokenized equity products will now be called “Classic Stock Tokens.” They were issued under MiFID II by a Robinhood Europe entity, custodied by a U.S. broker-dealer, traded roughly 24/5 and paid dividends in-app. Classic Stock Tokens also did not grant holders rights to the underlying securities and will remain available in the Robinhood Europe app.

Vlad Tenev previously said Robinhood planned to offer users the chance to buy tokenized shares in private companies such as OpenAI. After pushback from OpenAI, Tenev called the promotion “a seed for something much bigger.” He also said “many private companies are eager to join us in the tokenization revolution” and stressed that the private-company tokens “aren’t technically equity” but still give retail investors a way to track valuations.

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DeFi lending, perps and AI trading expand the product suite

Robinhood also introduced Robinhood Earn, described as the first decentralized lending product available directly through the main Robinhood app for eligible U.S. users. The product allows users to lend USDG, Robinhood’s dollar-backed stablecoin, through a self-custody wallet.

Robinhood Earn offers an estimated 7% APY on USDG lending. The lending infrastructure is powered by Morpho, with support partners Steakhouse, Ethena, Spark and Maple. Robinhood said the product includes insurance procured through Lloyd’s of London and RELM to protect covered losses in the event of cyber or smart contract exploits.

Robinhood also revamped Robinhood Wallet to add access to perpetual futures through Lighter, an Ethereum-based decentralized perpetuals exchange. The Lighter perps integration is available to eligible users in selected jurisdictions but unavailable to residents of the UK, U.S., Canada, Switzerland, UAE, Singapore and other restricted jurisdictions.

Lighter raised $68 million in a funding round announced in November 2025 at a $1.5 billion valuation. The round included backing from Robinhood Ventures. Vlad Tenev publicly congratulated Lighter founder Vladimir Novakovski and the Lighter team on its mainnet launch about a month before the latest collaboration.

Lighter committed $11 million worth of its native LIT tokens to the Robinhood community. Robinhood said: “Eligible users earn points on perpetual futures trades on Lighter — 2x when trading through Robinhood Wallet, 1x when trading on Lighter’s web application — which convert directly into LIT from that pool, subject to Lighter’s terms.”

Kerbrat said during the livestream that Robinhood will cover gas fees for eligible users transacting on Robinhood Chain through Robinhood Wallet for the first 90 days. The coverage applies to swaps, crypto transactions, stock-token transactions and bridging into Robinhood Chain. Kerbrat also said there will be no fees on perpetuals accessed through Lighter during the same period.

Robinhood is expanding perpetual futures trading in Europe beyond the crypto perps it began offering in 30 countries last year. The phased rollout includes 24/7 commodity, ETF and FX perpetual futures for eligible users, including gold, silver, QQQ, EUR/USD, WTI crude oil, Brent crude oil and EWY. Those European perpetual futures can offer up to 10x leverage.

Robinhood also announced Agentic Accounts for crypto, an AI-powered trading tool for eligible U.S. users. The product will allow users to connect AI models to Robinhood’s trading infrastructure while retaining control over capital allocation and trading parameters.

Robinhood said Agentic Accounts for crypto will launch at no additional cost to eligible U.S. traders. The planned crypto product follows Robinhood’s launch of Agentic Trading for equities and options in the U.S. last month.

Robinhood said: “Using our Trading MCP, eligible U.S. traders can connect their AI model of choice to Robinhood data sources and tools.” The company added: “Your agent can continuously scan millions of data points and execute strategies the moment the market turns. Crucially, humans remain in control by deciding exactly how much capital to allocate and setting the specific safety guardrails.”

Robinhood is also adding maker order types for professional and advanced traders in the U.S. The new maker order types use a maker-taker fee structure that can go as low as 0%, depending on volume.

Global rollout continues as crypto revenue weakens

Robinhood said it now serves nearly 28 million customers across 38 countries and three continents. The company used Canada Day to officially mark its launch across Canada after closing its $180 million WonderFi acquisition on June 1, 2026.

Robinhood said Robinhood Singapore received a capital markets services licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The company described the license as a step toward offering brokerage services to customers in the future and said it plans a major expansion into Asia over the coming years.

Robinhood also said it plans to launch crypto trading in the UK “soon” to “strengthen Robinhood’s position as an all-in-one investing platform for UK traders.” Despite the London setting of the announcement, Robinhood’s UK crypto offering remains separate from the main Robinhood app through Bitstamp by Robinhood.

Robinhood acquired Bitstamp for $200 million last year. Greater integration of crypto into Robinhood’s core UK investing app may depend on regulatory clarity as the UK prepares to roll out new crypto rules next year.

The crypto expansion follows weaker business figures for Robinhood’s crypto segment and a broader restructuring. Robinhood said last month it would cut about 10% of its workforce, or around 290 employees, as part of a plan to streamline its organization and management structure.

The workforce reduction is expected to create about $28 million in related restructuring charges. The cuts were framed as part of a move toward a leaner and more “high performance” operating model.

Robinhood’s crypto revenue fell 47% year-over-year to $134 million, while native-app crypto trading volume fell 48% year-over-year to $24 billion. Another figure said crypto revenue dropped 34% quarter-over-quarter to $134 million from $221 million, describing a separate comparison period.

Robinhood shares reacted positively to the announcement. HOOD shares were reported up 5% during the day in one snapshot, while another later snapshot said the stock finished the day up more than 8% on Wednesday. HOOD was also reported up nearly 20% over the past month.