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Robinhood used a London keynote to stop being just an app that sells you crypto and start being the rails underneath it. On July 1, live from the Old Royal Naval College under the banner “The World is Flat,” Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD) switched on the public mainnet of its own Layer 2 and dumped a full stack of DeFi products on top of it.
Tokenized stocks, on-chain lending, traditional-asset perpetuals, and AI trading agents all landed the same day. The pitch from Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s crypto and international chief, is that the company is welding traditional finance onto DeFi so retail can reach markets it was previously locked out of.
That’s the sales copy. Here’s what actually shipped, and where the fine print bites.
Robinhood Chain: The House Blockchain Is Now Live
Robinhood Chain is a permissionless Ethereum Layer 2 built on Arbitrum technology, aimed squarely at tokenized real-world assets and 24/7 market infrastructure. It’s connected to Robinhood’s wallet users out of the box and marketed as a turnkey environment for builders, with native lending and borrowing primitives baked in.
The day-one partner list is the tell. Uniswap is deploying a dedicated AMM as the primary public liquidity venue, while a firm called Pleiades is running a proprietary AMM built for prop trading.
Technical and infrastructure backers at launch:
- Built on: Arbitrum platform, “to institutional standards”
- Liquidity: Uniswap (public AMM), Pleiades (prop trading AMM)
- Infra: Alchemy, BitGo, Chainlink
- Features: Fast block times, out-of-the-box lending/borrowing, AI-native design
- Focus: Real-world assets and permissionless building
Stock Tokens Go 24/7, But Not Everywhere
The headline consumer product is the new generation of Stock Tokens, live now in the Robinhood Wallet across more than 120 countries. Eligible users get 24/7 trading directly on Robinhood Chain, and the tokens can be pushed into lending pools or used as collateral across DeFi. Spot trading runs through DEXs including Uniswap, Rialto, Lighter, Arcus, and 1Inch.
Now the catch. These are not shares. Stock Tokens are tokenized debt securities issued by Robinhood Assets (Jersey) Limited that give you economic exposure to the underlying equity and nothing else. No voting rights, no legal claim against the company you’re “buying.”
The mechanics matter for anyone treating these as real equity:
- Backing: 1:1 by the underlying shares, held by a US-based custody partner
- Dividends: No cash payout. A multiplier reinvests dividends, so each token quietly represents more than one share over time
- Redemption: Sell on the secondary market or redeem with the issuer after KYC/AML
- Not available: US persons, plus restrictions in Canada, the UK, Switzerland, the UAE and sanctioned jurisdictions
The first-generation product, now rebranded “Classic Stock Tokens,” stays in the Robinhood Europe app. So the flagship launch is, by design, walled off from Robinhood’s home market.
Robinhood Earn And The 7% Pitch
Robinhood is rolling out Earn to eligible US users, calling it the first decentralized lending product inside the main app. Users lend dollar-backed USDG through a self-custody wallet at an estimated 7% APY, with the plumbing handled by the Morpho protocol.
The interesting move is the insurance. Coverage is procured through Lloyd’s of London and RELM to backstop losses from cyber or smart-contract exploits, a nod to the fact that “self-custody DeFi yield” still spooks the average brokerage customer. Build partners include Steakhouse, Ethena, Spark, and Maple.
Perpetuals Bring Crypto Rails To Gold, Oil And QQQ
In the EU, where crypto perps have become one of Robinhood’s fastest-growing products since it moved into 30 European countries, the company is extending perpetual futures beyond crypto. Commodity, ETF, and FX perps are rolling out in waves.
- New underlyings: GOLD, SILVER, QQQ, EUR/USD, WTI, Brent crude, EWY
- Leverage: Up to 10x, 24/7
- Wallet perps: Available on the Lighter DEX inside Robinhood Wallet for eligible users
- Incentive: Lighter committed $11 million of $LIT, with 2x points via Robinhood Wallet and 1x on Lighter’s own site
US crypto traders get a different sweetener: maker order types with a fee structure as low as 0% based on volume. Wallet-based perps, notably, are off-limits to residents of the US, UK, Canada, Switzerland, the UAE and Singapore.
The Institutional Plumbing: BitGo And Ledger Sign On
None of this works without custody, and two names showed up on day one. BitGo (NYSE: BTGO) added support for Robinhood Chain at mainnet, letting institutions create wallets, manage keys, and hold eligible ERC-20 assets on the network.
BitGo’s coverage runs on its multi-signature architecture and includes hot and cold wallet support, key management, and native ETH gas handling. Akshay Thakur, a BitGo product director, framed the chain as being built for the next wave of onchain financial products, pointing to real-world assets and stock tokens.
On the retail side, Ledger made the launch’s short list of featured wallet providers. Users can send, receive, and secure Robinhood Chain assets with keys kept offline on a Ledger signer, using Clear Signing to read transactions in plain language before approving them.
And here’s the small irony worth noting. On the same day it celebrated the launch, Ledger also published a piece titled “Don’t Give the Agent the Keys,” a not-subtle counterpoint to the AI-trading push happening one keynote slide away.
AI Agents Take The Wheel
After putting agentic trading behind equities and options last month, Robinhood is bringing it to crypto. Through a Trading MCP, eligible US traders will be able to connect an AI model of their choice to Robinhood’s data and tools, letting an agent scan the market and execute strategies on its own.
The company insists humans stay in charge of capital allocation and guardrails. Agentic accounts for crypto roll out soon to eligible US traders at no extra cost.
To sell the concept, Robinhood ran a stunt: it claimed a Guinness World Records title for the most items bought by an AI agent in three minutes on a single credit card, using its Agentic Credit Card to source and order event gifts. Read that as a preview of where the company thinks consumer AI spending is headed.
The Global Land Grab Continues
The product blitz sits on top of an aggressive expansion push. Robinhood now claims nearly 28 million customers across 38 countries and three continents.
- Canada: Live as of Canada Day, following the WonderFi acquisition, with zero trading fees through September 30
- UK: Crypto trading “planned soon”
- Singapore: Robinhood Singapore secured a capital markets services licence from the MAS
What It Actually Means
Strip away the London staging and this is a vertical-integration play. Robinhood already owned the brokerage relationship; now it wants the chain, the wallet, and the DeFi rails too, capturing the full flow from deposit to on-chain yield.
A few things worth keeping in perspective before the “Robinhood killed the bank” takes roll in:
- The language is soft. “Planning,” “starting to roll out,” and “soon” appear all over the announcement. Several products are phased, jurisdiction-gated, or forward-looking rather than fully live.
- US users get the thinnest menu. Stock Tokens, wallet perps, and much of the DeFi suite exclude US persons. The flashiest features launched everywhere except Robinhood’s biggest market.
- Tokenized stocks are debt, not equity. The 1:1 backing is real, but holders get exposure and a custodian’s promise, not ownership.
- The AI angle is the real bet. Agentic trading and agentic spending are where Robinhood is planting its flag, and where the regulatory questions will land hardest.
Robinhood built the flat world it kept talking about. Whether regulators, and users handed the keys to an AI agent, see it the same way is the story for the next six months.
Sources
- Robinhood Newsroom — “Robinhood Accelerates Global Expansion with Robinhood Chain Mainnet, Stock Tokens, Agentic Trading and New Suite of DeFi Products” (July 1, 2026)
- Business Wire — “BitGo Adds Day-One Support for Robinhood Chain Mainnet” (July 1, 2026)
- Ledger Blog — “Robinhood Chain Live On Ledger Wallet” (July 1, 2026)
- Robinhood RHJ Documentation — Stock Tokens FAQ