Robinhood Chain goes live on mainnet alongside 24/7 tokenized stocks, Lighter perps and planned crypto agentic trading

Robinhood (HOOD) CEO Vlad Tenev and other executives unveiled what the company described as its "most ambitious global expansion and product vision to date" on Wednesday. During a livestream dubbed "The World is Flat" from the Old Royal Naval College in London, the team outlined its expansion to ne…

"Decentralized finance unlocks possibilities beyond what traditional finance can offer, but historically, it has required technical expertise to navigate," Johann Kerbrat, SVP and General Manager of Crypto and International at Robinhood, said in a statement shared with The Block ahead of the event. "We're bringing the best of traditional finance and DeFi together, and in doing so, expanding financial ownership to every corner of the globe."

The company officially launched the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer 2 network built using Arbitrum's tech stack "to institutional standards." Previously debuted on public testnet in February, Robinhood Chain day one partners include Uniswap, which is deploying a dedicated AMM to serve as a primary public liquidity protocol, and Pleiades, which is deploying a proprietary AMM to serve as a primary prop trading venue, the firm said. It also includes integrations with Alchemy, BitGo, and Chainlink, plus "out-of-the-box DeFi primitives" like lending and borrowing.

Robinhood described the chain as permissionless, AI-native, and purpose-built for real-world assets.

Tokenized stocks

The company also launched its new Stock Tokens, enabling eligible users to trade 24/7 directly on Robinhood Chain, as well as deploy the assets into lending pools and use them as trading collateral across the broader DeFi ecosystem.

According to Robinhood's disclosures, the Stock Tokens are tokenized debt securities issued by Robinhood Assets (Jersey) Limited that provide economic exposure to underlying securities, but do not grant investors legal or beneficial rights in the underlying stocks.

Robinhood said eligible users in more than 120 countries can access Stock Tokens via Robinhood Wallet, with spot trading available through decentralized exchanges including Uniswap, Rialto, Lighter, 1inch, and Arcus — built by the team behind dYdX. According to the disclosures, Stock Tokens are not available in the U.S. or to U.S. persons, and are subject to restrictions in other regions, including Canada, the UK, Switzerland, the UAE, and sanctioned jurisdictions.

Robinhood launched the first generation of its tokenized U.S. equities at its "To Catch a Token" event in Cannes in June 2025, switching on more than 200 stock and exchange-traded fund tokens for users across the EU and EEA. The tokens traded inside the existing Robinhood app on Arbitrum One. They were issued under MiFID II by a Robinhood Europe entity, custodied by a U.S. broker-dealer, traded roughly 24/5 with dividends paid in-app, but did not grant holders rights to the underlying securities.

These will now be referred to as "Classic Stock Tokens," the firm explained on Wednesday, to differentiate them from the new Stock Tokens, and will remain available in the Robinhood Europe app.

At last year's event, Tenev said Robinhood was also planning to offer users the chance to buy tokenized shares in private companies like OpenAI — a plan that saw pushback from the Sam Altman-led company. In response, Tenev called the promotion "a seed for something much bigger," adding that "many private companies are eager to join us in the tokenization revolution." He stressed that the tokens "aren't technically equity" but still give retail investors a way to track valuations.

Perpetual futures via Lighter

A revamped Robinhood Wallet gives eligible users in selected jurisdictions access to perpetual futures via the Ethereum-based decentralized exchange Lighter, the firm also announced on Wednesday. The product is unavailable to residents of the UK, U.S., Canada, Switzerland, UAE, Singapore, and other restricted jurisdictions, according to the disclosures.

Lighter raised $68 million in a funding round announced last November at a $1.5 billion valuation that included backing from Robinhood Ventures, and Tenev publicly congratulated founder Vladimir Novakovski and the Lighter team on its mainnet launch a month earlier.

In this latest collaboration, Lighter has committed $11 million of its native LIT tokens to the Robinhood community, according to the firm.

"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," Robinhood said.

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

Global expansion and agentic trading

Robinhood said it serves nearly 28 million customers across 38 countries and three continents as it continues to expand its international footprint.

However, the expansion push comes weeks after Robinhood said it would cut about 10% of its workforce, expecting $28 million in related restructuring charges, as part of a shift toward a leaner, more "high performance" operating model. It also follows a weaker first quarter for Robinhood's crypto business, with crypto revenue falling 47% year-over-year to $134 million and native-app crypto trading volume dropping 48% to $24 billion.

In Europe, Robinhood said Wednesday it is expanding beyond the crypto perpetual futures it began offering in 30 countries last year, with a phased rollout of 24/7 commodity, ETF, and FX perpetual futures for eligible users, including gold, silver, QQQ, EUR/USD, WTI, Brent crude oil, and EWY, with up to 10x leverage.

Robinhood used Canada Day to officially mark its launch across Canada, following the closure of its $180 million WonderFi acquisition on June 1.

With plans for a major expansion into Asia over the coming years, the firm said Robinhood Singapore had received a capital markets services licence from MAS, describing it as a step toward offering brokerage services to customers in the future.

For eligible U.S. users, the California-headquartered firm also began rolling out Robinhood Earn on Wednesday, which it described as the first decentralized lending product available directly through the main Robinhood app. Robinhood Earn enables users to lend dollar-backed USDG stablecoins through a self-custody wallet at an estimated 7% APY, the firm said. The underlying lending infrastructure is powered by Morpho, and the product's support partners also include Steakhouse, Ethena, Spark, and Maple. The product also includes insurance procured through Lloyd's of London and RELM to protect covered losses in the event of cyber or smart contract exploits, according to Robinhood.

Another focus in the U.S. is agentic trading, with the firm preparing to launch Agentic Accounts for crypto at no additional cost to eligible U.S. traders, following Robinhood's Agentic Trading launch for equities and options in the country last month.

"Using our Trading MCP, eligible U.S. traders can connect their AI model of choice to Robinhood data sources and tools," the firm said. "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."

Additionally, Robinhood said it is introducing maker order types for professional and advanced traders in the U.S., with a maker-taker fee structure as low as 0% based on volume.

Despite the London setting, the UK market received only a limited crypto update, with the firm saying it plans to launch crypto trading in the country "soon" to "strengthen Robinhood's position as an all-in-one investing platform for UK traders."

For now, its UK crypto offering remains separate from the main app via Bitstamp by Robinhood, the long-serving crypto platform it acquired for $200 million last year. Greater integration into Robinhood's core UK investing app may depend on regulatory clarity, as the country prepares to roll out its new crypto rules next year.

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