In a move that could redefine how everyday investors interact with Wall Street, Robinhood has officially stepped into the blockchain arena with the launch of Robinhood Chain, a custom-built Layer 2 network designed to put real-world financial assets—like stocks and ETFs—directly on-chain.
The U.S.-based trading platform, valued at roughly $76 billion, is no longer content acting as a bridge to financial markets. Instead, it’s building its own rails, signaling a deeper push to merge traditional finance (TradFi) with decentralized finance (DeFi).
Announced on February 10, the new blockchain enters public testnet with an ambitious goal: enable seamless, compliant, 24/7 trading of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs)—something traditional exchanges have never been able to offer.
A Blockchain Built for Wall Street Assets
Robinhood Chain is powered by Arbitrum Orbit, leveraging Ethereum’s security while dramatically improving speed and cost efficiency. As a Layer 2 network, it processes transactions in batches rather than individually, reducing congestion and enabling cheaper trades.
Unlike many crypto-native blockchains, however, Robinhood’s network embeds regulatory compliance directly into the protocol layer—a design choice aimed squarely at institutional investors wary of the legal gray zones surrounding DeFi.
The platform already supports more than 1,000 tokenized stocks and ETFs for European users, and these assets are expected to migrate onto Robinhood’s proprietary chain when it launches fully.
Trading Stocks Like Crypto—Anytime, Anywhere
The biggest shift Robinhood is proposing isn’t technological—it’s behavioral.
Traditional equity markets close. Blockchain markets don’t.
Robinhood Chain allows:
24/7 trading of tokenized equities and ETFs
Low-cost execution compared to legacy exchanges
On-chain settlement for greater transparency
Self-custody via Robinhood Wallet
Access to Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem for lending, borrowing, or yield strategies
This effectively turns traditionally static financial instruments into programmable, always-liquid assets.
Developers Get a New Financial Sandbox
Robinhood is also opening the door to builders. The public testnet gives developers access to RWAs inside a familiar Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) environment, alongside APIs and SDKs designed to blend regulated assets with DeFi functionality.
That means developers can experiment with applications like:
Tokenized private equity markets
Automated ETF lending platforms
On-chain portfolio management tools
Hybrid TradFi-DeFi investment protocols
To ensure pricing accuracy and reduce infrastructure risks, Robinhood has partnered with Chainlink for oracle services—an essential layer for securely linking real-world asset values to blockchain systems.
Entering the Explosive RWA Tokenization Race
Tokenized real-world assets have rapidly become one of the defining narratives of the 2025–2026 crypto cycle. Financial heavyweights—from BlackRock to specialized tokenization firms—are racing to bring trillions of dollars in traditional assets on-chain.
Robinhood now joins a competitive Layer 2 field that includes:
Coinbase’s Base, which focuses on consumer-friendly DeFi and boasts over $10 billion in total value locked (TVL)
Polygon, known for enterprise-grade tokenization infrastructure
Institutional RWA platforms such as Securitize-backed ecosystems
Robinhood’s differentiation lies in its finance-first design: instead of adapting crypto for finance, it is redesigning blockchain specifically for regulated markets.
Why Institutions Are Paying Attention
Institutional adoption is central to Robinhood Chain’s strategy.
Built-in compliance tools address KYC and AML requirements, helping reduce operational and regulatory risks—two of the biggest barriers preventing large asset managers from entering DeFi.
At the same time, institutions can maintain custody of assets while still tapping Ethereum’s liquidity pools, blending centralized safeguards with decentralized flexibility.
This hybrid structure could unlock billions in traditional capital for on-chain markets, potentially boosting Ethereum’s ecosystem-wide liquidity.
Challenges Still Loom
Despite the promise, Robinhood Chain faces familiar Layer 2 hurdles:
Sequencer centralization risks
Bridge security concerns
Regulatory scrutiny over tokenized securities
Competition from entrenched crypto-native ecosystems
Yet Robinhood believes its regulated-first architecture gives it an edge in attracting cautious institutional capital that has so far avoided pure DeFi environments.
What Comes Next?
After roughly six months of private testing, Robinhood plans a full mainnet launch in 2026, migrating its existing tokenized stock offerings onto the new chain.
If successful, the initiative could fundamentally reshape how investors interact with financial markets—turning equities into always-on, programmable assets that behave more like digital tokens than traditional securities.
Robinhood is pitching itself not merely as a broker adapting to crypto, but as a “zero-to-one” innovator building the infrastructure for a unified financial system.
And if the experiment works, the next generation of traders may never think of markets as opening—or closing—ever again.