Robinhood Goes Layer‑2 Mode, Axes 10% of Staff, Tokenizes the Vibes 🤖

Robinhood launched the public mainnet Wednesday for Robinhood Chain, an Arbitrum-powered Ethereum layer-2 network the brokerage described as "AI-native" and designed to connect traditional finance and decentralized finance. The network went live with integrations from BitGo and Chainlink, alongside partnerships with Uniswap and Pleiades to provide dedicated automated market making for public liquidity and proprietary trading, respectively. Robinhood said the chain also supports trading by AI agents.

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

The network extends the functionality of Robinhood's "Stock Tokens," which are tokenized, on-chain representations of shares in companies such as Nvidia and Apple. Eligible users outside the United States can place the tokens in lending pools and use them as collateral within DeFi protocols. Eligible U.S. users will be able to access Robinhood Earn, a product that allows individuals to lend the dollar-backed stablecoin USDG for approximately 7% APY. Robinhood Wallet users can also trade perpetual futures directly through a decentralized perpetuals exchange, Lighter.

The expansion arrives as Robinhood disclosed on Tuesday that it is laying off roughly 10% of its employees as part of an effort to streamline operations and support "a lean, hyper-focused team." CEO Vlad Tenev told employees the company "cannot default to operating as a heavily-layered organization," according to an internal message shared on X before the opening bell. Crypto-related revenue fell 34% quarter-over-quarter to $134 million from $221 million.

Robinhood said it is welcoming users from Canada, with Singapore to follow, and expects to offer crypto services in the U.K. in the near future. The platform already counts nearly 28 million existing customers. Shares of Robinhood (HOOD) closed Wednesday up more than 8%, last changing hands at $108.65, a gain of nearly 20% over the past month but still more than 29% below the 52-week high of $153.86.