Robinhood Goes Layer‑2, Cuts Layer‑10: AI‑Native Chain Goes Live While 10% of Staff Head for the Exits 🚀

Robinhood launched the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain on Wednesday, an Ethereum layer‑2 network built on Arbitrum and marketed by the brokerage as "AI-native and purpose-built for real-world assets." The network debuted 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. It is also designed to support trading activity executed 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 mainnet went live roughly four months after entering testnet in February. Tokenized stock products, branded by Robinhood as "Stock Tokens," are now available through the Robinhood Wallet app to users in more than 120 countries, with eligible jurisdictions outside the United States able to place the tokens in lending pools and use them as collateral in DeFi. The wallet is also gaining in‑app perpetuals trading via decentralized exchange Lighter, and eligible U.S. users can access Robinhood Earn, a self‑custody feature for lending dollar‑backed stablecoin USDG at around 7% APY. The brokerage said it plans to expand crypto trading to the United Kingdom in the near future and is rolling out service to Canada and, soon, Singapore, adding to its base of nearly 28 million existing customers.

The launch comes against a backdrop of cost cutting at the publicly traded firm. CEO Vlad Tenev announced earlier this month that Robinhood is laying off roughly 10% of its employees as part of a restructuring effort to flatten the organization and build "a lean, hyper-focused team." "We cannot default to operating as a heavily-layered organization," Tenev told staff in an internal message shared by the company on X before Wednesday's opening bell. Robinhood disclosed in April that its crypto transaction revenue fell 34% quarter‑over‑quarter to $134 million from $221 million, and roughly 50% year‑on‑year from $252 million.

Robinhood's entry into the layer‑2 market places it in competition with networks including Base, the Coinbase‑backed Ethereum L2 that is the second‑largest by total value secured at approximately $11 billion. Base experienced two outages within hours of each other in June, which its engineering team attributed to a sequencer bug. Shares of Robinhood (HOOD) closed Wednesday up more than 8% at $108.65, leaving the stock up roughly 20% over the past month but still more than 29% below its 52‑week high of $153.86, with the company scheduled to release its 2026 second‑quarter results on July 29.