Robinhood picks dYdX's pocket, rebrands it Arcus, and rolls out tokenized stocks on its own chain 🧅

dYdX Labs has partnered with Robinhood to relaunch its protocol as Arcus, a new decentralized exchange built on the Robinhood Chain, the Arbitrum-based layer-2 network that went live on Wednesday. An X account for Arcus announced that "dYdX is now Arcus," while the dYdX Foundation said that the existing dYdX blockchain "is not affected by it in any way" and would continue to be owned and operated by its community. Arcus said it would offer perpetuals trading and fee-free trading of 95 tokenized stocks, with the features set to go live this month. Tokenized stocks on the platform can also be used as collateral for perpetuals and provide access to pre-IPO markets.

The launch ties into Robinhood's broader push into tokenized assets and perpetual futures, segments that have grown sharply as US regulators have shown interest in easing market access for the products. Robinhood Crypto, the company's crypto technology arm, made an investment in Arcus, though the parties did not disclose further details. The dYdX Foundation described Arcus as "a distinct, independent product built on separate infrastructure," drawing a clear line between the new platform and the standalone dYdX blockchain. "Until now, traders have been shut out of the most valuable markets on earth — US equities, commodities, and indices — because of where they live, market hours, and institutions restricting access," Arcus said in a blog post. "We built Arcus to reduce these barriers."

The move positions Robinhood to compete more directly with the perpetuals-focused platform Hyperliquid, whose token has climbed nearly 150% so far this year as it has captured market share from established venues. It also comes as Coinbase has expanded into equities, having added access to thousands of stocks earlier this year, and as Coinbase's Ethereum layer-2 network Base, launched in 2023, has grown to become the fifth-largest blockchain by value locked, according to DeFiLlama. Bitget Wallet said on Wednesday that it partnered with Robinhood Crypto to integrate the Robinhood Chain, enabling its users to trade tokenized stocks, while the DEX 1inch said it would be among the first major swap platforms to support the new network. CFTC Chair Michael Selig said perpetuals trading is not suitable for all assets it regulates, a separate statement reflecting ongoing regulatory scrutiny of the product category.