HOOD's got a chain gang 🦊 AI agents now trade stocks that aren't even in the U.S.

Robinhood launched the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain on Wednesday, an Arbitrum-powered Ethereum layer-2 the company describes as "AI-native" and designed to bridge its traditional brokerage with its crypto stack. The network supports trading by AI agents and opened with integrations from BitGo and Chainlink, plus partnerships with Uniswap and Pleiades to provide dedicated automated market making for public liquidity and proprietary trading, respectively. Robinhood SVP and General Manager of Crypto and International Johann Kerbrat said in a statement, "Decentralized finance unlocks possibilities beyond what traditional finance can offer, but historically, it has required technical expertise to navigate," adding, "We're bringing the best of traditional finance and DeFi together, and in doing so, expanding financial ownership to every corner of the globe."

At the center of the rollout are Stock Tokens, onchain representations of shares in companies such as Nvidia and Apple that Robinhood says are now live and available through its wallet app in more than 120 countries. Eligible users outside the U.S. can place the tokens into lending pools and use them as collateral in DeFi, a structure the company says turns equity positions into composable on-chain capital. Robinhood also enabled perpetuals trading directly inside its wallet via the decentralized exchange Lighter, and switched on Robinhood Earn for eligible U.S. users, allowing them to lend the dollar-backed stablecoin USDG at around 7% APY.

The expansion comes as Robinhood disclosed on Tuesday that it is cutting roughly 10% of its workforce to streamline operations amid a steep decline in crypto-related revenue. CEO Vlad Tenev told employees the company cannot "default to operating as a heavily-layered organization," according to an internal message posted on X. Robinhood reported in April that crypto transaction revenue fell about 50% year-over-year, from $252 million to $134 million, and dropped 34% quarter-over-quarter from $221 million. The firm is scheduled to release 2026 second-quarter results on July 29.

Robinhood said it plans to launch crypto trading in the U.K. in the near future and has already opened the platform to users in Canada, with Singapore next, adding to a base of nearly 28 million existing customers. Shares in Robinhood (HOOD) finished Wednesday up more than 8% at $108.65, nearly 20% higher over the past month but still more than 29% below the 52-week high of $153.86. On the token side, Lighter's LIT token rose 15% to $2.14 following the integration.