dYdX Labs Trades the Old Name for a New Chainmate: Arcus 🤝

Robinhood Chain has gone live the same day it was announced as the home of Arcus, a new decentralized exchange built by dYdX Labs in partnership with Robinhood. The Arbitrum-based layer 2 launched Wednesday, and an X account for Arcus confirmed that "dYdX is now Arcus." The dYdX Foundation said dYdX Labs created Arcus "in partnership with Robinhood" and that the dYdX blockchain "is not affected by it in any way," adding that Arcus "is a distinct, independent product built on separate infrastructure." Robinhood Crypto, the company's crypto technology arm, made an investment in Arcus, though further details were not disclosed.

Arcus said it will offer perpetuals and tokenized stock trading that go live this month, covering 95 tokenized stocks and allowing tokenized stocks to be used as collateral for perpetuals, with plans to expand into pre-IPO offerings. "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." Robinhood Crypto director of product management Seong Seog Lee said the launch fits the firm's broader ethos: "Robinhood has always believed that the financial system should work for everyone. Arcus is the natural extension of that mission into the onchain world."

Pricing will be a key differentiator: Arcus will charge zero fees for trading 95 tokenized stocks, with 24/7 access and perpetuals backed by Robinhood Chain liquidity. The launch lands as US regulators have shown growing interest in allowing tokenized assets and perpetual products to more easily come to market, and as Hyperliquid's token has climbed nearly 150% so far this year while capturing market share in crypto perpetuals.

The news has not been kind to the existing token. The announcement was teased for five days, pushing DYDX to nearly double ahead of the reveal in a front-run that AMBCrypto projected would resolve as a sell-the-news event. As of writing, DYDX has dropped 45%, erasing the pre-announcement gains. The dYdX Foundation stressed the two are unrelated: "DYDX is, and remains, the governance and staking token of dYdX Chain. Its mechanics, supply, and operational characteristics remain unchanged." Data showed Supply on Exchanges ticking up while Tokens Outside of Exchanges stayed flat, indicating the positive sentiment did not translate into fresh spot demand.

Robinhood's wider ecosystem push also continued on Wednesday. Bitget Wallet, the self-custodial wallet from the Bitget crypto exchange, said it partnered with Robinhood Crypto to integrate Robinhood Chain for trading tokenized stocks, and the decentralized exchange 1inch said it would be among the first major swap platforms to support the network. Coinbase previously launched its own Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Base in 2023, which has grown to become the fifth-largest by value locked according to DeFiLlama.