HONG KONG — Robinhood launched its public testnet for its own Ethereum layer 2 blockchain on Wednesday with plans for a wider launch later this year, as the brokerage app aims to move more trading activity onto the chain.
The new network, called Robinhood Chain, is built on Arbitrum and is designed to support real-world tokenized assets, including stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and other assets. Developers will be able to publicly leverage the network for the first time after six months of private testing, ahead of the future mainnet launch, the company announced at CoinDesk’s Consensus conference in Hong Kong.
With this channel, Robinhood aims to allow users to trade 24/7 and self-custody their assets in Robinhood’s own crypto wallet. Users will also be able to link different chains and access decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on Ethereum. the company said in a statement.
The moment comes as Ethereum’s core roadmap refocuses more attention on the base layer. Some upgrades have already reduced transaction costs, and other improvements are expected to continue to reduce congestion, a development that weakens the case for Layer 2s as a pure necessity for scaling.
Robinhood’s approach suggests that it is already operating under this assumption.
“I think Vitalik (Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum) was always pretty clear about that, that the L2s weren’t there just to scale Ethereum,” said Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s senior vice president and general manager of crypto, in an interview with CoinDesk.
“For us, it was never really about scaling Ethereum or making faster transactions,” Kerbrat added.
The move builds on Robinhood’s previous steps in tokenization. Last year, the company rolled out tokenized versions of U.S. stocks and ETFs to European users with dividend payouts and extended market hours.
These assets – nearly 2,000 stocks and ETFs, according to Entropy Advisors data on Dune Analytics – were initially issued on Arbitrum. However, the $15 million total value of stock tokens issued by Robinhood lags behind major issuers xStocks and Ondo Global Markets.
When rollups – ways of processing transactions on Layer 2 networks to reduce congestion on the core network – first gained traction, they were widely touted as Ethereum’s answer to high fees and limited throughput. As Ethereum’s Layer 1 capability improves, this narrative gives way to another: Layer 2s as customizable, application-specific environments that can integrate features that are difficult to implement on Ethereum itself.
“What we wanted was the security of Ethereum, the liquidity available on EVM chains and the Ethereum ecosystem,” Kerbrat said. “But we also wanted to have a way to customize the chain and make it really optimized for traditional assets to be tokenized.”
Rather than competing with other rollups focused on high-speed trading, Robinhood Chain is designed around tokenized stocks and other regulated financial products, where compliance requirements vary by jurisdiction.
“The complexity of recreating the entire financial system, and on top of that, bringing more stuff into it, means that I think the chains are going to specialize,” Kerbrat said. “You will see channels that are more specialized in payments, and you will see channels like ours that will be more specialized in tokenized stocks.”
Buterin recently argued that some rollups might have to accept different tradeoffs when it comes to decentralization, especially when compliance or real-world assets are involved, a view that has sparked debate across the ecosystem.
For Robinhood, Kerbrat said, this change does not materially change its strategy.
“It really doesn’t change anything for us,” he said. “We’ve always built with the idea that there are different compliance requirements depending on jurisdiction, and that all of those things can be integrated into the chain. »
Robinhood first announced plans to create its own blockchain in June 2025, positioning the project as part of a broader push for tokenization and on-chain finance. Since then, development has largely taken place out of the public eye.
With the testnet now operational, developers can access network entry points, documentation, and standard Ethereum development tools. Ahead of mainnet, Robinhood plans to expand testnet functionality to include test-only assets, including stock tokens, as well as deeper integrations with its wallet and other on-chain financial tools.
Read more: Robinhood Explains Building Ethereum Layer 2: “We Wanted the Security of Ethereum”
