Robinhood launches public mainnet for tokenized stocks

Robinhood launched the public mainnet for its proprietary blockchain on Wednesday, marking a major expansion into on-chain financial infrastructure and tokenized asset trading. The announcement was made by CEO Vlad Tenev during a global event in London.

The new platform, called Robinhood Chain, is an Ethereum Layer 2 network built using Arbitrum technology. It is designed as institutional-grade infrastructure to support trading of tokenized real-world assets and decentralized finance applications. The company stated the chain is permissionless and AI-native.

A central component of the launch is a new generation of Stock Tokens, which are tokenized debt securities that provide economic exposure to underlying stocks. Eligible users in over 120 countries can trade these tokens around the clock via the Robinhood Wallet and use them as collateral in lending pools across the DeFi ecosystem. The tokens are issued by Robinhood Assets Jersey Limited and do not grant holders legal ownership or voting rights in the underlying securities. This offering is not available in the United States due to regulatory restrictions.

The company also introduced Robinhood Earn, a decentralized lending...