Robinhood has launched a public testnet for Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum layer-2 built with Arbitrum, opening the network to developers ahead of a planned mainnet later this year.
The company detailed the rollout at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference and in a release shared with Cointelegraph.
The brokerage says the chain is built for financial-grade use cases such as 24/7 trading, self-custody through Robinhood Wallet, cross-chain bridging, and access to decentralized finance on Ethereum.
It is the latest step in Robinhood’s push to bring both real-world and digital assets on-chain.
A blockchain focused on tokenized finance
Robinhood Chain is an Arbitrum-based network intended to support tokenized assets, including equities and exchange-traded funds.
According to a release shared with Cointelegraph, the testnet provides network access points, documentation at docs.chain.robinhood.com, compatibility with standard Ethereum development tools, and early integrations from infrastructure partners.
Ahead of mainnet, Robinhood plans to expand testnet functionality with test-only assets such as stock-style tokens and deeper integrations with Robinhood Wallet.
Johann Kerbrat, senior vice president and general manager of crypto and international at Robinhood, said the testnet lays the groundwork for “an ecosystem that will define the future of tokenized real-world assets” and connect builders to Ethereum’s liquidity.
Why it matters
The move signals a shift from simply listing digital assets to operating core on-chain infrastructure.
It mirrors a broader industry trend where major platforms seek to control both the front-end experience and the underlying rails.
Coinbase, for example, operates Base and has announced the start of its rollout of tokenized equities in Dec. 2025.
Kraken is developing Ink, an Optimism-based layer-2, alongside xStocks tokenized equities.
Kerbrat told CoinDesk that the initiative is not primarily about scaling Ethereum or faster transactions.
“I think Vitalik [Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum] was always pretty clear on this, that L2s were not just here to scale Ethereum,” he said, adding that Robinhood wanted “the security of Ethereum, the liquidity that is available on EVM chains,” and the ability to customize the chain for traditional assets.
He argued that chains will specialize by use case, noting Robinhood Chain is being designed around tokenized equities and regulated financial products, where compliance needs vary by jurisdiction.
He also said evolving views on rollups and decentralization trade-offs for real-world assets do not change the company’s approach.
Expanding on-chain infrastructure ambitions
Last year, Robinhood rolled out token versions of US stocks and ETFs for European users, including dividend payments and extended market hours.
Those assets, almost 2,000 stocks and ETFs according to data by Entropy Advisors on Dune Analytics, were initially issued on Arbitrum, though their total value trails leading issuers xStocks and Ondo Global Markets.
Robinhood has previously faced criticism over trading outages during market stress and its reliance on payment for order flow in equities.
CEO Vlad Tenev said in January that tokenized stocks could help prevent trading freezes due to real-time settlement on blockchains.
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