HONG KONG – Robinhood launched its public testnet for its own Layer 2 Ethereum blockchain on Wednesday with plans for a broader launch later this year as the brokerage app aims to move more trading activity on-chain.
The new network, called Robinhood Chain, is based 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 build publicly on the network for the first time after six months of private testing, ahead of a future mainnet launch, the company announced at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference.
With the chain, 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 build bridges between different chains and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on Ethereum. the company said in a press release.
The moment comes as Ethereum’s core roadmap shifts more attention to the base layer. Certain upgrades have already reduced transaction costs, and other improvements are expected to continue to alleviate congestion, a development that weakens the arguments in favor of Layer 2 as a pure necessity for scaling.
Robinhood’s approach suggests it is already operating under that assumption.
“I think Vitalik [Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum] It was always pretty clear on this, that L2s weren’t just here to scale Ethereum,” said Johann Kerbrat, senior vice president and general manager of crypto at Robinhood, in an interview with CoinDesk.
“For us, it was never really about scaling Ethereum or making transactions faster,” Kerbrat added.
The move builds on Robinhood’s previous steps toward tokenization. Last year, the company launched tokenized versions of U.S. stocks and ETFs for European users with dividend payments and extended market hours.
Those assets (nearly 2,000 stocks and ETFs, according to data from Entropy Advisors in Dune Analytics) were initially issued on Arbitrum. However, the $15 million in total value of stock tokens minted by Robinhood lags behind top issuers xStocks and Ondo Global Markets.
When rollups (ways of processing transactions on Layer 2 networks to alleviate congestion on the base network) first gained traction, they were widely framed as Ethereum’s answer to high fees and limited performance. As Ethereum’s Layer 1 capability improves, that narrative is giving way to a different one: Layers 2 as customizable, application-specific environments that can incorporate features difficult to implement in 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 really optimize it for the traditional assets that are tokenized.”
Rather than competing with other rollups focused on high-speed trading, Robinhood Chain is being designed around tokenized stocks and other regulated financial products, where compliance requirements vary by jurisdiction.
“The complexity of recreating the entire financial system and, in addition, incorporating more things, makes me think that the chains are going to specialize,” Kerbrat said. “You will see chains that will be more specialized in payments, and you will see chains like ours that will be more specialized in tokenized stocks.”
Buterin has recently argued that some rollups may need to accept different decentralization tradeoffs, particularly when compliance or real-world assets are involved, a view that has sparked debate across the ecosystem.
For Robinhood, Kerbrat said, that change does not materially change its strategy.
“This doesn’t really change anything for us,” he said. “We’ve always been building with the idea that there are different compliance requirements depending on the jurisdiction, and all of these things can be integrated into the chain.”
Robinhood first announced plans for its own blockchain in June 2025, positioning the project as part of a broader push toward tokenization and on-chain finance. Since then, development has largely occurred out of public view.
With the testnet now available, developers can access network entry points, documentation, and standard Ethereum development tools. Ahead of the mainnet, Robinhood plans to expand testnet functionality to include test-only assets, including stock tokens, along with deeper integrations with its wallet and other on-chain financial tools.
Read more: Robinhood explains building an Ethereum layer 2: “We wanted the security of Ethereum”
