Robinhood unveils L2, tokenized stocks and perpetual futures for EU users
Robinhood announced that it’s building an L2 and also plans to launch staking for US users
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Robinhood is expanding its crypto suite, and they’re launching a layer-2 blockchain.
The L2 will be built on Arbitrum, and the goal is to optimize for tokenized real-world assets, including tokenized stocks that will initially only be available for users in the European Union.
Over 200 stocks and ETFs will be available for EU users, and they’ll also receive dividends for holding the tokens. Similarly to the L2, the tokens will be issued on Arbitrum. Last week, Gemini announced that it would also be launching tokenized stocks in the EU, starting with MSTR.
The L2 is still in development, and Robinhood eventually wants it to be able to support 24/7 trading, self-custody and bridging.
“Last year, in a nutshell, I was really like, ‘How do we rebuild Robinhood, in [many] countries, completely onchain?’ I think that’s kind of what we are delivering right now. It’s really exciting to see that in one app… and we are able to offer stock, ETF, perpetual, spot crypto. And you know, in the future, you could see the connection between all these products,” Robinhood’s Johann Kerbrat told Blockworks.
Alongside tokenized stocks, eligible EU users will also be able to trade perpetual futures. The orders are routed through Bitstamp’s perpetual features exchange (following Robinhood’s acquisition).
“To get access to perps, you will have to fill out a questionnaire and make sure that you’re a qualified trader…The goal for us is to make it easy and to be able to use that when you want to go there, but we’re also making sure that we are compliant, and we’re offering these products to the right people,” Kerbrat said.
The next big step for Kerbrat and Robinhood is opening more to DeFi, he added.
Robinhood told Blockworks that it’s now built the technology, and all it needs is a bit of clarity before it rolls out the same features to US users.
But US users aren’t being completely left out, Robinhood will be rolling out Ethereum and Solana staking to US users, a feature it launched in the EU over a year ago. It will also let US users pick the tax lots for crypto trades, basically meaning that a user holding bitcoin could choose which one to sell.
“We’re onboarding the world to crypto by making it as easy to use as possible—with the goal of bringing powerful tools into one intuitive platform,” Kerbrat said in a press release.
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