Robinhood Chain mainnet goes live on Arbitrum, adding prediction markets and lending to brokerage’s crypto expansion
Robinhood launched the public mainnet for Robinhood Chain on July 1, marking the brokerage’s entry into blockchain infrastructure. The Ethereum layer-2 built on Arbitrum supports tokenized real-world assets, decentralized finance applications, and trading activity across multiple product lines.
The launch event took place in London and unveiled a suite of interconnected services: Stock Tokens available through Robinhood Wallet in 120 countries with around-the-clock trading, a decentralized lending product called Robinhood Earn offering 7% annual percentage yield, perpetual futures with up to 10x leverage, and prediction market infrastructure.
Chief Executive Officer Vlad Tenev framed the prediction market opportunity as foundational to Robinhood’s blockchain strategy. “Robinhood is near the beginning of a prediction-market cycle,” Tenev said. The company cited a $500 million annual revenue run rate for prediction markets, though current quarterly revenue remains lower. An Artemis report tracked 12.3 billion event contracts traded through June 25, implying roughly $123 million in quarterly prediction market revenue at a 1 cent per contract take rate.
Robinhood’s prediction market play centers on two platforms with different scale. Kalshi, the leading US prediction market platform, operates under a partnership with Robinhood. Rothera, a smaller venue tied to Robinhood and Susquehanna, recorded $900 million in platform volume over a recent one-week period, though that spike may partly reflect temporary demand in sports betting.
Stock Tokens on Robinhood Chain enable collateral use in DeFi applications and trade continuously, unlike traditional markets. Robinhood Earn uses lending infrastructure powered by Morpho with insurance coverage from Lloyd’s of London and RELM. Integration partners include Alchemy, BitGo, and Chainlink. Uniswap is deploying an automated market maker on Robinhood Chain, alongside Pleiades with its proprietary AMM.
The launch reflects Robinhood’s broader crypto expansion. The brokerage reported $134 million in first-quarter crypto transaction revenue and has secured a capital markets services license in Singapore. Robinhood plans to launch crypto trading in the UK and is rolling out commodity, ETF, and FX perpetual futures to European users through Bitstamp by Robinhood, a MiFID II-authorized multilateral trading facility. The company acquired WonderFi to accelerate Canadian expansion.
Robinhood also introduced Agentic Accounts, allowing US users to connect AI models to its trading infrastructure through Trading MCP. The feature automates trade execution for users who grant permission to integrated AI agents.
Robinhood Chain’s launch positions the brokerage to compete with established crypto infrastructure providers while leveraging its retail user base. Stock Tokens and prediction markets represent new asset classes for traditional brokerages, though regulatory clarity remains incomplete in several jurisdictions. Prediction markets have grown despite legal and regulatory challenges in the US and other regions.
