Robinhood's Plan to Bring Global Finance Onchain | Johann Kerbrat

Robinhood launched Bitcoin and Ethereum trading in 2018 and has since grown to 11 business lines each generating at least 100 million dollars in annual revenue, with approximately 27 million funded accounts. The Robinhood chain launched on July 1st as an Ethereum L2 built on the Arbitrum stack, chosen for Ethereum's liquidity, decentralization, and security, while the L2 structure gives Robinhood direct control over block time and gas fees. Robinhood built a new chain rather than acquiring an existing one specifically to avoid legacy technical debt and to cultivate a fresh developer ecosystem. The crypto wallet is now live in more than 120 countries.

Within three weeks of launch the chain processed over 105 million transactions, accumulated approximately one billion dollars in TVL, reached a market cap of roughly 750 million dollars, and recorded over half a billion dollars in DEX volume in a single 24-hour period. Kerbrat noted that most of this volume came from pure DeFi users migrating from other chains, a segment Robinhood had not previously reached. The stocktoken real-world asset project on the chain had about 19 million dollars in TVL at the time of recording. Robinhood seeded stablecoin TVL at launch by simultaneously releasing lending products and partnerships with Slider, Prep Stacks, and Arcus.

Robinhood partnered with Morpho for lending at an initial rate of approximately 7 percent, with Kerbrat stating that rate would remain stable for a period before adjusting based on activity. Robinhood does not currently have a revenue share arrangement with Morpho and is explicitly prioritizing adoption over revenue optimization. To cover smart contract risk, Robinhood partnered with Lloyds of London to create what Kerbrat described as probably one of the largest insurance programs in crypto, which required Morpho to provide detailed underwriting information. Robinhood also created a perpetuals experience allowing users to use stock tokens as collateral, built in partnership with Blider, in which Robinhood has invested, with the revenue share arrangement public and on-chain. Regulatory uncertainty around perpetuals in the US remains a significant caveat, while Robinhood offers perpetuals through its centralized EU platform using Bitstamp as the exchange.

Robinhood acquired Bitstamp last year, adding institutional business including staking and lending revenue streams. Robinhood also operates a crypto-as-a-service offering used by banks in Europe, with BBVA cited as an example, providing white-label crypto access and stablecoin on and off ramping for institutional clients. The chain is integrated directly into the main Robinhood app and is permissionless, which Kerbrat described as a key differentiator, allowing Robinhood to connect to market makers and decentralized exchanges without needing separate fixed-line agreements with each partner.

Kerbrat argued that tokenized equities are underhyped, particularly for non-US users who lack easy access to US stocks and ETFs, and said regulation rather than technology is the primary barrier to wider adoption. For US users he expects tokenization benefits to become more apparent with assets like real estate, art, private equity, and stocks listed on foreign exchanges. Robinhood currently carries both tokenized and non-tokenized versions of assets such as SpaceX on its platform, separated by product line. Kerbrat views Coinbase entering the onchain product space as a net positive rather than a competitive threat, arguing tokenized assets only gain legitimacy when more platforms adopt them.

Kerbrat described global access as a primary motivation for moving financial products onchain, noting that many regions lack accessible brokers or banks but have phone and internet access, and that European platforms still charge at least one euro per trade. He views the onchain strategy as a faster path to global expansion than building country by country. He predicted that onchain and offchain worlds will converge but said a full migration of Robinhood onto the chain is likely more than five years away. Robinhood has no current plans to launch a native token and uses Ethereum as the gas token, with a Robinhood-specific token considered only if it provided genuine customer benefits.

The chain is built to be AI-first from the ground up, with skills already deployed from partners including Privy and Uniswap to support agent creation. Kerbrat tracks daily active users and total value locked as primary metrics, acknowledging that AI agents and bots can distort transaction count and wallet count figures. He is explicit that Robinhood does not want a chain populated mainly by bots or sophisticated traders but one serving a broad general user base. Robinhood's stated strategic goal is expanding the total global crypto user base rather than capturing share from users already active in crypto.