Robinhood & Lighter: Why Wall Street Is Moving Onchain

Robinhood is positioning Robinhood Chain and Robinhood Wallet as infrastructure for bringing more financial products onchain, while Lighter says it has spent four years building for that shift. Robinhood Chain launched about three months before the discussion and was approaching its 100th day. Lighter’s Vlad argued that blockchain systems can now meet traditional finance’s low-latency expectations without giving up security or verifiability. He also pointed to a more accommodating US regulatory climate, including at the SEC and CFTC, and greater institutional and policymaker understanding than four or five years ago.

Robinhood says more than 70% of its stock-token trading volume takes place outside exchange hours, mostly overnight and on weekends. Its 24-5 trading began with a limited set of tickers and assets because liquidity was thinner, but weekend access can let customers respond to news before Monday. That access comes with a pricing trade-off: a weekend market spans two or three days, and its price may diverge from Monday’s open or include a premium. Vlad said automated market makers can keep markets available when sophisticated market makers withdraw, though traders may have to accept wider spreads.

Robinhood sees demand for perpetual futures because customers want long and short exposure, leverage, and cross-margining. Johan contrasted perps’ visible order books with CFDs, where customers trade against the house through a broker-incorporated spread. Perpetuals are not ideal for every use: Vlad said dated futures may better match compute-hedging timelines, while options may suit other markets. Robinhood Wallet offers crypto perps and commodities through Lighter, with single-stock perps planned; the current selection is limited, and the offering is expected to grow as it reaches the US and other currently unavailable markets.

Robinhood intends for its Chain and Wallet to support stock tokens and perps, with options and other products also planned. Perps can provide leveraged exposure without transferring the underlying asset, while cross-margining could let a customer pledge stock tokens against a perp position rather than sell holdings and potentially trigger a tax event. Robinhood has 27 million funded accounts in the US, according to John. The company’s product goal is to make tokenized assets usable alongside other onchain positions, rather than treat each product as an isolated market.

US access remains conditional on the regulatory path. John said Robinhood had sought a clear federal framework that would allow it to offer the same product in all 50 states, but that framework had not materialized; SEC and CFTC proposals have nevertheless advanced the picture. Robinhood wants US perps to be competitive rather than constrained by limited clearing or settlement intervals longer than every second or 15 seconds. Vlad said Lighter is working with the CFTC to bring onchain perps to the US and is “pretty far along,” while discussions continue over how auto-deleveraging fits traditional DCO waterfall models.

Lighter is building infrastructure that lets different products share a balance sheet efficiently, and Vlad argued that KYC can coexist with decentralization. He cited Morpho’s integration into the Robinhood app and said more integrations may follow as regulators become comfortable. Lighter Core and Lighter on Robinhood Chain have substantial interoperability; sharing Ethereum as an underlying blockchain could help users operating across jurisdictions rebalance capital quickly, compared with as long as three days between traditional exchanges. Robinhood’s stock tokens are designed to be composable, and development around them is active. John expects onchain trading features to converge with Robinhood’s main app and smart wallet, while Vlad is optimistic that many onchain products will reach US customers.