The History of Robinhood Chain

On June 30, 2025, on a stage in Cannes, Robinhood did two things at once. It switched on tokenized U.S. stocks for European users, and it said it would build a blockchain of its own to carry them. A little over a year later, it had one. This is the short, fast history of how Robinhood Chain went from a slide in a keynote to a live network.

The sequence is worth following because it tracks a single decision playing out in stages: a consumer broker moving from renting the rails its assets settle on to owning them. Every date and detail here comes from public reporting and Robinhood's own materials.

June 2025: tokenized stocks, on someone else's chain

Robinhood's tokenized-stock product launched first, and not on a chain of its own. At the Cannes event, the company switched on more than 200 stock and ETF tokens for verified users across the EU and EEA, trading inside the existing Robinhood Crypto app. According to CoinDesk and Robinhood's newsroom, those tokens ran on Arbitrum at launch, with a dedicated Layer 2 planned to take over settlement later. (Interstice Digital does not offer or advise on tokenized stocks.)

The launch also drew early scrutiny. Robinhood handed out "OpenAI" and "SpaceX" tokens at the event, OpenAI publicly disavowed them, and the Bank of Lithuania, Robinhood's lead EU regulator, said it had asked the company for clarification. That episode is covered separately in this series.

February 2026: a testnet

The chain itself arrived in stages. Robinhood Chain's public testnet went live on February 10, 2026. According to reporting at the time, it processed roughly 4 million transactions in its first week, an early sign of interest before any real value was at stake.

July 2026: the mainnet, and its own dollar

The public mainnet launched on July 1, 2026, announced at a Robinhood keynote in London. According to Robinhood's documentation and coverage of the launch, Robinhood Chain is an Ethereum Layer 2 built with Arbitrum's technology, the Orbit stack running the Nitro client. It settles on Ethereum, uses ETH to pay transaction fees, targets block times of roughly 100 milliseconds, and runs as chain ID 4663. Familiar infrastructure came with it, including Alchemy, Chainlink, LayerZero, the compliance-analytics firm TRM Labs, a Uniswap deployment, and BitGo for custody.

Two choices stood out. Robinhood migrated its Stock Tokens onto the new chain and added on-chain features around them, including lending and borrowing and what it billed as agentic, or AI-driven, trading. And it chose USDG, the Global Dollar issued by Paxos, as the chain's house stablecoin, rather than USDC.

The weeks after: memecoins, and MetaMask

The chain's early life did not go to script. Multiple outlets, including CoinDesk, reported that in the first weeks on-chain activity was dominated by memecoins rather than the tokenized stocks the network was built to carry. Around the same time, according to reporting on the integration, MetaMask added support for Robinhood Chain, making it easy for one of the most widely used Ethereum wallets to connect.

What the sequence shows

Read in order, the history is one decision unfolding. A broker listed real-world assets on a chain it did not control, then built and switched on a chain it did, and moved those assets onto it. That is a company deciding the settlement layer under its products is worth owning rather than renting. What it does with that control from here is not something anyone outside Robinhood can yet say.

Where Interstice Digital fits

As Robinhood Chain became a live network, it became one more place value needs to move to and from compliantly. Robinhood Chain is one of the networks the Interstice Digital Cross-Chain Swap Engine already supports, alongside Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Hyperliquid, with Canton as the constant leg. Its stated purpose is to let organizations and individuals "move between Canton, Ethereum and USDC, without sacrificing compliance." Every swap is non-custodial and settles atomically, and every counterparty is screened at the individual, business, and wallet level before anything moves. Interstice Digital runs as a Featured App on Canton Network.

FAQ

When did Robinhood Chain launch?
Its public testnet went live on February 10, 2026, and its mainnet on July 1, 2026, according to Robinhood and contemporaneous reporting.

What did Robinhood use before its own chain?
Its tokenized stocks first launched on Arbitrum in June 2025, inside the Robinhood Crypto app, before migrating to Robinhood Chain.

What is Robinhood Chain built on?
Arbitrum's technology stack (the Orbit stack with the Nitro client), settling on Ethereum, using ETH for gas, on chain ID 4663.

How does Interstice Digital relate to it?
The Cross-Chain Swap Engine supports Robinhood Chain as one of its networks, with Canton as the constant leg, and settles every swap atomically, non-custodially, and with counterparty screening.

The bottom line

In about a year, Robinhood went from listing tokenized stocks on a chain it did not control to running one of its own. The history is short. The direction is the point: a broker decided the rails its assets settle on were worth building itself.

Disclaimer

This content is provided for informational purposes only. It discusses Robinhood Chain and Robinhood's products using publicly available sources that Interstice Digital has not independently verified, and it may not reflect the most recent developments. Interstice Digital works closely with the Canton and Robinhood Chain ecosystem, but does not represent or speak for Robinhood or any other third party. Nothing in this post constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Interstice Digital is not a registered broker-dealer or money transmitter.

About Interstice Digital

Interstice Digital is a U.S.-based digital asset infrastructure company building trading and settlement solutions for compliance-minded individuals and organizations. Interstice Digital is a wholly owned subsidiary of Everyrealm Inc., backed by a16z Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Lightspeed, Galaxy, Brevan Howard, and Liberty City Ventures.

Media Contact: press@intersticedigital.io

Footnotes

[1] June 30, 2025 Cannes launch on Arbitrum and own-chain reveal: CoinDesk and Robinhood newsroom.

[2] OpenAI/SpaceX token episode and Bank of Lithuania scrutiny: CNBC and related reporting.

[3] Testnet on February 10, 2026 and ~4 million first-week transactions: contemporaneous reporting.

[4] Mainnet July 1, 2026, Arbitrum Orbit/Nitro, ETH gas, ~100ms, chain ID 4663, integrations: Cobo, thirdweb, Decrypt, and Robinhood documentation.

[5] USDG selection: Crypto Briefing and Global Dollar (Paxos).

[6] Early memecoin activity: CoinDesk. MetaMask integration, mid-2026: reporting on the integration.

[7] Interstice Digital capability and supported networks: Interstice Digital product documentation.