Robinhood Confirms Ethereum L2 on Arbitrum; HOOD Rallies 11% to $92

Robinhood (HOOD) officially entered the blockchain infrastructure race Saturday, announcing a proprietary Ethereum Layer 2 network built on the Arbitrum stack. The disclosure, paired with the immediate rollout of tokenized US equities for European customers, sent HOOD shares surging 11.25% to $92.37 in early trading.

The Infrastructure Play

The fintech giant’s pivot to a sovereign chain mirrors Coinbase’s strategy with Base, but with a distinct technical partner. While Coinbase utilized the OP Stack, Robinhood selected Arbitrum to anchor its architecture. Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s GM of Crypto, framed the decision as a security imperative rather than a scalability convenience.

Creating the security of a real proper decentralized chain is extremely difficult…with Ethereum, we get the security by default.

The network is currently in development and will prioritize Real World Assets (RWAs), specifically 24/7 trading and self-custody logic hard-coded into the settlement layer.

Immediate Product Rollout

Alongside the infrastructure roadmap, Robinhood activated tokenized stock trading for its European user base. Eligible accounts in the EU can now trade tokens representing US equities (such as Apple and Nvidia) and ETFs with zero commissions. Unlike traditional markets, these assets settle on-chain, bypassing the T+1 settlement cycle standard in legacy finance.

The update also expanded yield products, enabling European users to stake Solana (SOL) and Ethereum (ETH) directly through the app.

Institutional Context

The move cements a growing consensus among fintech majors: Ethereum is the settlement layer for institutional finance. With JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and now Robinhood building execution layers on top of Ethereum, the “L2 Wars” have shifted from crypto-native protocols to publicly traded powerhouses fighting for liquidity dominance.