The popular commission-free trading app, Robinhood, has officially launched the public testnet for Robinhood Chain, built on Arbitrum Orbit, an Ethereum-based Layer-2 blockchain using Chainlink as the oracle infrastructure.
Moving closer to tokenized finance with Arbitrum
The move was announced during the popular consensus event in Hong Kong, despite the talks during June 2025 to bring the company into crypto-based financial services, with even the tokenized version of popular stocks. The company launched tokenized stocks to its client base in Europe on the Arbitrum One during this period, offering 24/5 trading access to over 2,000 stocks listed on U.S. exchanges.
The testnet allows limited but public partners and participants to test the Robinhood chain infrastructure and introduce experimental features. Robinhood wallets will also support direct testing. Next, the “mainnet” version of the chain is set to go live and be used to process customer transactions.
“Builders can leverage Chainlink’s data, interoperability, and compliance standards to power advanced tokenization use cases,” the official announcement stated.
What is Robinhood Chain built on?
The chain is built over Arbitrum, a Layer-2 network on the Ethereum blockchain. They are designed to process transactions in sections, making them cheaper, more affordable, and more efficient. The chain is focused on tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), on-chain finance, and compliance-friendly services with Chainlink, Alchemy, etc.
Robinhood’s rival, Coinbase, works on Optimism, the second dominant technology on Layer 2 after Arbitrum, used to customize it for its successful Base blockchain. With tokenization filling the room for conversations, Robinhood Chain is the company’s next move, which, according to CEO Vlad Tenev, is a “freight train’ coming to financial markets. This way, they turn various assets into digital tokens, including stocks to be traded on the blockchain, the same way as Ethereum.
Robinhood posts strong Q4 2025 profitability
Alongside the announcement, the company also reported its fourth-quarter earnings for 2025, showing a profit of $605 million, or 66% a share.
User reactions gave mixed signals on the X post under the announcement. Users took to X, expressing their concerns and asking questions to Grok to verify how this announcement benefits them.
A user even commented that the $LINK token appeared “unfazed.” Some even stated that the announcement seemed to highlight the role of Arbitrum more than the role of Chainlink.
Robinhood’s broader crypto push comes against a mixed financial backdrop. According to reports, their revenue from cryptocurrency trading fell 38% year over year to $221 million in the fourth quarter, down from $268 million in the previous quarter, signaling a slowdown in crypto activity on the platform.
