Author: Alea Research

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Introduction: Stock tokenization projects have been around for several years but no one has used them, and the fundamental reason is not technology, but the lack of distribution channels—users are on brokerage apps while tokens are on cryptocurrency exchanges. Robinhood's chain brought over 28 million retail users directly, and after the mainnet launch on July 1, users can trade Apple and Nvidia tokens 24/7, and can also lend stablecoin USDG to earn a 7% annualized return. If the trading volume share of stock tokens continues to rise in the next few quarters, the tokenization of stocks may really take off.

Stock tokens have existed for many years but have not found users. Crypto-native issuers have packaged them well, but no one has a retail brokerage license, so products can only be placed in venues that target buyers never visit. The bottleneck lies in distribution channels, which belong to traditional giants.

On July 1, 2026, Robinhood launched the Robinhood Chain open mainnet, which is an Ethereum L2 built with a dedicated chain tech stack based on Arbitrum, using ETH as the gas token. Transactions are settled on Ethereum but do not directly congest the mainnet. The testnet opened in February this year at the Hong Kong Consensus conference, and the mainnet went live on July 1. Its existence is intended to support tokenized RWA, mainly stocks, allowing Robinhood users to self-custody assets and achieve 24-hour settlement without being restricted by broker trading hours.

Designed with compatibility in mind rather than innovation. Contracts written in Solidity or Vyper can be deployed directly, with a standard toolbox ready to use; the ordering mechanism is first-come-first-served, and no trades can jump the queue through bidding. Uniswap has deployed a dedicated automated market maker as a public liquidity venue, Pleiades operates a private market maker, and Alchemy, BitGo, and Chainlink provide infrastructure, with Chainlink's oracles and cross-chain messaging in place when the mainnet launched, intended for pricing assets issued by Robinhood.

What Products Were Launched?

The mainnet launch packaged products that give this chain a reason to exist. Stock tokens went live in Robinhood wallets across more than 120 countries, available for 24/7 trading via DEXs like Uniswap, Rialto, Lighter, Arcus, and 1inch, and can be used as collateral for DeFi lending. These tokens are not available in the U.S., and structurally belong to tokenized debt securities, where holders gain economic exposure without shares or shareholder rights.

Robinhood Earn also began offering to eligible U.S. users: this is a self-custody lending product targeted at USDG (the U.S. dollar stablecoin issued by Robinhood), built on Morpho, with an estimated annualized yield of 7%, underwritten by Lloyd's and RELM.

They also attempted to ride the AI wave by launching an AI-native marketplace, allowing agents to trade, exchange, and lend tokenized assets on-chain, with reports from the launch week indicating that 2,100 agents generated $77 million in trading volume.

Memecoins Drive the Trading Volume

The Total Value Locked (TVL) surpassed $100 million in the second week, but early traders chose memecoins over Apple stock, leading to the launch data measuring speculative volume, a pattern seen in every new L2 that rarely sustains itself, rather than genuine demand for on-chain stocks. Despite this, memecoins have proven to be the best strategy for attracting users, as shown by chains like Solana and Base.

Robinhood operates the sorters, which package and submit transactions, so this chain is permissionless for developers but centralized in operation. There are no on-chain native tokens, and fees go to Robinhood Markets, so to invest, one should buy HOOD stock instead of on-chain assets. Coinbase's Base has demonstrated that an exchange-owned L2 can convert existing users into sustained on-chain activity, and Robinhood starts from the same point, with a large retail trader traffic pool.

The Share of Stock Tokens is the Key Metric

The numbers to track are the share of tokenized stock trading volume in the chain's DEX activity. The memecoin volume will diminish on every new chain, but brokerage clients trading Nvidia and Apple tokens at 3 AM, using them as collateral for loans, and lending USDG for returns is behavior that other L2s cannot replicate without Robinhood's license and user base.

If the trading volume of stock tokens grows to become the main activity in the coming quarters, the assumption about distribution channels will hold true, and tokenized stocks will start to grow rapidly.