The Rise of Robinhood Chain: Tokenized Stocks, Perps, and 27M Users | Johann Kerbrat

Robinhood launched its own blockchain, the Robinhood Chain, at an event called "The World is Flat" — a name meant to signal the company's ambition to flatten access to financial products globally using blockchain technology. The market responded immediately: Robinhood stock rose 8-10% on the announcements. In the conversation, Robinhood's VP of Crypto, Johann Kerbrat, walked through the technical details of the chain's flagship products: tokenized stocks, a 7% yield product via Morpho, and perpetual futures offerings across both regulated and DeFi channels. The episode is a detailed look at how a major retail brokerage is beginning to merge traditional finance with on-chain infrastructure.

Tokenized Stocks: How They Work

The most attention-grabbing product is tokenized stocks on the Robinhood Chain. The process currently relies on Bitstamp, the exchange Robinhood acquired, as the minting gateway. Institutions can go to Bitstamp to buy stock tokens, which are then brought on-chain to decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and Lyra. These tokens are backed one-to-one, and dividends and corporate actions are passed through automatically. Kerbrat emphasized that if anything happens to Robinhood, the customer's position remains secure.