Robinhood (HOOD) rolls out public blockchain as it expands deeper into crypto

Beyond the Robinhood Chain ecosystem, the company announced several additional product launches and international expansion efforts. Robinhood said it is expanding perpetual futures trading in Europe to include commodities, ETFs and foreign exchange markets alongside crypto. It also plans to launch crypto trading in the U.K. and said its services are now available in Canada following its acquisition of WonderFi.

The company also unveiled Agentic Accounts for crypto, an AI-powered trading tool that will allow eligible U.S. users to connect AI models to Robinhood’s trading infrastructure while retaining control over capital allocation and trading parameters.

“Decentralized finance unlocks possibilities beyond what traditional finance can offer, but historically, it has required technical expertise to navigate,” Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s senior vice president of crypto.

Robinhood’s product push shows how the lines between crypto and traditional finance are continuing to blur. The brokerage has steadily expanded beyond stocks and spot crypto trading into tokenized equities, derivatives and event contracts, better known as prediction markets. That strategy fits into the race for the “everything exchange” to host all kinds of trading and financial activity under one roof, increasingly on top of blockchain rails.

At the same time, the company also said last month it would lay off 10% of its workforce, some 290 employees, to streamline its organization and management structure.