Robinhood is Transforming Wall Street into a 24-Hour Market through Arcus

Robinhood's blockchain strategy is going beyond tokenized stocks to redesign how financial markets operate. In this context, the Arcus platform has launched 24/7 trading for over 95 tokenized U.S. stocks and introduced Perpetual Markets on the Robinhood Chain, providing continuous access to traditional and digital assets through a single blockchain-based trading platform.

According to Mihan Blockchain, this offering allows eligible users to trade shares of leading American companies alongside exchange-traded funds (ETFs), commodities, and cryptocurrencies without restrictions during regular market hours.

This launch, rather than merely expanding access to tokenized assets, represents a deeper transformation where blockchain infrastructure is replacing the fixed trading schedules that have defined Wall Street for generations.

Arcus introduced commission-free trading for over 95 tokenized U.S. stocks on the Robinhood Chain while simultaneously launching the beta version of Perpetual Futures contracts for stocks, ETFs, commodities, and digital assets.

The platform provides access to companies like Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon, alongside perpetual products related to SPY, QQQ, GLD, USO, Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, and Ripple (XRP).

Arcus, developed by the dYdX support team and founded by Eddie Zhang, combines tokenized stocks and perpetual markets using cross-margin capabilities in a single self-custodied account.

Robinhood Crypto is one of the strategic investors in this project.

This launch also integrates the infrastructure of Paxos Labs to support the USDG stablecoin and the Privy service to create embedded wallets and facilitate user registration processes.

The mainnet of the Robinhood Chain launched on July 1 as a Layer 2 Ethereum solution built using Arbitrum technology.

From the outset, this network was designed to support tokenized stocks, decentralized lending, and perpetual futures, rather than merely serving as another blockchain for cryptocurrency trading.

The addition of Arcus expands this vision by combining multiple asset classes in a continuous trading environment where users are no longer dependent on traditional exchange hours. Investors increasingly interact through a unified blockchain infrastructure instead of moving between separate stock exchanges, crypto platforms, and derivatives markets.

The significance of this goes far beyond tokenized stocks.

Robinhood Chain is gradually changing one of Wall Street's oldest assumptions: that markets must close.

Blockchain settlement enables financial assets to be traded continuously without waiting for exchanges to reopen on the next business day.

As more traditional assets migrate to blockchain infrastructure, the distinction between stock markets, commodity exchanges, and cryptocurrency platforms may lose its relevance. Instead, investors can access all major asset classes through programmable financial networks that operate around the clock.

The emergence of perpetual markets alongside tokenized securities also illustrates how decentralized finance (DeFi) is integrating with traditional capital markets rather than competing with them.

If this model is more widely adopted, competition in the market may increasingly focus on continuous access rather than geographic location or ownership of exchanges.

Initial adoption metrics indicate that Robinhood Chain is quickly establishing itself as something more than a specialized and limited blockchain.

Recent research estimates that this network processed approximately $3.1 billion in trading volume on decentralized exchanges in its first week of operation, placing it among the top five blockchain networks.