A decentralized exchange that lets you trade tokenized Apple shares at 3 AM on a Sunday with zero fees sounds like something crypto Twitter would dream up during a bull market fever. It went live on July 1.
Arcus, developed by dYdX Labs in partnership with Robinhood Crypto, launched spot trading on the newly minted Robinhood Chain. The platform offers 95 Stock Tokens, which are tokenized versions of real equities, available for trading around the clock with 0% fees. The catch: if you’re in the US, Canada, or the UK, you can’t use it.
What Arcus actually is
Robinhood Chain itself is an EVM-compatible Layer-2 built on Arbitrum technology. It’s a faster, cheaper blockchain that sits on top of Ethereum’s security infrastructure, purpose-built for tokenized real-world assets and onchain lending. It launched on the same day as Arcus.
The exchange is led by CEO Eddie Zhang and targets users across more than 120 countries. Robinhood already has over 25 million users, and while the American ones are locked out for now, the platform’s retail-friendly DNA is clearly designed to onboard the kind of people who’ve never touched a MetaMask wallet.
