Robinhood Crypto has made an investment in Arcus, a new decentralized exchange incubated by dYdX Labs, and added it to the official Robinhood Chain ecosystem page. Arcus commenced spot trading on July 1 on the Robinhood Chain, a permissionless, EVM-compatible Layer-2 blockchain built on Arbitrum technology. The platform currently offers 24/7 zero-fee trading on 95 Stock Tokens, which provide economic exposure to underlying equities without requiring users to hold the actual shares.
What Arcus actually is, and who’s building it
Arcus is led by CEO Eddie Zhang, with dYdX founder Antonio Juliano sitting on the board. The investment amount from Robinhood Crypto remains undisclosed, but Robinhood brings a reported 25-plus million users, and Arcus brings the DeFi infrastructure to serve them.
Arcus operates as a completely separate entity from the existing dYdX Chain. The dYdX protocol’s current operations and governance remain unaffected. This is not a rebrand or a migration. It’s a new product built by the same lab, aimed at a different market.
The DYDX token reportedly dropped between 12% and 23% following the announcement, as traders priced in concerns about the potential dilution of attention and resources between the two platforms. Meanwhile, Robinhood’s stock moved in the opposite direction, climbing over 10%.
