Robinhood Backs New DEX Arcus in Partnership With dYdX

The company behind the dYdX decentralized exchange (DEX) has partnered with Robinhood to rebrand and launch the protocol as Arcus on the Robinhood Chain.

An X account for Arcus posted on Wednesday that “dYdX is now Arcus” and would launch on the Robinhood Chain, Robinhood’s Arbitrum-based layer 2 blockchain that went live the same day.

The dYdX Foundation said that dYdX Labs created Arcus “in partnership with Robinhood” and that the dYdX blockchain “is not affected by it in any way.” The platform is set to be blockchain’s “leading DEX” and will give users access to perpetual products and fee-free trading of 95 tokenized stocks.

Source: Charles d’Haussy

The DEX is part of Robinhood’s expanded push into tokenized assets and perpetual trading, two areas of crypto that have recently exploded in popularity as US regulators have shown interest in allowing the products to more easily come to market.

Robinhood’s embrace of perpetual trading comes as it looks to entice traders who have flocked to the crypto perpetual futures platform Hyperliquid, whose token has climbed nearly 150% so far this year as it has captured market share.

Arcus to offer tokenized stock, perps trading

“Until now, traders have been shut out of the most valuable markets on earth — US equities, commodities, and indices — because of where they live, market hours, and institutions restricting access,” Arcus said in a blog post. “We built Arcus to reduce these barriers.”

The protocol said that it will offer perpetuals and tokenized stock trading that will go live this month, allowing tokenized stocks to be used as collateral for perpetuals and providing access to pre-IPO markets.

Related: CFTC chair says perp trading not suitable for all assets it regulates

It added that Robinhood Crypto, the company’s crypto technology arm, made an investment in Arcus but did not disclose further details.

The dYdX Foundation said that Arcus “is a distinct, independent product built on separate infrastructure” and that the dYdX blockchain would continue to operate and be owned by its community.

Major retail-focused trading platforms have been moving to expand their offerings to remain competitive. Crypto exchange Coinbase has looked to rival Robinhood and become a full-service trading platform, having added access to thousands of stocks earlier this year.

Robinhood’s blockchain also follows a similar move from Coinbase in 2023, when the latter launched its Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Base that has grown to be the fifth-largest by value locked, according to DeFiLlama.

Meanwhile, Bitget Wallet, the self-custodial wallet from the Bitget crypto exchange, said on Wednesday that it partnered with Robinhood Crypto to integrate the company’s blockchain to allow its users to trade tokenized stocks.

The decentralized exchange 1inch also said on Wednesday that it would be among the first major swap platforms to support Robinhood Chain. 

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