Author: TechFlow
Original Title: Robinhood May Enter L2, Bringing a New Player to US Stock Tokenization
As USD stablecoins gradually gain market attention, companies inside and outside the crypto are starting to view US stocks as their next target.
At the end of May, US crypto exchange Kraken announced it would offer tokenized popular US stocks to non-US customers; on June 18th, Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal revealed that the company is seeking SEC approval for a "tokenized stock" service.
US stock tokenization is gradually becoming an explicit business.
Now, this business may have a new player - the famous American online brokerage, the "retail investor alliance", and a key force in the movement to defeat Wall Street - Robinhood.
Previously, two Robinhood insiders disclosed to Bloomberg that they are developing a blockchain-based platform that allows European retail investors to trade US stocks.
According to sources, the technical solution might be Arbitrum or Solana, with the specific partner still under consideration and the protocol not yet finalized.
This news can be interpreted in at least two ways.
First, Robinhood directly integrates Arbitrum L2 in this new platform allowing European users to trade US stocks, serving as its blockchain trading base layer;
Second, and more likely, Robinhood plans to use Arbitrum's Arbitrum Chains feature to develop its own dedicated L2 chain based on Arbitrum's technology stack (Rollup protocol, EVM compatibility, etc.).
Regardless of the final scenario, market sentiment has been stirred.
This means Robinhood might create its own dedicated L2 for the US stock tokenization business, which would be more conducive to on-chain settlement and specialized operations.
At the upcoming EthCC in Cannes on the 30th, Robinhood will also announce an important declaration at 17:00 local time (23:00 Beijing time), which has led to speculation about its L2 and US stock tokenization business.
Meanwhile, A.J. Warner, Chief Strategy Officer of Offchain Labs behind Arbitrum, will also attend the conference, giving more imagination to a potential simultaneous announcement.
ARB, which has been slightly dull in price recently, once broke through a 20% increase in 24 hours, ranking among the top in cryptocurrency gains.
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More suggestively, Robinhood's European X account replied "Stay tuned" under a conference agenda discussion post, and combined with Bloomberg's report about providing US stock trading to the European region, the possibility of an official announcement has become higher.
Everything Has a Trace
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This idea is more Crypto Native, combining Robinhood's existing customer base with pure on-chain gameplay, but a more aggressive approach also means greater resistance, and Robinhood may not necessarily follow this path.
And if we look beyond Robinhood to observe the entire Ethereum ecosystem, some voices believe this will further exacerbate the fragmentation of Ethereum L2.
Ethereum L1 has already lost a lot of initiative in the current ecosystem of numerous L2s. Whether the performance is good or not is secondary; more importantly, it faces complete marginalization and pipelining. It's easy to create a specialized L2, but it's difficult to revive Ethereum's former glory.
Ultimately, how Robinhood will choose remains to be seen, and we may get an answer after today's ETHcc.
