Robinhood-backed Arcus launches tokenized stocks, perpetuals

Arcus, a decentralized exchange built by the team behind dYdX and backed by Robinhood Crypto, launched tokenized stocks and perpetual futures on Robinhood Chain on Tuesday. The platform lists more than 95 tokenized U.S. equities and offers perpetual markets linked to stocks, exchange-traded funds, commodities, indexes and cryptocurrencies.

Markets on Arcus settle and post collateral in USDG, a stablecoin issued by Paxos. Trading occurs through self-custodial accounts so users retain control of their private keys while trading spot and perpetual markets onchain.

Users can create wallets through Privy, which allows sign-up with email or social logins while keeping keys in user custody. Traders with existing wallets can connect MetaMask, Ledger or WalletConnect. Arcus plans to add support for more Ethereum-compatible wallets over time.

Arcus first opened spot markets when Robinhood Chain went live on July 1 and expanded its product set this week with equity-linked derivatives and additional tokenized securities.

Access to the stock tokens is restricted in certain jurisdictions. The platform excludes users in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other specified regions from trading those tokenized securities.

Regulators in the United States and the U.K. are reviewing how blockchain representations of traditional assets fit existing financial rules, with questions focused on custody, ownership rights and market structure. Those regulatory reviews influence where tokenized securities can be offered and which investors may participate.

The launch is part of a broader industry effort to build infrastructure for tokenized real-world assets and onchain derivatives, with multiple platforms developing networks and markets to offer securities and commodities on blockchain networks.