Robinhood launches test version of its own blockchain

Robinhood announced on Tuesday evening that a developers’ version of its custom built blockchain, known as Robinhood Chain, is now live. The move, announced at the Consensus event in Hong Kong, comes as the company accelerates its push into crypto-based financial services, including tokenized versions of popular stocks.

Robinhood Chain, which the company teased last June, is currently in the so-called testnet phase. That means it is publicly visible but restricted to a limited number of partners and participants who can test its infrastructure, and introduce experimental features. In coming months, the “mainnet” version of Robinhood Chain will go live and be used to process customer transactions.

“We now have Alchemy, LayerZero, Chainlink, and other big crypto players. But moving forward, when the mainnet is live, customers will be able to interact directly with it,” Robinhood’s SVP of Crypto, Johann Kerbrat, told Fortune.

Kerbrat added that Robinhood Chain will support transactions both in its self-custody crypto wallet, and also in the main Robinhood app. He noted that, on a customer level, the blockchain will be a seamless experience and many people will be unaware they are even using it.

Robinhood Chain itself is built on a technology called Arbitrum, a so-called Layer 2 blockchain that sits atop Ethereum, and is...