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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%.
The Robinhood Chain and its technical foundation
The Robinhood Chain is a Layer-2 blockchain built on Arbitrum’s technology stack, boasting block times as low as 100 milliseconds. The chain is designed to be permissionless, with an initial focus on tokenized assets and AI-native features.
Arcus is available to users in over 120 countries, with a waitlist currently open for 35 perpetual contracts tied to real-world assets. Users in the US, Canada, and the UK are excluded from Arcus due to regulatory limitations.
The tokenomics question
A native Arcus token is planned for the future, with an allocation specifically set aside for the existing dYdX community. That includes traders, stakers, and validators on the current dYdX Chain.
What this means for investors
For DYDX holders, the dYdX Chain continues to operate independently, and the Arcus token allocation provides some upside exposure. Antonio Juliano sitting on the Arcus board while remaining the dYdX founder creates an inherent tension that governance-focused investors should watch closely.
Arcus enters a DEX market that already includes Uniswap, Jupiter, and Hyperliquid. Its differentiators—zero fees, stock token access, and Robinhood’s brand recognition—are constrained by the exclusion of users in the US, Canada, and the UK.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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