Robinhood has launched the general public testnet for Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer 2 community constructed on Arbitrum, which has a complete worth locked (TVL) of over $2.3 billion.
The testnet allows builders to start out constructing apps and infrastructure on Robinhood Chain, which the corporate mentioned is designed to help tokenized real-world belongings (RWAs), lending platforms, perpetual futures exchanges, and different on-chain monetary providers, in keeping with a press launch seen by The Defiant.
Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s head of crypto, mentioned in an unique interview with The Defiant that the testnet is an early step towards constructing a broader on-chain monetary ecosystem.
“We predict that it’s actually going to speed up all the event of on-chain monetary providers and all this tokenization future that we’ve been speaking [about] for a very long time,” Kerbrat instructed Camila Russo, founding father of The Defiant. “So the testnet is absolutely step one to put down the groundwork for an ecosystem that can assist outline all of the tokenized reward belongings that we’re planning on launching.”
The transfer comes as extra monetary corporations undertake on-chain expertise and start integrating merchandise instantly on blockchain networks. One space seeing particularly quick progress is tokenized RWAs. Distributed Asset Worth has reached $23.8 billion, up about 11% over the previous month, in keeping with RWAxyz information.
In keeping with the discharge, the testnet offers builders entry to primary community instruments, documentation, and Ethereum growth software program constructed on Arbitrum. Robinhood mentioned some infrastructure suppliers are already connecting to the community, with extra anticipated to affix as testing continues.
Builders can even acquire entry to testnet-only belongings, together with inventory tokens, together with direct testing by way of Robinhood Pockets within the coming months.
Kerbrat described Robinhood Chain as permissionless, that means anybody can deploy purposes. Nonetheless, apps that seem contained in the Robinhood app would nonetheless want to satisfy inside product necessities, he mentioned.
Robinhood additionally plans to be one of many first main builders on the community, Kerbrat mentioned, and in the end needs to maneuver extra of its personal infrastructure on-chain.
“The primary developer to construct on the chain is absolutely going to be Robinhood,” he mentioned. “And our imaginative and prescient is not only to have one or two merchandise there, however to have all the Robinhood infrastructure to be slowly changed by the blockchain.”
Kerbrat revealed that early companions concerned within the launch embrace Alchemy, LayerZero, and others, that are serving to help the primary section of the general public testnet.
“However the extra we proceed to construct, the extra we’ll additionally launch our personal merchandise which might be going to be both in partnership or instantly revenue-made product,” he added. “However I feel for us, the concept is that it is not only a income chain solely, but in addition one thing that different builders can truly construct on prime of.”
Robinhood has already rolled out tokenized inventory merchandise in Europe, with the choices increasing shortly – Kerbrat mentioned they grew from about 200 belongings at launch final June to roughly 2,000 right this moment.
“So we [grew] 10x in lower than a yr. And that actually exhibits how versatile our tokenization engine is,” Kerbrat mentioned. “And we predict that coming from there, we’re actually going to have the ability to use this engine for something.”
