Weekly Newsletter, 4 July 2025

Robinhood is taking equities trading onchain

Our investment team was at EthCC in Cannes this week, where Robinhood announced the launch of onchain equity trading for EU users, kicking off with over 200 U.S. stocks and ETFs. In phase I they will be tradable 24/5 through the Robinhood app, moving to 24/7 in phase II, and then in phase III people will be able to hold stocks in their self-custodial wallets, and use these stocks in a DeFi environment.

Robinhood’s announcement is one of the biggest illustrations yet of incumbents migrating onto the new blockchain infrastructure backbone. Instead of routing trades through a web of custodians, clearinghouses and settlement layers, incumbents are moving to use blockchain to unlock instant settlement, lower costs, global reach, and programmable ownership. It compresses the stack, removes friction, and opens up new distribution and utility.

Robinhood picked TBV portfolio company Arbitrum to launch their product on, a so-called Layer 2 (L2) on the Ethereum base layer. Robinhood is starting off on the main Arbitrum chain but will migrate to their own custom built chain built on the Arbitrum stack later. A custom chain gives them much more control, which fits the app-chain trend that we have been seeing. Ethereum L2s inherit the security of the base chain, while having much higher throughput and lower fees. As a case in point, Robinhood paid a grand total $5 total to deploy 213 tokenized stocks on Arbitrum (but Arbitrum will capture 10% of the sequencer fees from Robinhood’s chain).

Robinhood also announced that they will extend token offerings to private companies like OpenAI and SpaceX later this summer, which is another potentially massive unlock. And on the crypto native side, they announced the roll-out of crypto perpetual futures (starting with up to 3x leverage) for EU users by the end of summer. ‘Perps’ (derivate contracts with no expiration dates) are a fantastic blockchain unlock in and of themselves and we will write separately about them in the near future. It seems only a matter of time before people can trade these perps on stocks as well.

Robinhood shares jumped ~13% on the EU token-launch news, hitting record highs while the underlying infrastructure like Ethereum didn’t really move at first. We believe this will change once investors open up to the zero-to-one blockchain offers to investors. For the first time ever, you can invest in the infrastructure directly, not just in the companies building the infrastructure (like railroad companies) or companies building on top of the infrastructure (like Robinhood in this particular case). If Robinhood’s stock token effort succeeds, value won’t just accrue to Robinhood. A portion of this trading activity will accrue directly to Arbitrum and Ethereum, the rails actually running the system.

Also this week

Relevant financial updates

Blum*, a hybrid exchange offering universal token access through gamification within a Telegram mini-app, had its TGE and is now trading at a $87mln FDV
LiquiFi*, a company specializing in token vesting and compliance for crypto companies, has been acquired by Coinbase for an undisclosed amount
Banxa, a financial technology platform that provides on-and-off ramp services for cryptocurrencies, has been acquired by OSL for $82.5mln
Lolli*, a rewards platform that lets users earn bitcoin or cash back by shopping at partner stores using its browser extension, mobile app, or linked payment card, has been acquired by Thesis for an undisclosed amount
Amber Group*, an asset management company providing crypto trading, risk management, and liquidity provision services, has raised $25.50mln in a Post IPO funding round with investments from Pantera Capital, Choco Up, Harvest Capital and Mile Green
Limitless*, a decentralized prediction market that enables users to trade cryptocurrencies and tokens across multiple blockchains, has raised $4mln in a Strategic funding round with investments from Coinbase Ventures, Wagmi Ventures, 1Confirmation, Maelstrom, Collider Ventures and 4 others
Boba Network*, a blockchain-based Layer-2 optimistic rollup scaling solution that facilitates fast transactions and interoperability, has raised $70mln in a funding round with investments from LDA Capital and Awaken Finance
Backseat, a Japan‑based cryptocurrency trading platform established through the acquisition of Coinbook in February 2025, has raised $9.69mln in a Seed funding round with investments from East Ventures, Headline and Spiral Capital
Bit Digital, a sustainability-focused digital asset generator that operates large-scale, global bitcoin mining operations, has raised $163mln in a Post IPO funding round
Datagram Network, a decentralized platform for real-time communication, powered by a Layer-1 blockchain on Avalanche, has raised $4mln in a Pre Seed funding round with investments from Animoca Brands, Amber Group, Blizzard Fund, Cointelegraph, Aquanow and 5 others
The Open Platform (TOP)*, a venture builder supporting early-stage projects on the TON blockchain, has raised $28.50mln in a Series A funding round valuing the company at $1bln with investments from Pantera Capital and Ribbit Capital

*Underlying TBV portfolio position | Prices as per 04/07

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