Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Asher (@Asher_0210)
Last night, Robinhood announced the official launch of its proprietary Layer 2 network, Robinhood Chain, on public mainnet. Built on the Arbitrum tech stack, the chain is positioned as an institutional-grade, permissionless, AI-native network designed specifically for real-world assets (RWA).
In other words, Robinhood isn’t trying to add another blockchain to the crypto industry; it aims to unify stocks, RWA, lending, trading, and on-chain financial products within its own infrastructure.
Major platforms have entered the scene, and key players in the ecosystem have quickly aligned themselves.
Leading protocols such as Uniswap, 1inch, Lighter, Morpho, Chainlink, BitGo, Ethena, and EtherFi have collectively announced integration with Robinhood Chain, covering core crypto sectors including trading, liquidity, lending, oracles, custody, and cross-chain.
Robinhood Chain ecosystem projects overview
In this major ecosystem integration, the new DEX Arcus launched by the dYdX team has become the focus of community discussion.
Community users are questioning: Is dYdX Labs shifting its focus toward Arcus? Will the original dYdX Chain be marginalized? Will the DYDX token continue to capture protocol value in the future? How will Arcus and the dYdX ecosystem be connected?
Affected by related controversies, dYdX has dropped over 12% in the past 24 hours, with its current market cap at $108 million.
7-day K-line chart for the DYDX token
What is Arcus? 7×24 zero-fee trading of tokenized stocks
Arcus: A decentralized exchange developed by the dYdX team, now open for early waitlist sign-ups
Arcus, a decentralized exchange developed by the dYdX team, is now live on Robinhood Chain, offering 24/7 zero-fee trading of 95 tokenized stocks and perpetual contracts. Arcus supports tokenized trading of stocks, commodities, indices, and crypto assets, with all tokenized stocks issued and redeemable on Robinhood Chain, enabling self-custody and integration with the DeFi ecosystem.
Arcus x Robinhood: Trade stocks and perpetual contracts around the clock
Currently, Arcus has opened its early waitlist (link: https://waitlist.arcus.xyz/); completing your personal X account and wallet linking will fulfill the interaction requirement.
Arcus has opened its early waitlist.
In addition, Arcus plans to support tokenized stocks and crypto assets as collateral for perpetual contracts, and offer pre-IPO trading for popular private companies such as OpenAI.
Future Arcus tokens will be distributed to the dYdX community.
At first glance, Arcus, the DEX developed by the dYdX team, capitalizes on this year’s crypto theme: tokenized stocks. But the issue is that Arcus is not deployed on the dYdX Chain; instead, it runs on Robinhood Chain as a standalone product with independent infrastructure. This means dYdX Labs is telling a new growth story—one that does not place the dYdX Chain or the DYDX token at its core.
More subtly, dYdX founder Antonio Juliano stated in dYdX’s latest documentation that “a portion of future Arcus tokens will be allocated to the dYdX community.” While intended to reassure the existing community, this statement directly amplified expectations around Arcus’s token launch, prompting many users to place greater emphasis on the potential new airdrop opportunity.
The Arcus token will be allocated to the dYdX community.
Given that dYdX launched one of the largest airdrops in the industry, Arcus is likely to attract a portion of traders and liquidity to its new platform once it initiates trading incentives, points programs, or early user initiatives. For dYdX Chain, this could mean further diversion of trading volume and activity, already under pressure.
dYdX founder responds: Arcus is a new product; dYdX Chain will not shut down
In response to community concerns, dYdX founder Antonio Juliano posted an explanation stating that dYdX Chain had previously gone deep into decentralization, featuring an open-source architecture, community governance, over 200 markets, and more than 50 validators running order books.
But he also acknowledged that this approach involves trade-offs in performance and user experience. As on-chain derivatives competition intensifies, the market is rewarding trading platforms that are faster, simpler to use, and have more concentrated liquidity—and Arcus was born out of this context.
In addition, Antonio stated that Arcus will be led by Eddie Zhang as CEO and Founder, while he himself will join the board to oversee strategy and long-term vision. In other words, Arcus is not a new feature on the dYdX Chain, but rather a new trading platform being developed independently by dYdX Labs.
For the existing community, Antonio stated that dYdX v4 will continue to be supported, and users’ funds and positions will remain accessible on the dYdX Chain; if Arcus issues a token in the future, a portion will be reserved for the dYdX community, with priority given to users who have previously participated in dYdX trading, staking, validation, and community building.
Subsequently, the dYdX Foundation further emphasized that Arcus is an independent product built on separate infrastructure, and the dYdX Chain will not be affected. DYDX remains the governance and staking token of the dYdX Chain, with its mechanisms, supply, and operational characteristics unchanged, and there are currently no plans for token swaps or migrations.
But the market's concerns are not just about whether the dYdX Chain can still be used.
The real question is: if Arcus generates significant trading volume and revenue in the future, will dYdX Chain benefit from that growth? If Arcus issues new tokens, what share of rights will DYDX holders receive? And how will dYdX Labs allocate its future resources between Arcus and dYdX Chain?
Before these value absorption questions are clearly answered, Arcus represents a new narrative for dYdX Labs, but more of an unsolved puzzle for DYDX holders.