Robinhood Eyes Solana and Arbitrum for European Crypto Expansion—Because Traditional Finance Was Too Boring

Robinhood’s rumored European blockchain platform just got spicy—leaks suggest Solana and Arbitrum are frontrunners for integration. The retail trading giant, famous for democratizing meme stocks, now wants a slice of Europe’s regulated crypto pie.

Why these chains? Solana’s speed and Arbitrum’s Ethereum scalability offer a one-two punch for compliance-heavy markets. Meanwhile, legacy banks still can’t decide if blockchain is a threat or a spreadsheet error.

This move could ignite fresh institutional interest in Layer 2 solutions—assuming the SEC doesn’t crash the party with another ’How do we taxonomy this?’ existential crisis.

Blockchain infrastructure for securities trading

The infrastructure under development would tokenize US equities, allowing them to be represented on a public blockchain and traded by European users. 

While the approach is still in formation, such a system would offer the potential benefits of near-instant settlement, cost reductions, and transparency across a trade’s lifecycle.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has previously expressed support for tokenized securities. In February, Tenevin a letter to investors that he believes that tokenized private company stocks resonate best with US investors.

By building a blockchain-based framework for cross-border securities trading, Robinhood would be positioning itself to compete in a segment that merges traditional equities with digital asset infrastructure. 

The choice between Arbitrum and Solana would influence network characteristics such as throughput, fees, smart contract capabilities, and compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).