The Protocol: Robinhood unveils its layer-2 testnet

Network News

ROBINHOOD UNVEILS BLOCKCHAIN: Robinhood debuted the public testnet for its Ethereum layer-2 blockchain with plans for broader introduction later this year as the brokerage app aims to move more trading activity onchain. The new network, called Robinhood Chain, is built on Arbitrum and is designed to support tokenized real-world assets, including equities and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Developers will be able to publicly build on the network for the first time after six months of private testing, ahead of a future mainnet launch, the company announced at CoinDesk's Consensus Hong Kong conference. With the chain, Robinhood aims to allow users to trade 24/7 and self-custody their assets in Robinhood's own crypto wallet. Users will also be able to bridge across different chains and into decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on Ethereum, the company said. The timing comes as Ethereum’s core roadmap shifts more attention back to the base layer. Certain upgrades have already lowered transaction costs, and further improvements are expected to continue easing congestion, a development that weakens the case for layer 2s as a pure scaling necessity. Robinhood’s approach suggests it is already operating under that assumption. “I think Vitalik [Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum] was always pretty clear on this, that L2s were not just here to scale Ethereum,” said Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s senior vice president and general manager of crypto, in an interview. “For us, it was never really about scaling Ethereum or doing faster transactions.” — Margaux Nijkerk & Krisztian Sandor Read more.

CITADEL BACKS LAYERZERO BLOCKCHAIN: LayerZero Labs unveiled Zero, a blockchain aimed at powering institutional-grade financial markets, alongside a strategic investment from Citadel Securities into $ZRO, the network’s native token and governance asset. ARK Invest is also investing in LayerZero’s equity and $ZRO token, with CEO Cathie Wood joining a newly formed advisory board alongside ICE executive Michael Blaugrund and former BNY Mellon digital assets head Caroline Butler, the company said. The size of the investments was not disclosed. The announcement signals a deeper push by traditional market infrastructure companies into blockchain-based trading, clearing and settlement as scalability and performance constraints have long limited real-world adoption. Tether Investments, the investment arm of the largest stablecoin issuer, also made a strategic investment in LayerZero Labs, it said. Citadel Securities said it is working with LayerZero to evaluate how Zero’s architecture could support high-throughput workflows across trading and post-trade processes. The firm’s investment in $ZRO adds to growing institutional interest in LayerZero, which is best known for operating one of crypto’s largest interoperability networks. Zero is designed around LayerZero's first-of-its-kind heterogeneous architecture, which uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to separate transaction execution from verification. The company claims the design can scale to roughly 2 million transactions per second across multiple zones, with transaction costs approaching a millionth of a dollar and effectively unlimited blockspace. — Will Canny Read more.

MEGAETH MAINNET GOES LIVE: MegaETH, a high-performance blockchain built to make Ethereum applications feel nearly instant, debuted its public mainnet, entering an ecosystem mired in a fundamental debate over how Ethereum should scale. The project, which had pitched itself as a layer-2 “real-time blockchain” targeting more than 100,000 transactions per second (tps), would make onchain interactions feel closer to traditional web apps than today’s crypto networks. Ethereum works at less than 30 tps, according to Token Terminal. The release caps a rapid rise that has drawn both technical curiosity and major financial backing. The project’s development arm, MegaLabs, raised a $20 million seed round in 2024 led by Dragonfly. Last October, it announced a $450 million oversubscribed token sale backed by some of the most recognizable names in crypto, including Ethereum co-founders Vitalik Buterin and Joe Lubin. The sale was one of the largest crypto fundraises of that year. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

$ENS SCRAPS LAYER-2 PLANS: $ENS decided not to move forward with Namechain, a planned layer-2 rollup, marking another high-profile shift away from the once-dominant narrative that Ethereum’s future would be built primarily on L2s. Instead of its own rollup, $ENS will now deploy the long-awaited ENSv2 upgrade exclusively on the Ethereum mainnet, citing dramatically lower gas costs and a broader change in Ethereum’s scaling philosophy. According to $ENS founder and lead developer Nick Johnson, the original rationale for launching a bespoke rollup no longer holds. “The landscape has changed between when we first decided to pursue an L2,” Johnson said in an interview with CoinDesk. Two years ago, high gas prices made rollups the “official trajectory,” but Ethereum’s base layer has since scaled to the point where transaction costs are sustainable. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

In Other News

• Kraken sacked its chief financial officer, Stephanie Lemmerman, just as the crypto exchange prepares to publicly list in the U.S. in the early part of this year, according to two people familiar with the matter. Lemmerman joined Kraken from Dapper Labs in November 2024 and was the exchange’s CFO for one year and four months. She now has a strategic advisory role at Kraken, one of the people said. Robert Moore, formerly VP of business expansion, has basically taken over her job, the person said. An updated leadership page on the website of Kraken’s parent company, Payward Inc., lists Moore as deputy CFO. Lemmerman does not appear. Clearly, it matters that Kraken removed its CFO after lodging a confidential filing with U.S. regulators in November. That came just days after Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation, including $200 million from Citadel Securities. — Ian Allison Read more.
• Jump Trading plans to take a small stake in each of the prediction-market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The trading powerhouse, which has a significant focus on cryptocurrency, will gain the stakes in exchange for providing liquidity on the two platforms. Jump is set to take a fixed amount of equity in Kalshi, while its stake in Polymarket will grow over time depending on the trading capacity that the firm provides to the platform's U.S. operation. Jump expanded into prediction-market trading in recent months, recruiting 20 staffers for that business, according to Bloomberg. — Jamie Crawley Read more.

Regulatory and Policy

• President Donald Trump's U.S. bitcoin reserve doesn't exist yet, and there is no mechanism in the federal government for the wholesale purchase of crypto. Keep that in mind when considering this weekend's speculation about the price point that would cause the White House to push a buy button, thanks in large part to CNBC's Jim Cramer. There is no such button. The president did order a "strategic reserve" established to hold bitcoin, but that didn't make it spring into existence. The Treasury Department and crypto advisers spent months auditing the federal holdings of crypto (though White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt told CoinDesk last week that they still won't share a number). But the process hit a snag: The advocates said they need Congress to establish the stockpile under law. The crypto sector's new U.S. law for stablecoin issuers didn't include it, nor does the sweeping crypto market structure bill currently grinding through the U.S. Senate. Clearing legislation through this Congress — even less controversial matters — is a tall order, and industry lobbyists are focused on the bill to finally establish market and oversight regulations for digital assets. A reserve may not even be second on the list of priorities, because crypto tax rules also beckon. — Jesse Hamilton Read more.
• Cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider Blockchain.com won regulatory approval in the U.K. nearly four years after seemingly giving up. Blockchain.com was added to the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) registry of licensed crypto companies on Tuesday under its trading name "BC Operations." The London-based company elected to withdraw its application for FCA licensing in March 2022, having not won approval ahead of an impending deadline. Blockchain.com pivoted to its registered business in Lithuania. Registration in the U.K. allows Blockchain.com to carry out certain crypto-related activities in the U.K. provided it complies with money laundering and counter-terrorist financing rules. — Jamie Crawley Read more.
  

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