The Significance
Why the room needs them.
Kerbrat runs the crypto and international business at Robinhood, and came to Paris in the middle of shipping the company's own Layer 2. He spoke on the Hecto Main Stage panel “Scaling the Distribution Layer for Tokenised Markets”, a month after telling a Consensus fireside chat in Miami that tokenised assets would trade 24/7 and settle instantly. Four weeks later, Robinhood Chain went to public mainnet.
The Numbers
~28m
Robinhood customers across 38 countries, company figure, 1 July 2026
200m+
transactions on Robinhood Chain, Decrypt, 8 August 2026
$1.6bn
daily DEX trading volume on Robinhood Chain, Decrypt, 1 September 2026
The Thesis · on the record
What Johann believes about the next ten years.
01
Public blockchains, not private ones
In an interview with The Defiant, recorded as Robinhood opened the testnet for its Arbitrum-based Ethereum Layer 2, he argued that institutions can get the privacy and compliance guarantees they need on public chains such as Ethereum, which leaves no good reason to build on a private one.
02
Markets should not close
At Consensus 2026 in Miami, in a fireside chat moderated by Eleanor Terrett, he named the features he expects to separate tokenised assets from traditional brokerage products: "We think it is going to be 24/7. We think it is going to be instant settlement." He put the retail case to Decrypt three months later, in terms of investors wanting to hedge when news breaks after Friday's close.
03
Take Ethereum's security, spend your own resources on products
He told Decrypt in August 2026 that Robinhood chose an Ethereum Layer 2 rather than launching a Layer 1 so it could rely on security and decentralisation that already exist, and put its engineering into products instead. He also said he watches developer activity closely, because the chain should be usable by anyone, not only by Robinhood.
04
The technology should disappear behind the product
Speaking to CNBC in June 2025, he likened his goal for crypto to plumbing, something you use without thinking about how it arrives. The measure he named to Decrypt is customers coming on-chain in numbers: "If we see tens of millions of customers trying to use a chain, I think that will be a good win for us."
The Timeline
Years of shipping.
June 2025
Robinhood's Cannes announcement, timed to the Ethereum Community Conference and new European licences: tokenised US stocks and ETFs across 30 EU and EEA countries, staking for Ethereum and Solana in the US, EU perpetual futures routed through Bitstamp at up to 3x leverage, and a Layer 2 blockchain announced. CNBC billed him senior vice president and crypto GM at Robinhood.
5 May 2026
Fireside chat at Consensus 2026 in Miami, moderated by Eleanor Terrett, on overseas demand for US equities, tokenisation, instant settlement and 24/7 trading.
3 June 2026
Spoke at Proof of Talk Paris 2026, on the Hecto Main Stage panel “Scaling the Distribution Layer for Tokenised Markets”, 11:40 to 12:20, in the Tokenisation of Finance track.
1 July 2026
At a keynote in London, Robinhood took Robinhood Chain to public mainnet and set out Stock Tokens in more than 120 countries, Robinhood Earn, perpetual futures in the Robinhood Wallet, commodity, ETF and FX perpetuals in the EU, the Canada launch following the WonderFi acquisition, and a capital markets services licence from MAS in Singapore. Agentic Accounts for crypto were announced as preparing to launch.
August 2026
Decrypt reported that Robinhood Chain had reached nearly $800 million in total value locked in just over a month and more than 200 million transactions.
In Their Words
Lines that keep proving correct.
“The world doesn't stop on weekends. News is happening on Fridays after market close, and people want to be able to hedge their position, which was something that was not really available to retail until recently.”
Decrypt, 8 August 2026
“You don't think about how water gets to your tap. You just expect it to be there.”
CNBC, 30 June 2025
“It is time for a lot of investors to really think about not just how to invest in one specific country, but also how to have a global portfolio.”
CoinDesk, 5 May 2026
The Body of Work
What they have built, written, and backed.
Built
- Robinhood ChainA Layer 2 built using the Arbitrum Platform. The public mainnet went live on 1 July 2026, announced from the Old Royal Naval College in London, with Uniswap and Pleiades each deploying an AMM as day-one partners, and integrations from Alchemy, BitGo and Chainlink.
- Stock TokensTokenised US stocks and ETFs, launched across 30 EU and EEA countries at Robinhood's Cannes event in June 2025 and available on the Robinhood Wallet in more than 120 countries by July 2026, with availability varying by jurisdiction and no access in the US, UK, Canada, Switzerland or the UAE.
- Crypto outside the United StatesEU perpetual futures, routed through Bitstamp at up to 3x leverage in June 2025 and extended in July 2026 to commodity, ETF and FX perpetuals at up to 10x; the Canada launch that followed the WonderFi acquisition; and a Singapore capital markets services licence from MAS, described by the company as a step towards offering brokerage services there.
- Robinhood Earn and Agentic AccountsSet out on 1 July 2026: USDG lending through a self-custody wallet at an estimated 7% APY, on infrastructure powered by the Morpho protocol, and Agentic Accounts letting eligible US traders connect an AI model to Robinhood Crypto, announced as preparing to launch.
The next Proof of Talk is in Abu Dhabi.
Louvre Abu Dhabi, 3–4 December 2026. Admission is by application, and the room is capped at 2,000.
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