Robinhood is making another aggressive push into digital assets, unveiling a broad expansion of its crypto lineup that includes staking, perpetual futures, and tokenized versions of U.S. stocks. The move underlines the company’s ambition to evolve from a U.S.-focused trading app into a full‑scale global crypto and finance platform.
On the retail side, Robinhood is rolling out support for Ethereum and Solana staking in New York, one of the most tightly regulated jurisdictions in the United States. Customers in the state will be able to start staking on Tuesday, while broader nationwide access is planned once the company secures the necessary regulatory approvals. By adding staking, Robinhood is giving users a way to potentially earn yield on their crypto holdings, rather than simply trading coins on price movements.
The firm is also reshaping its pricing model for serious crypto traders. In the U.S., Robinhood has introduced new fee tiers tailored to high‑volume customers who route orders through its crypto trading application programming interface (API). These tiers are designed to make large, frequent trading more cost‑effective, bringing Robinhood closer to specialist crypto exchanges that already court algorithmic and professional traders with volume‑based discounts.
Alongside fee changes, the company is upgrading its crypto trading API to better serve quantitative and institutional‑style users. According to the details shared, these enhancements are focused on improving execution quality, reliability, and integration options for trading firms that want to build strategies directly on top of Robinhood’s infrastructure. For Robinhood, this is a strategic play to deepen relationships with power users and capture more high‑frequency trading flow that traditionally sits on dedicated crypto derivatives platforms.
To address one of the biggest pain points for crypto investors—taxes—Robinhood is also preparing cost basis tracking tools specifically for digital assets. These features will help users understand their realized gains and losses across multiple transactions and time periods, simplifying reporting obligations during tax season. Given the complexity of tracking every trade, swap, or staking reward, integrated cost basis reporting is becoming an increasingly important differentiator for mainstream platforms trying to keep less technical customers engaged in crypto.
The company’s most aggressive expansion, however, is happening outside the United States. In Europe, Robinhood has significantly broadened its crypto derivatives offering by adding perpetual futures contracts with leverage up to 7x. Initially launched with Bitcoin and Ethereum, the lineup now includes perpetual contracts on popular altcoins such as XRP, Dogecoin, and Sui. These products allow traders to speculate on price movements with margin, without an expiry date, mirroring the kind of leverage and flexibility that have long been a hallmark of offshore crypto exchanges.
Perpetual futures give Robinhood a way to serve sophisticated European traders who have grown accustomed to advanced instruments like margin, funding rates, and hedging strategies. By starting with moderate leverage of up to 7x, Robinhood is signaling that it wants to balance demand for higher risk–higher reward products with a more controlled and compliant framework than some unregulated competitors.
Another pillar of this expansion is the introduction of tokenized U.S. stocks—crypto tokens that represent exposure to shares of publicly traded American companies. These stock tokens are aimed primarily at international users who may face restrictions or frictions accessing U.S. equity markets through traditional brokers. By putting equity‑linked tokens on a crypto rail, Robinhood is trying to blur the lines between classic securities trading and on‑chain finance, letting users trade crypto, derivatives, and equity exposure from a single interface.
Staking support for Ethereum and Solana in New York is particularly notable because of the regulatory scrutiny around yield‑bearing crypto products in the U.S. Robinhood’s choice of these two networks reflects their status as leading proof‑of‑stake blockchains and their strong developer and DeFi ecosystems. By handling the technical and custodial aspects of staking behind the scenes, the platform lets users participate in network validation and earn rewards without needing to run their own nodes, manage complex wallets, or understand validator infrastructure.
For users, this expansion means Robinhood is no longer just a place to buy spot Bitcoin and a handful of coins. A New York‑based customer, for example, might now hold ETH, stake part of it for yield, actively trade other tokens via the mobile app, and rely on upcoming cost basis tools to streamline tax filings—all within the same platform. A European trader could simultaneously run leveraged strategies on XRP or Dogecoin perpetuals, hedge Bitcoin exposure with futures, and experiment with stock tokens to get synthetic access to U.S. equities.
From Robinhood’s perspective, these moves are about capturing a larger share of the global crypto value chain. Instead of losing advanced users to specialized derivatives exchanges, staking providers, or offshore platforms offering tokenized stocks, the company is trying to offer a multi‑product ecosystem that keeps traders, long‑term holders, and yield seekers under one roof. This diversification also reduces Robinhood’s dependence on pure spot trading revenues, which can dry up in quiet markets.
At the same time, the rollout highlights the ongoing fragmentation of regulatory approaches worldwide. Features like leveraged perpetual futures and broad stock token access are appearing first in Europe, where Robinhood can operate under clearer or more accommodating rules for derivatives and tokenized assets. In contrast, U.S. users are seeing innovation concentrated in staking and tooling, with the more experimental or higher‑risk products held back until there is stronger regulatory clarity.
For the broader crypto industry, Robinhood’s expansion reinforces a trend: major fintech platforms are steadily absorbing functionalities that once belonged only to crypto‑native exchanges and DeFi protocols. Staking, perpetual futures, and tokenized stocks used to be the domain of specialized platforms and advanced users. Now they are being packaged into consumer‑friendly interfaces, complete with tax support and customer service, which may accelerate the mainstream adoption of complex on‑chain financial products.
Risk remains a central theme throughout this evolution. Leveraged futures can magnify losses as quickly as gains, staking yields are not guaranteed, and tokenized stocks depend on the reliability of underlying custodial and legal structures. Robinhood will be under pressure to clearly communicate these risks, provide robust educational materials, and maintain strict risk controls—especially as it courts both novices and experienced traders on the same platform.
Ultimately, the expansion into futures, staking, and stock tokens signals Robinhood’s intent to position itself as a global digital finance hub rather than a simple commission‑free trading app. By weaving together traditional equities exposure, crypto spot markets, yield‑generation tools, and derivatives under one brand, the company is betting that the future of investing will be hybrid—part Wall Street, part blockchain, and increasingly borderless.