DENVER, Colorado — Robinhood, a popular trading platform for stocks and cryptocurrencies, announced Thursday on ETHdenver that it will allow Robinhood Wallet users to access swaps on Arbitrum, a layer 2 blockchain on top of Ethereum.
Arbitrum's ARB token soared on the news, jumping more than 11% moments after the announcement.
According to a press release seen by CoinDesk, Robinhood Wallet users will transact with Arbitrum, and over the next few months, the two entities will work to “support access to cross-chain swaps and other campaigns that lower barriers to using Web3 on Robinhood Wallet.”
Arbitrum is a layer 2 auxiliary blockchain, also known as an accumulator that processes transactions cheaper and faster than the main Ethereum blockchain. Arbitrum leads the way in decentralized finance, or DeFi, total value locked (TVL) when it comes to the second layer on Ethereum, at about $3.2 billion, according to DefiLlama.
“With DeFi continuing to lead Arbitrum, we will now see one of the most popular trading platforms offering low-cost in-app swaps to a broad audience of traders,” said Offchain Labs Chief Strategy Officer AJ Warner. The development company behind the Arbitrum network, said in the press release.
“Accessing and transacting on L2s has historically been difficult for non-crypto citizens, but Robinhood Wallet is now helping to remove the complexities to help onboard those new to Web3,” said Johan Kerbrat, Managing Director of Robinhood Crypto.
Updated (29 February 2024, 18:43 UTC): He adds that ARB jumped on the news.