Robinhood’s Cannes Token Festival
Olivia Capozzalo & Camila Russo
June 30, 2025
Happy Monday, Defiers!
Today’s big story:
- Robinhood unveiled its own L2, plus tokenized stocks and perps for EU traders
Plus:
- Top memecoin launchpad pumpfun has launched an app with new features, dubbed PumpFun 2.0
- DeFi lending protocol Euler hits over $1 billion in active loans
- Maple and EtherFi have teamed up to offer restaked ETH as collateral for institutional lending
- SSV 2.0 and based applications: Decentralized infrastructure for secure, scalable Ethereum staking [SPONSORED]
- The Stellar development roadmap paves way for expansion and network scalability [SPONSORED]
Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.
DIA launches $DIA Staking and Oracle Grants with 20 chains, including Arbitrum, BNB Chain, and Avalanche. Power your dApp with trustless oracles, cost-free.
Money is broken. Finance today is trapped in analog while the world runs on code. M0 rewires finance at its core. This is financial infrastructure for builders who create, not extract.
Flare brings XRP to DeFi — trade, lend, and stake it for yield opportunities, within a rapidly growing DeFi hub that has seen 200% growth, powered by its enshrined data protocols.
Final Agenda Drop: Arthur Breitman in Conversation with Camila Russo + Surprise Game Reveal
TezDev 2025 is nearly here! Don’t miss Arthur Breitman live fireside chat with The Defiant’s Camila Russo, an exclusive game reveal on Etherlink, and deep dives into DeFi, RWA, and digital art. Full agenda now live — join us July 3 in Cannes!
DIA Infra Gardens V7 During EthCC | July 2 | Cannes
Infra Gardens returns for its 7th edition — this time in Cannes during EthCC 2025. Join top infra builders from Arbitrum, DIA, Conduit, Goldsky, Dune, Symbiotic, and more for panels, workshops, and poolside conversations in a tropical villa setting.
→ RSVP now: lu.ma/InfraGardens-Cannes
We’re back! Here’s what you need to know in web3 today
Robinhood Goes All In on Crypto
Get picked up at Cannes’ Carlton Hotel on the Le Croissete Boulevard, the famous avenue lined with luxury brands on one side and the "azure" Mediterranean sea on the other. Arrive via winding roads at a chateau at the top of a hill, overlooking the ocean, to pure French Riviera fantasy. Rolling green lawns, carefully manicured flower beds, a pool glinting under the scalding summer sun. At the heart of the garden, one shrub stood out—a pristine, expertly trimmed sculpture in the shape of the Robinhood logo.
About 300 people gathered here, an eclectic mix of high-powered fintech, TradFi and crypto names, from Fidelity, Stripe, and Cantor Fitzgerald to Morpho, Aave and Arbitrum. Guests sipped cocktails and nibbled on appetizers while darting between patches of shade to escape the relentless heat. Soon, we circled around a small stage. That’s when Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev made his entrance, rockstar style in a white pinstripe suit, his long black hair flowing behind him.
On stage, Vlad and his team made a series of announcements which we covered and I'll detail now, but to me, the key message to take away from this event is this: unlike many companies who are now dabbling in crypto, at Robinhood, the person at the very top is all in. And this matters more than the tech stack a company chooses, and UX decisions.
What determines whether a "crypto project" becomes more than a science experiment is buy-in at the very top. Otherwise, crypto gets sidelined; it’s not integrated with the core experience and doesn’t get a genuine chance to break out. At least from the announcements made, and Vlad talking about how blockchains will make financial assets accessible and revolutionize trading, I would bet that’s not a risk at Robinhood.
Layer 2, Tokenized Stocks and Private Shares
Here’s what Robinhood announced:
Robinhood is launching tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs for European users. Starting with over 200 names—including Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Tesla, and the S&P 500 ETF—these tokens will trade commission-free, 24 hours a day, five days a week, with plans to expand to 2,000 tokens by the end of 2025. Europeans can already access U.S. stocks via platforms like Revolut, but Robinhood’s tokenization unlocks future DeFi use cases—imagine using stock tokens as collateral or trading them on decentralized markets. That’s not live yet, but it’s clearly where this is headed.
The tokenization of private company shares was the least expected announcement. Robinhood plans to offer tokens representing stakes in companies like SpaceX and OpenAI—giving retail investors exposure to the kinds of private equity deals that have historically been locked behind institutional gates. Kraken has taken small steps in this direction, but Robinhood could massively democratize access to private markets.
Then there was the most expected announcement: Robinhood is launching its own blockchain, which will be built using Arbitrum’s tech stack. This isn’t just about spinning up a vanity chain. It’s a commitment to owning the infrastructure and creating a seamless trading experience where users can move between stocks, crypto, and other assets in one app, potentially lowering costs and increasing speed.
The company also unveiled crypto perpetual futures for European users, starting with Bitcoin and Ethereum, offering up to 3x leverage. The perpetuals product isn’t new to crypto, but Robinhood’s signature UX could attract a broader retail audience.
Additional updates included crypto staking for Ethereum and Solana (rolling out in the U.S. and EU), instant deposit bonuses, a crypto cash-back credit card, and a new AI assistant for in-app insights. These are the kind of features that build stickiness, but felt more like table stakes compared to the headline-grabbing announcements.
As the sun set, guests settled in at white-tablecloth dinner tables on the lawn. Over shrimp starters and chilled white wine, Robinhood Crypto head Johann Kerbrat moderated a panel featuring Arbitrum co-founder AJ Warner and Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin.
Building on Ethereum
Vitalik underscored the Ethereum Foundation’s renewed focus on enabling applications.
“Our job as an L1 is to make the chain more powerful. It’s the work of builders to take those tools and create.”
Robinhood building on Ethereum is a near-perfect embodiment of that vision. The company wants to become the single app where users can trade all assets, whether onchain or off, and they clearly see a future where more and more of those assets will live natively onchain.
Robinhood is arguably one of the best-positioned companies to execute on this vision. But that also puts them under a spotlight. If they succeed, they’ll blaze a trail that others will rush to follow. If they fail despite having the brand, the users, the tech, and the commitment, it could spook other companies from trying.
Robinhood isn’t just making a crypto play. They’re betting the company on it. And the French Riviera might have been the perfect place to show that they’re not just dipping in, they’re diving headfirst. We’ll wait and see if it’s all just theatrics.
With love,
Cami, founder of The Defiant
📈 Markets in the last 24 hrs:
| TICKER | VALUE | 24H | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Bitcoin | $107,698 | 0.22 % |
 | Ethereum | $2,480.94 | 1.81 % |
 | XRP | $2.21 | 1.15 % |
 | BNB | $658.12 | 1.39 % |
 | Solana | $157.04 | 4.20 % |
 MessariPortals | MINDSHARE Rank | MINDSHARE % Change (7d) |
|---|---|---|
 | MINDSHARE Rank | MINDSHARE % Change (7d) |
 Solana SOL | 6  | 41.55% |
 Avalanche AVAX | 20 | 28.95% |
 TRON TRX | 8  | -19.81% |
| Powered by Messari Portals | ||
This is the news that mattered in the past 24 hrs
- Pumpfun, the leading Solana-based memecoin launchpad, revealed its official mobile app, PumpFun 2.0, on Friday; the app features news, livestreams, and latest tokens sections.
- DeFi lending protocol Euler surpassed $1 billion in active loans, marking a record high and representing over a 4,000% increase from Q4 2024; the protocol has been on a tear in recent month, launching its own DEX as well as stablecoin lending infra, continuing its comeback since being exploited in 2023.
- Top DeFi platform Maple Finance announced today that it now accepts EtherFi’s weETH – a token that represents restaked ETH – as collateral for institutional lending.
🎬WATCH
On the latest episode of The Defiant Podcast, Vinny spoke with Vikram Arun, CEO of Superform, about the evolution of stablecoins as a financial tool, why automation is critical for DeFi growth, and whether 20% on-chain yields are truly sustainable in today’s crypto economy.
That’s it for today — if you enjoyed this newsletter, tell your friends! https://thedefiant.io/subscribe
Free newsletters
Good reporting. Delivered.
Choose your coverage: crypto and DeFi, the future of finance, or both.
Free. Unsubscribe anytime.
