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Traditional stock markets close at 4 PM Eastern. Crypto never sleeps. Arcus is betting that traders want equities to work on crypto’s schedule.
The decentralized exchange, built by dYdX Labs in collaboration with Robinhood Crypto, went live on July 1 with spot trading for more than 95 tokenized stock tokens on Robinhood Chain. The platform offers 24/7 zero-fee trading through a self-custodial interface, accessible to users in over 120 countries.
What Arcus actually does
Think of Arcus as a bridge between Wall Street and DeFi. Instead of buying Tesla shares through a brokerage that operates on banker’s hours, users can trade a tokenized version, like TSLA/USDG, at 2 AM on a Sunday. No fees. No intermediary holding your assets.
The self-custodial angle is important here. Unlike Robinhood’s traditional app, where the company holds your shares, Arcus lets users maintain control of their own wallets. In English: you hold your own keys, you own your own (tokenized) stocks.
The platform runs on Robinhood Chain, a Layer-2 network that gives Arcus the transaction speed and low costs needed to make zero-fee trading economically viable.
Perpetual futures and leverage are coming
Spot trading is just the opening act. Arcus has perpetual futures trading in closed beta, with plans to cover equities, cryptocurrencies, commodities, and indices. The futures product will potentially offer up to 50x leverage.
Arcus plans to let users pledge their tokenized stocks as collateral for futures positions. That’s a meaningful unlock. Imagine holding tokenized Apple shares and using them to open a leveraged position on Bitcoin, all within the same platform, without selling anything.
Fee structures for the futures product haven’t been announced yet.
There’s also a native token in the pipeline. The $ARCUS token is confirmed for future distribution, with potential allocations earmarked for early users and the dYdX community.
Why this matters for investors
Zero-fee trading across 95-plus stock tokens is a direct shot at traditional brokerages.
The 120-country access point matters enormously. Most US-based brokerages are limited to domestic customers or a small number of international markets. Arcus sidesteps those limitations by operating as a decentralized protocol rather than a licensed brokerage.
For crypto-native traders, the ability to diversify into equities without leaving the DeFi ecosystem removes a significant source of friction. Previously, moving between stocks and crypto required multiple accounts, different platforms, and days of settlement time. Arcus collapses all of that into a single interface with near-instant settlement.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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