Author: Mahe, Foresight News
On July 1st, Arcus, a DEX jointly created by dYdX Labs and Robinhood Crypto, officially launched its Beta version. The platform, deployed on Robinhood Chain, supports spot trading of 95 tokenized stocks and plans to launch cross-asset perpetual contracts. Arcus is not an iterative product of dYdX Chain, but rather a brand new product line from the dYdX team. Concurrently, Robinhood Chain, an L2 built on the Arbitrum technology stack, has officially launched its public mainnet.
Its DYDX token surged from $0.15 to $0.24 before the announcement, but after the announcement landed, it had dropped to $0.13 this morning, erasing all gains. Its current market cap is $115 million, with an FDV of $136 million.
Future Functionality: Using Tokenized Stocks as Collateral, Access to Pre-IPOs
According to the dYdX website, Arcus is strategically driven by dYdX founder Antonio Juliano as a board member, with Eddie Zhang serving as CEO and Founder. Eddie Zhang is the President of dYdX and was previously the Co-founder and CEO of Pocket Protector.
Arcus's core selling point is a 24/7, round-the-clock trading environment free from market hour restrictions, combined with self-custody, institutional-grade liquidity, and high-performance execution. Currently launched features include:
- Perpetual Contracts: Already on testnet, targeting whales, market makers, and professional traders. Public testing will follow later.
- Spot Trading: 95 Stock Token markets are open, with no waiting for listings. Covers 80+ US and international large/mid/small-cap stock tickers, indices (e.g., SPY, QQQ), commodities (from precious metals to energy markets), and crypto assets (BTC, ETH, SOL, etc.). Web platform spot trading fees are 0%, with no commission.
- Liquidity & Execution: Deep liquidity provided by institutional market makers, supports API trading (order management, account data, market data).
- Funding & Access: Supports instant deposits with cash or cryptocurrency, with future support for Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. iOS App coming soon. The platform emphasizes permissionless, unrestricted access but explicitly states it is not available to users in the US, Canada, the UK, or restricted jurisdictions.
Features to be launched later or in Beta:
- Pre-IPO Access Channel: Gain early investment access to hot pre-IPO companies like OpenAI before they go public.
- Tokenized Stocks as Collateral: In the future, users will be able to use their tokenized stock holdings as collateral for perpetual trading, enabling cross-asset strategies (e.g., long Apple while shorting Oil).
A Fresh Start After Being Marginalized?
Since its launch in 2018, dYdX has been a pioneer among Perp DEXs, with cumulative trading volume exceeding $1 trillion. However, the v4 version, while achieving full decentralization, made compromises in performance and user experience. Coupled with heavily criticized tokenomics, this led to its rapid marginalization.
Arcus leverages Robinhood Chain's nearly 28 million customers (across 38 countries and three continents) to provide a retail-level traffic entry point. Robinhood Wallet users in 120+ countries/regions can access Stock Tokens and trade spot via DEXs like Arcus. Furthermore, the application explicitly prioritizes access for dYdX traders, stakers, validators, and participants into the Arcus ecosystem.
Arcus is designed as a community-owned protocol, combining dYdX's DeFi innovation experience with Robinhood's expertise in building financial products.
Simply put, the dYdX team hasn't abandoned its original chain but is seeking a breakthrough in the RWA sector and the 24/7 global trading scene through this new project. Traditional financial markets are limited by opening hours and geography. By putting assets like stocks, indices, and commodities on-chain, Arcus enables round-the-clock trading, unlocks productivity (lending, collateralization), and DeFi integration.
The launch of Arcus does not affect the independent operation of dYdX Chain. dYdX v4 remains a community-owned, fully open-source protocol, with user funds and positions fully accessible on dYdX Chain.
The dYdX Foundation has confirmed ongoing support for the chain. Arcus is more like a "parallel product" incubated by dYdX Labs, driven by the original core team but positioned to focus on the exchange itself rather than full ecosystem governance.
Currently, Arcus's official website and channels have not announced any specific token plans or timelines. However, given dYdX's history of notable airdrops, market participants generally have expectations for a potential new token or airdrop from Arcus.
