Corporate Chains Take Over Crypto Landscape

Robinhood has joined the growing list of major consumer companies building their own blockchain infrastructure. On July 1, Robinhood launched its own layer 2 network, called Robinhood Chain, which is built on top of Arbitrum technology and features 100-millisecond block times. This move follows in the footsteps of Coinbase's Base, Stripe's Tempo, Circle's Arc, and Tether's settlement chains.

The shift towards corporate-controlled blockchain networks has been rapid, with nearly every large company that touches crypto concluding that owning infrastructure is more beneficial than relying on public networks. The benefits of building one's own chain include higher margins, greater product control, and built-in user distribution.

Ryan Felton's quote from the article should be removed since it has not been included in the source. Robinhood Chain promises to be a neutral network, allowing anyone to deploy contracts and users to interact through self-custody wallets without touching Robinhood's brokerage at all.