Robinhood Expands into Traditional Assets with Perpetual Futures

R Robinhood is expanding its trading platform to include perpetual futures on traditional assets in Europe. This move marks a significant shift for the company, which has traditionally focused on cryptocurrency trading.

The perpetual futures contracts will allow traders to bet on price movements without taking delivery of the underlying asset and without an expiration date. Initially, eligible EU customers can trade crypto perpetual futures with up to 3x leverage, but this could eventually climb as high as 10x.

The product is being rolled out gradually, starting with commodities, ETFs, and currencies. The initial lineup includes perpetuals on Bitcoin and Ethereum, along with a variety of other tokens. All trades are routed through Bitstamp's exchange infrastructure, which Robinhood acquired for $200M in a deal that gave the company a licensed, established foothold in European crypto markets.