Robinhood Rolls Out Perpetual Futures Tied to Commodities, ETFs
Robinhood Markets Inc. is rolling out perpetual futures tied to commodities, exchange-traded funds and currencies in Europe, seeking to capitalize on the rise in round-the-clock trading that’s long been a feature of crypto markets.
Eligible European customers will be able to trade perpetual futures — contracts with no expiry date — linked to assets including gold, silver, crude oil and the euro-dollar exchange rate. The instruments feature leverage of up to 10 times, the company said on Wednesday.
Commonly known as “perps,” the contracts were among a suite of new products unveiled by Robinhood executives at an event in London. The offerings include a decentralized-lending product, artificial-intelligence trading accounts for crypto investors in the US and a company-branded public blockchain.
The expansion reflects a broader push by brokers and trading venues to bring technology developed for crypto markets into traditional finance, offering investors new ways to trade stocks, commodities and other assets outside conventional market hours.
For almost a decade, perpetual futures have been a staple of cryptocurrency trading, in part because they allow investors to maintain leveraged positions around the clock. Startups like trade.xyz have launched perps tied to traditional assets like oil, along with instruments that let investors speculate on the S&P 500 and the price of Elon Musk’s SpaceX shares before its initial public offering.
The products surged in popularity during the volatile first weeks of the Iran conflict, when traders turned to perps on decentralized platform Hyperliquid to bet on the price of oil and other traditional assets over the weekend while mainstream venues were closed.
Crypto trading, meanwhile, has been subdued in past months as the price of Bitcoin tumbled more than 50% from last year’s peak.
Robinhood launched crypto perps in Europe last year. They’ve since become one of its fastest-growing products, prompting the firm to expand the instruments into traditional assets.
“The weekend doesn’t stop what is happening in the world,” Johann Kerbrat, senior vice president and general manager of Crypto and International at Robinhood, said in an interview. “We saw people want to be able to hedge their positions.”
Robinhood — which launched tokenized US stocks trading in Europe a year ago — introduced new versions of the tokens on Tuesday and expanded their availability to more jurisdictions. Tokenization uses blockchain technology to create digital representations of assets ranging from from stocks and bonds to real estate.
The Menlo Park, California-based company also introduced Crypto Earn, which allows US users to lend dollar-pegged stablecoin USDG through a self-custody wallet. The product offers an estimated 7% annual yield, the company said in the press release.
Among other changes were a new fee structure for professional crypto traders in the US. Robinhood said customers there will soon be able to direct AI agents to trade digital assets on their behalf. The company recently launched AI-driven stock trading in the US.
Robinhood also shared plans to launch crypto in the UK “soon” and said that its entity in Singapore had received its capital markets services licenses from the local regulator, as it looks to offer brokerage services there.
