Robinhood launches perpetual futures in Europe

Expanding from digital assets to commodities, ETFs and forex

Bridging traditional finance and decentralized infrastructure

Model draws attention from South Korean brokerages

Robinhood announced its global expansion vision on July 1 (local time), saying it will broaden its perpetual futures product lineup in Europe. [Robinhood]
Robinhood announced its global expansion vision on July 1 (local time), saying it will broaden its perpetual futures product lineup in Europe. [Robinhood]

Robinhood is expanding its perpetual futures — known as "perps" — in the European market beyond digital assets to include raw materials, exchange-traded funds and foreign exchange. The move combines traditional financial assets with the perpetual futures structure long used in digital asset markets, accelerating the company's push into global on-chain finance.

Robinhood announced its global expansion vision on July 1 (local time), saying it would roll out a broader range of perpetual futures in Europe. Under the plan, eligible investors in Europe will be able to trade derivatives tracking assets including gold, silver, QQQ, the euro-dollar pair, West Texas Intermediate crude, Brent crude and the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY) — in addition to digital assets — with up to 10 times leverage on a 24-hour market.

Perps are derivative instruments in futures form with no expiration date. Investors can take long (buy) or short (sell) positions to bet on price movements without holding the underlying asset directly. Positions can be held indefinitely, and a funding rate mechanism keeps the futures price converging toward the spot price.

Perps have established themselves as a leading high-leverage derivative in digital asset markets. Recently, perpetual futures trading has grown rapidly — particularly on decentralized exchanges — with trading volumes in some cases surpassing spot trading. Robinhood noted that since expanding its service to 30 European countries last year, perpetual futures have become "one of the fastest-growing products in the EU."

Robinhood is also broadening access to perps through its self-custody wallet, Robinhood Wallet. The company is adding native integration with its own layer-2 blockchain, Robinhood Chain, and — in select jurisdictions — allowing investors to access perpetual futures within the wallet through the decentralized exchange Lighter.

The announcement is part of Robinhood's strategy to position itself as an infrastructure provider bridging traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi). The company also unveiled a range of digital asset-based financial products, including stock tokens, on-chain lending and agentic trading.

Robinhood Wallet users in more than 120 countries will be able to access stock tokens, trading them around the clock on Robinhood Chain or using them as collateral in lending pools and for trading. In the United States, the company plans to roll out Robinhood Earn, a DeFi lending product that lets users lend the dollar-pegged stablecoin USDG from a self-custody wallet.

AI-powered trading features are also being extended to digital assets. Robinhood plans to apply its agentic trading capability — previously available for stocks and options in the US — to digital asset trading as well. Users can connect their chosen AI model to Robinhood's data and trading tools, allowing an AI agent to analyze market data and execute strategies based on preset conditions.

Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood's senior vice president of crypto, said the company is "combining the best of traditional finance and DeFi to expand financial ownership to every corner of the world."

Robinhood's digital asset strategy is drawing attention as a model among South Korean financial investment firms. The company currently serves about 28 million customers across 38 countries. Its approach of combining stocks, digital assets, derivatives, tokenized assets and AI trading features within a single investment platform aligns closely with the digital asset ambitions of domestic brokerages.

"The Robinhood model is where securities firms want to go," said one financial industry official. "Demand to integrate digital asset trading into mobile trading systems will only grow from here."


kyoung@heraldcorp.com