Some personal news:
I'm joining @arbitrum as a Developer Evangelist to help meet developers where they are and drive adoption.
I'll be working alongside my goated colleagues @hummusonrails, @aboutlo & the rest of the Arbitrum Foundation.
As some of you may know, I have a massive passion for Ethereum and have been bullish on the L2-centric roadmap ever since it was first considered.
After supporting L2 teams throughout the years and gaining experience, I believe Arbitrum has what it takes to break down barriers to adoption, offer a unified developer experience through Stylus, and make Ethereum the most accessible to developers it has ever been.
My scope of work will revolve around nurturing the vibrant Arbitrum developer community, sharing educational content on Stylus and the Arbitrum tech stack, and organizing sick regional events like OpenHouse to meet you where you're at.
The state of Arbitrum today is mindblowing, but we're not stopping there.
Arbitrum everywhere.
Founder House London is coming.
This Friday, June 5, we’re going live w/ @arbitrum very own @Swagtimus, @hummusonrails, @kubesqrt, hosted by @JolyOnChain!
What to expect.
How teams earn their spot.
Why this is the room to be in.
Set your reminders now 👇
https://t.co/4jaB6VdNE0
Why we build with Stylus 💚
We’re building RWA-backed lending, real-world assets as collateral.
That kind of protocol can’t afford inefficiency: every loan, every liquidation, every interest accrual has to run lean and fast.
That’s why our smart contracts run with Stylus, Rust contracts on @arbitrum.
Real-world assets deserve infrastructure that’s actually built for them.
We built the first app that lets you travel the world by saving money
Credit cards give you points for spending
Symphony rewards you with points for saving
Earn a fixed 5% APY, plus points transferable to the largest airlines and hotels
Let your savings take you places
The programmable economy needs cracked founders, bold products, and entirely new ways to bring finance onchain.
What will you build in the programmable economy?
Builder’s Block #018 is live!
This edition covers what's next for AI: inference verification, risks, and workshops, the sub-second proof verification with Syndicate and Stylus, and the schedule and FAQs about the Open House Online Buildathon.
Dive in 👇🏻
https://t.co/A9nCkvbdxX
Johann Kerbrat on why Robinhood is building its own L2 on Ethereum
At Consensus Hong Kong in February 2026, Robinhood launched a public testnet for Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer 2 built with Arbitrum.
Following six months of private testing, Robinhood plans to launch the mainnet in 2026 and will migrate tokenized US stocks and ETFs currently offered to EU customers on Arbitrum One to its own dedicated Arbitrum-powered L2 that still settles on Ethereum.
Coinbase has adopted a similar strategy with its plans to take full control over Base’s tech stack and advance the L2 toward Stage 2 decentralization.
Robinhood Head of Crypto Johann Kerbrat explains the rationale behind building an L2:
“We can still get the security and liquidity of Ethereum, benefit from all of the work that the Arbitrum team has done, and on top of that, customize [the chain] every time we want to build something.”
He continues:
“If we want to give people access to all of the tools and elements of traditional finance, we also need flexibility [to comply with] what regulators are asking us to do. A world where you have full privacy and you can do whatever you want without KYC and trade securities is still a bit far for us. But what we are trying to find is a good middle ground. You will be on a permissionless chain. You will be able to interact with DeFi and do a lot of things with your stock tokens. We think it’s a great compromise.”
Galaxy Head of Research Alex Thorn points out that you can embed a lot of compliance controls at the application and token layers on top of Ethereum.
Source: @glxyresearch (May 2026)
pretty wild how fast this industry moves
a few months ago only a few people spoke about “programmable” systems
now some of the biggest players in our industry are using language around programmable "money", "assets" etc
feels like a major signal that our industry is becoming more tradfi-friendly and institutions are starting to understand what we are all building towards and how it benefits their operations and customers - 24/7 trading, T-0 instant settlements, seamless capital flows, open access to all assets etc
I just looked up "what is the programmable economy" on google and this is what AI gave me
cool to see @arbitrum front and center powering the programmable economy
What if your SQL database had onchain trust built in?
.@syndicateio open sourced exactly that. Let me walk you through the @arbitrum pattern in just 4 minutes 👇
Verus is participating in the @arbitrum Open House!
We are building the best execution layer for perp DEXs
New features coming soon (perhaps a couple new venues being integrated 👀)
Our private beta is already live with limited access available
Big month ahead for the programmable economy.
Fintech teams are waking up to what programmable payments, perps, RWAs, AI agents and privacy infrastructure unlock.
What are you focused on building this month?
GM Zebullz!
Excited to share more proof that Londonmaxxing is in!
If you haven't already, make sure you check out the @arbitrum Open House:
https://t.co/5Qva4RB8ve
slowly then suddenly
LFG
In May, the programmable economy kept accelerating across payments, stablecoins, asset tokenization and financial markets.
- Arbitrum reached 10M stablecoin holders
- Arbitrum became the busiest @USDT0_to L2 route by volume with $6.4B moved across 30,947 transactions
- @CashApp enabled send and receive USDC payments on Arbitrum
- @Ostium integrated @Nasdaq market data to power onchain stock perpetuals
- @variational_io raised $50M to aggregate RWA liquidity through RFQ infrastructure
- @Spiko_finance's EU T-Bill fund grew 5.5x to more than $374M
- @USDai_Official reached $3.6M in 365-day revenue with 297% monthly revenue growth
- @PleasingMarket's PGOLD surpassed $92M on Arbitrum in tokenized gold backed by real reserves
TL;DR: Finance is moving onchain and becoming software.
Arbitrum is the finance native platform powering the programmable economy.
The Arbitrum Foundation is heading to Istanbul Blockchain Week.
On June 3rd, @itsbrendanma is hosting a workshop on how institutions think about allocating capital into the infrastructure layer powering the programmable economy.
If you're in town, register below. 👇