London edition

Robinhood Crypto is the brokerage's digital-asset platform. Robinhood Chain is a separate Ethereum layer-2, launched in July 2026, used for tokenized stocks, memecoin launchpads and DeFi. These charges concern the company's listing process, not a chain outage or a protocol hack. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York says Chai and Xiang, as engineers, could see whether and when Robinhood would support additional tokens. Between 2025 and 2026 they allegedly bought Hyperliquid perpetual futures tied to those tokens before public listing announcements, breaching duties of confidentiality. Hyperliquid is a decentralized derivatives exchange. Perpetual futures let traders bet on a token's price without holding it and without an expiry date. Each defendant is charged with one Commodity Exchange Act count (up to 10 years) and one wire-fraud count (up to 20 years). Chai, 36, of Menlo Park, California, was to be presented in the Northern District of California. Xiang, 30, also known as Jerry Xiang, of Jersey City, New Jersey, was to appear before Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang in Manhattan. Forbes, citing the complaints, says Robinhood designated both as Coin Aware Individuals, barred from trading on Robinhood or elsewhere before and during the 24 hours after a listing or delisting announcement, and that the alleged trades included memecoins. The government has not published wallet addresses in the press release. Prosecutors thanked Robinhood for cooperating. Defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

Robinhood Chain is an Arbitrum Orbit layer-2 that settles to Ethereum. Under the Arbitrum Expansion Program, chains that settle outside Arbitrum One and Nova return 10% of net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem, with 8 percentage points to the DAO and 2 to a developer fund. CoinDesk, summarizing Kendrick's note, says Robinhood Chain paid about $360,000 in licensing fees in July, then 35% of Arbitrum DAO income that month, and that by 1 September the chain was generating about $3.75 million in user fees and sending roughly $370,000 to Arbitrum over 24 hours. Kendrick called Robinhood Chain evidence that Arbitrum can become a preferred stack for traditional finance moving assets onchain. He forecasts ARB at $0.50 by end-2026, then $1.50, $3.50, $6.50 and $10 through 2030, versus about 14 cents when the note circulated. He also lists risks: ARB has no direct claim on fees, tokenization could be slower than modeled, other chains compete, Robinhood has been subsidizing gas for official-wallet users under a 90-day program due to expire around the end of September, and 92.6 million ARB was scheduled to unlock on 16 September. The $10 figure is a bank forecast, not a live product change on Robinhood Chain.

Kamino is a Solana lending and liquidity protocol. Users supply crypto or tokenized assets as collateral and borrow against them. In a 15 September GlobeNewswire release and an official @kamino thread, the project said Weisz built Yieldstreet into a direct-to-consumer alternatives platform that served more than 500,000 investors and deployed more than $6 billion alongside Goldman Sachs, Carlyle, KKR, Ares, Fortress and StepStone. Co-founder Marius Ciubotariu said Weisz understands distribution, Wall Street and regulation. The release says Kamino is evaluating New York office space and plans to hire a CFO and head of legal. Product already in the pitch includes PRIME, a market with Figure Technologies and Hastra that uses Figure's onchain home-equity lines of credit as collateral and, Kamino says, passed $600 million in deposits within 107 days. Tokenized equities from Nasdaq-listed Forward Industries and Galaxy are also listed as collateral. CoinDesk put Kamino near $1.4 billion in assets. Weisz's letter, quoted in the release, argues tokenization is only the first step and that assets still need distribution, compliance, lifecycle operations, and credit. This is a management and go-to-market change, not a new money-market or a mainnet upgrade. U.S. access, eligibility and which assets can be used as collateral still depend on the protocol's existing restrictions.

STOCKLANA is a Solana Foundation hackathon aimed at products that use tokenized equities already trading on Solana. The original brief offered $100,000 to build trading, investing, credit, infrastructure or consumer tools that, in the Foundation's words, work better than a brokerage app. On 15 September the official @solana account posted a deadline extension to 25 September at 4 p.m. ET and named new bounty sponsors. The public page at hackathons.solana.com/hackathons/stocklana now shows a $121,000 pool, 558 registrants, 74 submissions and a 25 September deadline in the header. Bounties listed there include Meteora Dynamic Bonding Curve experiments for equity-like assets ($5,000), Clawpump stock-paired agent launches ($5,000), PreStocks pre-IPO integrations ($5,000), Tessera pre-IPO T-token products ($6,000), and Pyth market-data apps (three months of Pyth Pro). The same page's timeline section still says submissions close Friday 18 September at 4 p.m. ET, so builders should treat the header and the @solana post as the later date and confirm on the submit form before relying on either. Winners of the $100,000 main pool are to be contacted through the site. This is an announced contest, not a protocol upgrade.

DAWN is an RWA protocol that tokenizes digital infrastructure used for connectivity and, later, AI compute. Through operator partner Andrena, it says it has connected more than 15,000 households across 10 U.S. states. The USD.infra Vault is designed as onchain project finance: eligible users obtain USD.infra, deposit into the vault, receive sUSD.infra, and see performance in the exchange rate as contracted revenue comes back from deployments. Target uses listed by DAWN include building-wide connectivity contracts, small ISP acquisitions, carrier Wi-Fi offload, and compute or neocloud deals. DAWN says USD.infra is issued on M0's stablecoin infrastructure, and that Solana Token Extensions can embed transfer restrictions so sUSD.infra stays with eligible non-U.S. persons. The thread names @Kamino , @Orca_so , @JupiterExchange and @ExponentFinance as venues it wants to plug into, and @FlowTraders as a liquidity provider. Docs and the blog say the vault is offered only outside the United States, that VPNs to dodge rules are prohibited, and that this is not an offer. @solana 's quote used the word live. DAWN's dated blog still says launching 22 September at 14:00 UTC. Treat public mainnet deposits as scheduled, not guaranteed.

Coinbase Wallet is Coinbase's self-custodial app. In mid-September 2026 Coinbase restored that name after more than a year as Base App, and said the product would focus on multichain trading rather than an onchain social feed. Base remains Coinbase's Ethereum layer-2. The 15 September batch-sell posts describe a single transaction that converts as many as 20 tokens into USDC, pitched as wallet cleanup. That is a client feature, not a Base protocol upgrade. The public posts do not say whether the path is limited to Base, which aggregators are used, how unsellable or taxed tokens are handled, or whether the swap is available in every jurisdiction. Users should confirm in the live app, including network, quote and allowance prompts, before assuming a 20-asset dump will succeed.

Arc is Circle's layer-1 for stablecoin payments, FX and tokenized assets. Gas is paid in USDC rather than a volatile token, finality is designed to be sub-second, and a permissioned set of financial institutions is expected to validate. Public testnet is already open. Public mainnet remains scheduled for 16 September 2026, with Circle still warning that features can be delayed or cancelled. Naming MetaMask as the default wallet is a distribution promise: dapps can use the connect and sign patterns users already know, instead of teaching a new extension on day one. Arc's post is written in the future tense (this would give builders familiar flows) and ends with more to come. That is not the same as a shipped production network inside MetaMask. Builders should watch for an official MetaMask network entry, RPC, chain ID and USDC gas token support after mainnet, rather than assuming browser wallets already route value on Arc.

fomo is a consumer trading app. Arc is positioning it as an on-ramp for people who will not start with Aave, Uniswap or a bank validator node. The 15 September posts are day-one commitments tied to the still-pending public mainnet, not evidence that fomo is already matching trades on public Arc. Circle has separately named larger DeFi and payments names among launch integrations, and has said a product suite (app framework, AI contract tools, tokenized-asset tooling) will be unveiled with mainnet. Until RPC endpoints, explorers and the app itself are public, users cannot inspect liquidity, listing policy or whether fomo is self-custodial. Arc's own launch notices still say features may be modified, delayed or cancelled.

Arc is a separate blockchain from Ethereum, Solana, Base and Robinhood Chain, built by Circle, the issuer of USDC. Public testnet has been open since 28 October 2025 (chain ID 5042002). Circle's 5 August announcement set 16 September for public mainnet and listed expected day-one names including Uniswap, Aave, Morpho, Binance Wallet, MetaMask, Fireblocks and Kraken. BlackRock is expected to deploy its BUIDL tokenized fund on Arc. A DTCC tokenization hook is described as beginning in the second half of 2027, not on day one. Validators are a permissioned set. Circle raised a private ARC token presale earlier in 2026; that token is not required to pay gas. Users and developers can register for the livestream at community.arc.io and keep using testnet docs at docs.arc.io until the public endpoints are posted.

The CLARITY Act would split federal oversight of digital commodities between the SEC and CFTC, and includes language on payment stablecoins, ethics for officials, and a prohibition on Federal Reserve retail accounts and CBDC monetary policy. The House passed an earlier version in 2025. Senate Republicans released a substitute they said included 126 Democratic requests and White House-backed ethics rules covering elected officials, judges and spouses. Cloture on a motion to proceed needs 60 votes. It failed, so the Senate never opened the bill for amendment. Republican nays were Susan Collins, Josh Hawley, Jerry Moran and Thom Tillis. Independents King and Sanders voted no with Democrats. Tillis's no, according to the Senate Daily Press, was to preserve a motion to reconsider, which he filed at 3:01 p.m. The bill remains on the calendar, but sponsors had said the legislative window is short before a midterm recess. @brian_armstrong called the result a disappointment, said bipartisan talks might continue, and argued the SEC and CFTC already have tools, while GENIUS remains law for stablecoins. Reuters reported bitcoin and crypto stocks sold off as the vote landed. This vote is not a vote on final passage.

Cashtags are $TICKER links on X that already bundled a price chart and related posts. The 15 September program adds a Trade control that deep-links into a partner's app or website, where the user must log in or open an account and complete KYC under that firm's rules. X is not matching orders. @krakenfx said the crypto path is live in the U.S. from the same day. Coverage of the launch says crypto cashtags are aimed at Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini, while stocks and ETFs go to Interactive Brokers and Moomoo, and that available tickers and identity checks differ by partner. X previously claimed a cashtag trading pilot did about $1 billion of global volume in three days. That figure is X's estimate, not an audited volume print. Users should expect the usual brokerage restrictions, including geo-blocks and asset lists, after they leave the timeline.