Robinhood has announced US crypto perpetual futures for eligible American customers, with up to 10x leverage on Bitcoin and Ether and a 0.01 percent trading fee through the end of 2026. The contracts, unveiled at the company’s HOOD Summit on September 29, will be offered by Robinhood Derivatives, a CFTC-registered futures commission merchant, through Bitstamp, the exchange Robinhood bought for $200 million in June 2025.
Eight tokens at launch
The initial lineup covers eight assets, split by leverage tier:
| Asset | Max leverage |
|---|---|
| BTC | 10x |
| ETH | 10x |
| SOL | 3x |
| XRP | 3x |
| DOGE | 3x |
| ADA | 3x |
| LINK | 3x |
| HYPE | 3x |
The contracts have no expiration date, and profit and loss settles every 15 minutes. Robinhood says traders will be able to set stop-loss and take-profit orders, watch liquidation prices in real time and get alerts when a position is at risk. Robinhood confirms the plan in its HOOD Summit release, noting the rollout lands sometime in the coming months without naming an exact date.
CEO Vlad Tenev called the product America’s first true perps in a post on X.
“Robinhood is bringing America its first true perps. No expiry, with P&L settled every 15 minutes. A new chapter for US derivatives.” – Vlad Tenev, Robinhood CEO
Why perpetuals matter in the US
Perpetual futures are the workhorse product of offshore crypto exchanges like Binance and Bybit, but US brokerages have largely avoided them because of regulation. A perpetual keeps a derivatives position open with no fixed expiry, as long as margin requirements hold, so exchanges settle funding payments between long and short sides instead of rolling contracts. Traders like the shape because there is no roll cost, no expiry gap risk and no need to close and reopen a position every month.
The US route so far has gone through narrow cracks. On May 29, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved KalshiEX’s BTCPERP contract, which references Bitcoin’s spot price, as a futures contract, and issued a policy statement saying perpetuals tied to asset classes outside that order should generally go through case-by-case review under CFTC Regulation 40.3. CFTC staff have also confirmed certain Deribit perpetuals can be treated as foreign futures when offered through Coinbase Financial Markets under specified conditions.
Robinhood’s structure side-steps most of the ambiguity: a registered futures commission merchant issues the contracts, so a conventional futures wrapper sits around the perpetual mechanics. That makes Robinhood the first large retail brokerage to bring the product shape to mainstream US customers inside a regulated shell, something offshore exchanges have dominated for years. How the funding rate mechanics map onto a CFTC-supervised contract is the detail most market lawyers are watching, since funding payments are what keep a perpetual tethered to spot.
The Bitstamp engine
All of this runs on Bitstamp, the long-running exchange Robinhood acquired in a deal completed in June 2025. The company has already used Bitstamp for perpetual products outside the US, starting with European crypto perps at up to 3x leverage. By July 2026, Robinhood had expanded the international lineup through Bitstamp to include perpetual contracts on gold, silver, crude oil, ETFs and currency pairs, some at up to 10x.
Tenev has also said Robinhood Chain, the company’s blockchain push, saw perpetual trading volume exceed $1 billion recently, and that the firm will support both on-chain and off-chain perps depending on where regulation lands in each market. In the US, the regulated route through Robinhood Derivatives is the only one on offer for now, and the company gave no timeline for any on-chain equivalent for American customers.
Losers and knock-on effects
The announcement moved markets beyond Robinhood itself. Lighter (LIT), a token tied to a smaller derivatives platform that had featured in Robinhood’s earlier offerings, fell 13 percent in 24 hours and is down 26 percent over seven days after Robinhood confirmed it would route the US product through Bitstamp instead. Lighter traded near $3.86 after the drop, according to Cryptonomist.
Competitive pressure is the obvious reading. A one basis point fee through year-end undercuts most venues popular with US traders and squeezes rivals like Coinbase, which runs its own derivatives arm, and newer on-chain venues like Hyperliquid. Hyperliquid is already under congressional scrutiny over offshore activity, which makes Robinhood’s regulated structure look safer by comparison.
Beyond crypto
The perps product was one item in a broader package aimed at active traders. Robinhood also announced weekend stock and ETF trading targeted for early 2027 on Bruce ATS, in-app AI agents that can execute trades (the company cites 150,000 agentic accounts and roughly 30 million daily tool uses), extended options hours and higher intraday margin.
The company also rolled out earnings contracts for key company metrics and a Crypto Fundamentals subscription by Token Terminal at $10 a month, which tracks blockchains across 100+ chains and 1,200+ apps. The releases suggests Robinhood wants to be a full trading terminal for US retail: equities, options, futures, crypto and now crypto derivatives, all in one app with margin switched on.
What to watch
Three things decide how big this gets. First, the actual launch date, since nothing ships today. Second, how quickly eligible customers clear the know-your-customer and margin onboarding, because leverage products usually carry extra suitability steps. Third, whether the CFTC challenges or blesses the structure once volumes appear, because an objection to one venue tends to set the tone for all of them.
The timing lands in a constructive market. Bitcoin has pushed above $86,000 this week, and US spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $6.34 billion in the third quarter, their best quarter of 2026, per Cointelegraph. A leverage product arriving into that kind of demand usually sees fast volume, and Robinhood is pricing to make sure of it.