Robinhood Chain tokens vanish; buyers lose funds

Relay, a cross-chain transaction protocol, reported that some buyers on Robinhood Chain lost funds after tokens they bought vanished from their wallets. The company said private keys and unrelated token balances were not impacted and that it is blocking the disappearing tokens while verifying assets it considers safe.

Relay posted that the incidents involved scam tokens that can remove themselves after purchase and warned that the funds spent on those tokens are gone. The company wrote: “We’re aware of reports of tokens disappearing from wallets after purchase on Robinhood Chain. There’s been an increase in scam tokens designed to remove themselves after purchase. If you bought one, the funds you spent are unfortunately gone. We’re blocking these tokens as they show up and verifying safe ones.”

The reports followed Robinhood’s launch of a permissionless public mainnet on July 1 and a surge in speculative trading on the chain. Decentralized exchange volume on Robinhood Chain peaked near $400 million on July 7, and a third-party market maker added trading for the chain’s tokens on July 8. Open token creation on the network allows developers to deploy contracts without Robinhood’s approval, and outside tokens and liquidity can form around the brand without appearing in app listings.

Which trading interface the affected buyers used has not been established. Robinhood Wallet’s support documentation states in-app swaps route through the 0x API and LI.FI. 0x supports tokens by default unless they are blocked for compliance reasons, and custom ERC-20 tokens become tradable once liquidity exists on markets the API sources. Relay operates a separate bridge and swap interface that supports Robinhood Chain and said it screens transactions against sanctions and risk databases while maintaining an internal blocklist.

Relay has not published contract addresses, transaction records, the number of affected buyers, total losses, or a technical explanation for how tokens were able to vanish after purchase. The company also did not indicate that Robinhood brokerage accounts or other Robinhood products were affected. Robinhood reports serving nearly 28 million customers in 38 countries, a companywide figure that does not reflect how many users interact with the new chain.

A token blocked by one service can remain accessible through other routes unless those services implement the same checks. Robinhood’s guidance on scams recommends reviewing transaction details before signing and warns about malicious smart contracts, pump-and-dump schemes and rug pulls, but it does not describe what screening occurs for in-wallet swaps or address tokens whose balances disappear after purchase.

Until contract addresses or transaction records are released, independent verification of the reported losses is not possible. On permissionless chains, transactions are irreversible once signed, so visibility into an asset’s status before a trade is completed is one immediate point of consumer protection.