Robinhood CEO Plans to Launch ‘Thousands’ of Tokenized Stocks

Vladimir Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, revealed in an interview with Bloomberg that numerous private companies have approached his firm to add their tokenized stocks.

According to Tenev, the online broker aims to list “thousands” of shares from private projects for retail trading on its platform.

“Tokenized stocks are the biggest innovation in 10 years,” he emphasized.

At the end of June, Robinhood announced the development of its own blockchain network and the launch of trading tokenized stocks on the L2 protocol Arbitrum. The company has already issued tokens based on securities from OpenAI, Robinhood Markets, Trump Media & Technology Group, Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF, and YieldMax MSTR Option Income Strategy.

“The mechanism varies slightly depending on the asset, whether it’s public stocks or a private company. But the goal is for tokens to be backed by the underlying asset in almost all cases,” Tenev explained the token mechanism.

The platform’s launch was made possible by the European Union’s “clear rules” for crypto-asset derivatives, he added. The Robinhood CEO assured that the products “will withstand the highest form of scrutiny” and are “constantly discussed” with regulators.

Currently, the broker’s tokenized stocks are available only in the EU. However, Tenev noted that the US should not “fall too far behind,” as the SEC has already begun discussing this topic, including with Robinhood.

Previously, AI startup OpenAI called the tokens of its shares on the Robinhood platform fake and denied involvement in the launch. Representatives of the online broker explained that the product provides retail investors “indirect access to private markets” and is realized through the company’s stake in a SPV.

Back in February, Tenev spoke about four areas where Robinhood intends to accelerate the development of industry offerings, calling cryptocurrency “the future.”