Robinhood’s tokenized inventory rollout is elevating eyebrows, as OpenAI distances itself and a few counsel the inventory tokens may very well function in a “walled garden.”
At its “To Catch a Token” occasion in Cannes earlier this week, United States brokerage large Robinhood launched 200 tokenized U.S. shares and ETFs, in addition to perpetual futures, for eligible European clients, with plans to increase the checklist of inventory tokens to 2,000 companies by the tip of the 12 months.
The Menlo Park-headquartered dealer additionally particularly talked about that it’s going to provide qualifying EU customers tokenized personal shares, beginning with tokens representing personal shares of OpenAI and SpaceX.
Nevertheless, two days after the announcement was made, OpenAI took to X to distance itself from Robinhood’s initiative, stating: “These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity.” The X submit from OpenAI’s official account continues:
“We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it. Any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval — we did not approve any transfer. Please be careful.”
Following OpenAI’s official response, Robinhood’s co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev responded on X, confirming that the personal firm inventory tokens “aren’t technically” equities.
“At our recent crypto event, we announced a limited Stock Token giveaway on OpenAI and SpaceX to eligible European customers. While it is true that they aren’t technically ‘equity’ (you can see the precise dynamics in our Terms for those interested), the tokens effectively give retail investors exposure to these private assets,” Tenev clarified.
Robinhood’s CEO additional added that because the announcement, the buying and selling platform has heard “from many private companies that are eager to join us in the tokenization revolution.”
As of press time, SpaceX has not publicly commented on Robinhood’s newest initiative to tokenize the agency’s personal shares.
Walled Backyard Issues
Other than OpenAI’s assertion in opposition to Robinhood’s new personal inventory tokens, others have expressed issues that the agency’s tokenized inventory choices generally look like caught inside a closed-off system.
In a current X submit, Electrical Capital companion and former quantitative researcher, Ren, prompt that the inventory tokens are in-built a method that resembles a “walled garden,” the place solely accredited wallets can transfer them round.
Within the submit, Ren famous that Robinhood’s tokenized inventory contracts examine “every transfer” in opposition to a “registry of approved wallets,” suggesting that solely whitelisted customers can transfer the belongings. If correct, this setup would seemingly block any use of the tokens in broader DeFi purposes.
“It’s unlikely these tokens can interact with defi,” Ren wrote, including additional that it is “very possible cefi with distribution just outcompetes existing defi protocols.”
Nevertheless, not everybody agrees with that evaluation. A blockchain engineer at Offchain Labs, often known as @gzeon on X, prompt in replies that the contracts could not embody a whitelist in any respect.
Primarily based on their testing, transfers between any wallets nonetheless work in a forked atmosphere, which factors to a setup which will rely extra on blacklisting than whitelisting.
The Defiant reached out to Robinhood for clarification concerning the contract construction and whether or not the tokens are meant to stay inside a closed ecosystem however didn’t get a response by publication time.
Robinhood Chain
Robinhood’s tokenized shares are presently deployed on Arbitrum, a Layer 2 (L2) community constructed on Ethereum, and seem to comply with a model of the ERC-20 commonplace, with compliance restrictions. Ren stated that they decompiled the contracts utilizing open-source instruments and reviewed their logic, together with entry management mechanisms and switch guidelines.
Ultimately, Robinhood plans to maneuver the tokenized shares to Robinhood Chain, its personal Arbitrum-based L2, which the agency additionally introduced in Cannes this week and says will launch in 2026.
The U.S. brokerage large additionally stated that tokenized tokens — which Tenev referred to as a “trading revolution” — can be eligible for dividend payouts and can be tradable across the clock on weekdays.
In an unique interview with The Defiant, Robinhood Crypto’s common supervisor, Johann Kerbrat, revealed that the corporate can also be ready for regulatory approval to roll out tokenized shares and perpetuals within the U.S.
The long-term plan, in line with Kerbrat, is to construct a permissionless blockchain that helps self-custody and doubtlessly extra integrations with decentralized instruments. Robinhood has additionally stated that it plans to let customers transfer their tokenized shares to self-custodial wallets, like MetaMask and Rabby, although it hasn’t shared a timeline for when that may occur.
Robinhood shares, which commerce on the Nasdaq underneath the ticker HOOD, are down 3.7% right now, partially retracing positive factors of almost 12% this week.
