Author: Nancy, PANews
Robinhood, which once attracted a new generation of stock investors to trade MEME stocks during the "retail investors vs. Wall Street" battle, has officially unveiled its crypto ambitions. As stock tokenization becomes a new battlefield in the crypto market, following Coinbase and Kraken, Robinhood has officially announced the launch of tokenized stock trading, covering over 200 US stocks and ETFs, and launching a dedicated Layer 2 blockchain for RWA based on Arbitrum.
Influenced by this news, Robinhood's stock price rose over 12.7% to $93.6 at the close on June 30, once reaching a historical high. Meanwhile, Arbitrum token ARB saw a slight intraday pullback, mainly because the positive news had been prematurely digested by the market.
Officially Launching Tokenized US Stocks in the EU, Collaborating with Arbitrum to Develop Official L2
On the evening of June 30, at a conference in Cannes, France, Robinhood announced that it will provide tokenized stock trading services to EU users, now supporting 24/7, 5-day weekly on-chain trading for over 200 US stock assets, including tokens for OpenAI and SpaceX, with plans to expand to thousands by the end of the year.
Currently, Robinhood EU is giving away the first batch of private company stock tokens for free. If you are a Robinhood EU user and meet the qualifications, you can claim tokens within the app, with a deadline of July 7.
The product reportedly only charges a 0.1% foreign exchange conversion fee to reduce the high intermediary costs for European investors accessing the US market. In the future, users will be able to self-custody tokenized stocks and ETFs through Robinhood's crypto wallet, or choose a simplified experience without managing private keys.
Moreover, Robinhood stated that it is developing its own Layer 2 blockchain specifically designed for RWA based on Arbitrum, tentatively named Robinhood Chain, with its availability depending on applicable regulations and future launch timing. Robinhood Crypto's General Manager Johann Kerbrat said that this new chain's design began years ago, architectured around RWA, aiming to break down the "walled garden" of traditional finance and create a more open and transparent asset trading experience.
In fact, Robinhood has been hinting at its stock token product for a while. In May, Bloomberg reported that Robinhood was actively developing a blockchain-based platform allowing European retail investors to trade tokenized US stocks, thus expanding its business layout in the European market.
According to sources, this joint venture might be launched through collaboration with a digital asset company, with Arbitrum and Solana competing to become project partners. Negotiations between the parties are still ongoing, with no final conclusion.
In the same month, a Robinhood job posting also confirmed this business strategy, seeking a product manager to build a new crypto product architecture from scratch that supports multi-chain expansion. The position is now closed.
To advance this business strategy, Robinhood obtained a Lithuanian brokerage license in April, qualifying to provide investment services across the EU. Simultaneously, Robinhood acquired Bitstamp, a veteran crypto exchange, for $200 million, further consolidating its technological and compliance foundation in the European market.
On the technical collaboration front, multiple signs have shown Arbitrum as the core partner for Robinhood's tokenized stock project. For instance, Robinhood's website entrance appeared alongside Arbitrum's promoted Stylus technology on the Arbitrum Portal homepage; Robinhood previewed important crypto business announcements at the Cannes EthCC conference and will participate in a fireside chat with Arbitrum's development team leadership. The market has already reacted to this positive news, with Arbitrum token ARB achieving double-digit growth, rising over 25% in the past 7 days. This is not the first collaboration between Robinhood and Arbitrum; in March last year, Robinhood Wallet announced integration with Arbitrum, providing improved token swap services for its users.
Notably, in addition to launching tokenized US stock products, Robinhood simultaneously announced a series of crypto asset features, including crypto perpetual contracts with up to 3x leverage (without expiration) for European users, and staking for ETH and SOL for US users in compliant regions. Additionally, Robinhood will launch a crypto cashback credit card, a personalized AI assistant Robinhood Cortex, offer a temporary 1% bonus on crypto deposits, and introduce a "tax batch" feature to help users achieve more optimal tax strategies when selling crypto assets.
More Players Enter Tokenized Stocks, Robinhood Submits Policy Proposal Calling for Regulatory Reform
In the past few months, many crypto institutions have made securities tokenization a key part of their strategic expansion. For example, Kraken already allows non-US clients to trade stocks in token form, launching 60 tokenized US stocks in Europe, Latin America, and Africa; Coinbase is seeking SEC approval for tokenized stock services, which would enable stock trading and compete with other brokers if approved; Gemini announced a partnership with Dinari to launch tokenized stock trading for EU users, with the first supported asset being Strategy (MSTR), with plans to introduce more tokenized stocks and ETFs; the US stock trading service startup Dinari has already obtained broker-dealer registration for its subsidiary, making it the first US platform approved for tokenized stocks.
For traditional brokers heavily restricted by compliance and clearing systems, securities tokenization is gradually leveraging the traditional landscape with its low barriers, flexibility, and composability. As a retail securities trading platform, Robinhood has faced growth pressures in its traditional business in recent years, with its zero-commission stock trading model no longer providing a competitive advantage. Thus, it has initiated diversified crypto business strategies with good results. In the first quarter of this year, Robinhood's total revenue increased 50% year-on-year, with crypto business revenue doubling to $252 million.
The disruptive potential of tokenization is another crypto track Robinhood is rushing to enter. In fact, Robinhood's CEO Vlad Tenev has openly expressed support for securities tokenization, stating that expanding retail investors' access to private markets is "one of the company's most important policy priorities".
In January, Tenev wrote in The Washington Post that companies like OpenAI and SpaceX remain private, with only a small group of well-connected and capitalized insiders able to enter early, often receiving returns 1000 times or more their initial investment, while ordinary investors have no participation opportunity. This investment gap is becoming increasingly severe - the number of US public companies is now only half of what it was in 1996. Meanwhile, "accredited investor rules" restrict most private investment opportunities to those with net assets over $1 million or annual income over $200,000, excluding about 80% of US households.
Tenev believes that crypto technology truly provides a fairer, more flexible financial system that meets 21st-century needs, opening the most inclusive investment revolution since stock trading moved from trading floors to electronic platforms. This technology can flexibly split and distribute ownership, making it freely tradable like stocks with minimal modifications to existing corporate stock legal documents. Once privatized companies are tokenized, ordinary investors can participate in their early stages instead of waiting until they go public with billion-dollar valuations. Enterprises can obtain global crypto retail investor funds without sacrificing traditional governance mechanisms like employee options and share lockups.
However, Tenev also frankly admits that currently, private company equity in the United States is regulated by the SEC, but no clear guidelines have been provided on how to legally issue and trade tokenized securities on crypto platforms. In contrast, regions like the European Union, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi have successively established comprehensive regulatory frameworks supporting securities token offerings (STO) and digital exchanges.
He proposed three key reforms to unlock the potential of securities tokenization in the United States: First, abolish the accredited investor system based on wealth thresholds. In an era where everyone can freely buy and sell MEME coins, using net assets to measure investment qualifications is outdated and absurd. If thresholds must be set, they should be based on investment knowledge and risk self-assessment, not account balance. Second, establish a "securities token registration system" to provide new financing paths for small and medium-sized companies beyond traditional IPOs, lowering costs and barriers. Third, provide clear compliance paths for crypto trading platforms both inside and outside the United States, including centralized and decentralized exchanges, to ensure legal and safe public access to securities token trading.
It is worth mentioning that in May this year, Robinhood submitted a 42-page policy proposal to the US SEC, including a nine-page comment letter on asset tokenization, calling for the establishment of the world's first federal regulatory framework for RWA tokenization, and revealing plans to build the Robinhood RWA Exchange trading platform based on Solana and Base.
