Robinhood’s tokenized inventory rollout is elevating eyebrows, as OpenAI distances itself and a few recommend the inventory tokens may very well function in a “walled backyard.”
At its “To Catch a Token” occasion in Cannes earlier this week, United States brokerage big Robinhood launched 200 tokenized U.S. shares and ETFs, in addition to perpetual futures, for eligible European prospects, with plans to increase the checklist of inventory tokens to 2,000 corporations by the top 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’ should not OpenAI fairness.” The X submit from OpenAI’s official account continues:
“We didn’t accomplice with Robinhood, weren’t concerned on this, and don’t endorse it. Any switch of OpenAI fairness requires our approval — we didn’t approve any switch. Please watch out.”
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 current crypto occasion, we introduced a restricted Inventory Token giveaway on OpenAI and SpaceX to eligible European prospects. Whereas it’s true that they aren’t technically ‘fairness’ (you possibly can see the exact dynamics in our Phrases for these ), the tokens successfully give retail traders publicity to those personal belongings,” Tenev clarified.
Robinhood’s CEO additional added that for the reason that announcement, the buying and selling platform has heard “from many personal firms which can be keen to affix us within 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 Considerations
Except for OpenAI’s assertion in opposition to Robinhood’s new personal inventory tokens, others have expressed issues that the agency’s tokenized inventory choices typically seem like caught inside a closed-off system.
In a current X submit, Electrical Capital accomplice and former quantitative researcher, Ren, recommended that the inventory tokens are in-built a approach that resembles a “walled backyard,” the place solely authorized wallets can transfer them round.
Within the submit, Ren famous that Robinhood’s tokenized inventory contracts verify “each switch” in opposition to a “registry of authorized wallets,” suggesting that solely whitelisted customers can transfer the belongings. If correct, this setup would probably block any use of the tokens in broader DeFi purposes.
“It is unlikely these tokens can work together with defi,” Ren wrote, including additional that it is “very attainable cefi with distribution simply outcompetes present defi protocols.”
Nevertheless, not everybody agrees with that evaluation. A blockchain engineer at Offchain Labs, generally known as @gzeon on X, recommended in replies that the contracts might not embrace a whitelist in any respect.
Based mostly on their testing, transfers between any wallets nonetheless work in a forked surroundings, which factors to a setup that 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 supposed to stay inside a closed ecosystem however didn’t get a response by publication time.
Robinhood Chain
Robinhood’s tokenized shares are at the moment deployed on Arbitrum, a Layer 2 (L2) community constructed on Ethereum, and seem to observe 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.
Finally, 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 big additionally stated that tokenized tokens — which Tenev known as a “buying and selling revolution” — will probably be eligible for dividend payouts and will probably 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 be ready for regulatory approval to roll out tokenized shares and perpetuals within the U.S.
The long-term plan, in response to 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 below the ticker HOOD, are down 3.7% immediately, partially retracing beneficial properties of practically 12% this week.
