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Robinhood Launches Tokenized Stocks, Sparking Legal and Market Debate

Robinhood’s three-phase rollout offers synthetic exposure and onchain trading, but draws criticism over legal rights and ownership.

This news turned heads this week: According to Bloomberg, BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF now generates more revenue than its S&P 500 tracker, despite being almost nine times smaller ($75 billion vs. $624 billion AUM). That’s thanks to higher crypto fees: BlackRock charges 0.25% for IBIT, versus just 0.03% for the S&P fund.

It’s the kind of napkin math Wall Street loves. Just look at Tom Lee. The longtime investor used a CNBC appearance to pitch Ethereum this week, predicting that banks will buy ETH to secure their stablecoins.

If you didn’t know: Lee plans to become the Michael Saylor of Ethereum. He’s turning BitMine, a BTC mining company, into an ETH treasury strategy company.

This is what we talk about today:

  • Robinhood launches tokenized stocks and sparks a debate

  • Coinbase acquires token management platform Liquifi

  • Solana gets a privacy upgrade

HIGH SIGNAL NEWS

  • First SOL staking ETF goes live. The Rex-Osprey Solana + Staking ETF registered $33.6 million in trading volume. While Bloomerg Analyst James Seyffart called a "healthy start", Bitwise Senior Investment Strategist Juan Leon noted that day-one volume was 82% lower than expected based on the relative market cap of SOL to BTC.💱

  • Peter Thiel to back crypto-focused U.S. bank. According to a report from the Financial Times, 'Erebor' will be built by tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey and has already applied for a national bank charter. It plans to leverage stablecoins and serve technology businesses in areas such as artificial intelligence, crypto, defense, and manufacturing — aiming to fill the void left by Silicon Valley Bank.🏦

  • Figma IPO filing unveils digital assets holdings. The design company’s S-1 registration statement shows it held approximately $69.5 million in Bitwise spot Bitcoin ETF shares as of March 31, 2025.🟠

  • Bolt announces support for stablecoin payments. Merchants and shoppers using the payments company’s checkout platform will soon be able to pay with stablecoins.💵

  • Ondo Finance and Pantera plan $250 million in RWA investments. Through "Ondo Catalyst," the companies plan to invest in both equity and tokens of tokenization and real-world assets startups.💰️

TOKENIZATION

Robinhood Launches Tokenized Stocks, Sparking Legal and Market Debate

Robinhood Crypto: At a private estate just outside Cannes, Robinhood took center stage during EthCC with the unveiling of its most ambitious crypto product suite to date. The announcement featured tokenized U.S. stocks, synthetic derivatives of private companies, and a forthcoming Layer 2 chain purpose-built for real-world assets.

Coming for Europe: The rollout marks Robinhood’s most decisive push into the European market to date. More than 200 U.S. stocks and ETFs are now available as tokens to eligible users. The offering includes zero commission (other fees may apply), built-in dividend support, and 24/5 trading access. In addition, the launch introduces crypto perpetual futures for EU-based traders.

  • “This year is the turning point. The time has come. I want crypto to be useful — not just Bitcoin and memecoins, but something that confers real utility,” said Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev.

Tokenized stocks go mainstream: Robinhood’s move coincided with the launch of xStocks, a different flavor of tokenized equities by Backed Finance, which went live the same day on Kraken and Bybit for non-U.S. users. Across the board, crypto exchanges are now leaning into tokenized assets, with Coinbase, Gemini, and others exploring similar paths.

But how real is it? While Robinhood’s tokens sparked enthusiasm, they also drew scrutiny. Critics noted that these tokens don’t grant shareholder rights — a view confirmed by Robinhood’s own disclosures. Instead, the product is structured as a synthetic derivative that mimics price and dividend flows but carries no legal rights.

  • Non-transferable (for now): At this stage, the tokens cannot be self-custodied or transferred between users, either. Each one is created and destroyed with every trade, keeping all activity confined to the Robinhood platform.

Pushback from OpenAI: The controversy deepened when OpenAI clarified that it had no involvement in the offering of "OpenAI tokens" and did not authorize or endorse their use. In a public statement, the company emphasized that the tokens do not represent OpenAI equity and that any transfer of actual shares would require its approval.

Three phases of stock tokenization: Still, Tenev emphasized that this is only the beginning. In Cannes, he outlined a three-phase roadmap that gradually moves from a controlled product to fully composable, self-custodied stock tokens.

  1. Phase (Live): Users can buy and sell 200+ stock tokens within the Robinhood app. These are fully synthetic, held by Robinhood, and minted or burned with each trade.

  2. Phase (Bitstamp integration): Soon, the tokens will be tradable 24/7 via Bitstamp, the European exchange Robinhood recently acquired. Orders will route dynamically between Bitstamp and traditional markets depending on liquidity and market hours.

  3. Phase (Self-custody): In the final stage, Robinhood plans to enable withdrawals to self-custody wallets. These tokens will eventually migrate to a dedicated Layer 2 chain built on Arbitrum Orbit, unlocking permissionless DeFi use cases like lending and composability.

What’s next: Routing to Bitstamp is expected in the coming months. The move toward self-custody could follow soon after, though Tenev cautioned that the timing will hinge on regulatory green lights.

Björn Weigel is Chief Product Officer at Tradias, a Frankfurt-based trading and infrastructure firm focused on digital assets. He spent over a decade in traditional finance across custody and asset servicing before joining Tradias.

For Robinhood, tokenizing stocks is all about expanding market access. If you’re trying to offer U.S. equities to users in Europe or other international markets, you typically run into a wall of infrastructure: clearing houses, sub-custodians, settlement agents, local licensing. These setups are slow, expensive, and often not available to firms with big crypto exposure in their business.

Wrapping stocks into tokens lets you bypass all that. You can hold the real assets in one jurisdiction, tokenize the exposure, and distribute it wherever you have demand.

That has real operational advantages. Instead of juggling different settlement systems like DTCC and Clearstream, you consolidate everything in one place. You only need market makers who can price the exposure, and the rest flows through more efficiently. From a go-to-market perspective, it’s faster, cheaper, and much easier to scale.

But the model raises regulatory concerns. Taxes are a big question mark. Who handles tax and withholding tax on dividends? How do you process corporate actions like splits or mergers? Then there’s also the question of compliant distribution. If a tokenized instrument is being sold to retail users in Europe, for instance, it must have the proper documentation and licenses in place, like a local prospectus, KID, and an authorized broker for distribution.

Still, there’s one group that clearly stands to benefit. For people in emerging markets, access to tokenized U.S. stocks could be a game changer. In places where brokerage access is limited or local currencies are unstable, this is a way to preserve wealth and gain exposure to global assets.

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

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M&A

Coinbase Acquires Token Management Platform Liquifi

Acquired: On Wednesday, Coinbase announced it is acquiring Liquifi, a leading token management platform, in a bid to make token launches for companies easier, faster, and more accessible than issuing traditional equity.

One of many: The move follows Coinbase’s record-breaking $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit in May, bringing the world’s largest crypto options platform under its umbrella. Including earlier acquisitions of privacy protocol Iron Fish and Web3 ad-tech platform Spindl, this marks Coinbase’s fourth acquisition this year.

What Liquifi does: Founded in 2021, Liquifi offers infrastructure that helps crypto companies manage every aspect of their token lifecycle — from launch and distribution to vesting, tax, and compliance. Its platform abstracts away legal overhead and operational complexity, offering a unified interface that automates many of the core workflows surrounding token issuance and management:

  • Token launches and airdrops: Liquifi helps teams prepare for launches, including airdrop execution and compliance.

  • Vesting and lockups: Its tools automate complex vesting schedules for investors, team members, and advisors.

  • Crypto payroll: The platform supports automated token payroll and tax withholding across jurisdictions, helping firms compensate talent globally.

  • OTC trading: Liquifi also facilitates confidential OTC transactions.

Traction: According to the project’s website, more than 100 teams rely on these tools — including names like Uniswap, Ethena, and Optimism — with Liquifi managing over $8.5 billion in assets on their behalf.

Integration ahead: Going forward, Coinbase plans to integrate Liquifi’s tooling into Coinbase Prime, its prime brokerage suite used by asset managers, hedge funds, and corporations.

  • “Over time, we’ll integrate these capabilities with Coinbase Prime to give issuers best-in-class tools […], while tightening our integration across custody, trading, financing, and beyond,” wrote Greg Tusar, Head of Institutional Product at Coinbase.

Jonas Elschner Kristensen is Head of Wintermute Ventures, overseeing a portfolio of more than 100 venture investments, including Kiln, Agora, and Ethena, among others.

Coinbase’s acquisition of Liquifi is a clever move to get closer to major foundations like Uniswap, Optimism, and Ethena, which already use the platform to manage their token lifecycle.

Every time a stakeholder claims tokens through Liquifi, there’s a downstream opportunity to onboard them into Coinbase Prime — for custody, trading, or treasury management. That creates a high-intent funnel of pre-qualified users across the protocol stack, without relying on secondary market listings.

With the acquisition, Coinbase is embedding itself into the very mechanics of token management and distribution.

Distinct Possibility Studios | $30.5 million | Undisclosed : Web3 game developer currently working on the AAA-style shooter Reaper Actual.

The Open Platform | $28.5 million | Series A+ : Company providing technical and go-to-market support to developers building on Telegram’s TON blockchain.

inshAllah | $2.1 million | Pre-Seed : Developer of fully halal DeFi products, including a yield-bearing stablecoin and a lending protocol.

A conversation with Yannick Schrade, Co-Founder and CEO at Arcium. On Tuesday, the company unveiled the Confidential SPL Token, a new Solana standard which combines encrypted compute with existing token protocols to enable composable, confidential DeFi and payments on Solana.

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Disclaimer: The information provided in the Crypto Briefing by Blockstories does not constitute investment advice. Accordingly, we assume no liability for any investment decisions made based on the content presented herein.

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