Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Robinhood sharees are trading at record highs after the brokerage
Speaker 2: introduce a suite of new products at its first ever
Speaker 2: international and crypto focused event in the South of France.
Speaker 2: Let's bring in now Robinhood, CEO and co founder of
Speaker 2: lad Tenet, who joins US now from can lad. You
Speaker 2: are now offering tokenized US securities to customers outside the US,
Speaker 2: particularly in Europe where you are. How is this different
Speaker 2: from exchange traded products that are already available to investors
Speaker 2: in Europe. What do the tokenized versions of these products
Speaker 2: offer that existing products don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean what we really announced in the EU is,
Speaker 3: first we're expanding and we're live now in thirty one
Speaker 3: countries across the continent, and we're solving two things with
Speaker 3: our tokenized with our stock tokens. One is giving our
Speaker 3: EU customers exposure to US equities, which is something which
Speaker 3: is one of the most requested feed The second is
Speaker 3: really demonstrating the beginnings of what we believe is the
Speaker 3: future of the financial system. We think that crypto in
Speaker 3: traditional finance will eventually fully merge and the technology will
Speaker 3: underpin any tradable asset, and you'll get the liquidity and
Speaker 3: the twenty four to seven trading of cryptocurrency applied to
Speaker 3: traditional assets, which I think is a very powerful thing.
Speaker 3: It's useful for public stocks and also private stocks, which
Speaker 3: we have the ability to tokenize as well.
Speaker 2: Now you're developing your own blockchain to record transactions for
Speaker 2: token is stocks. What's the timeline for that to be
Speaker 2: rolled out?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Well, it's live today on Arbitrum. So
Speaker 3: we've been working with the folks on Arbitrum, which is
Speaker 3: an Ethereum layer two, for the initial release of our
Speaker 3: stock tokens in Europe. But we have been working on
Speaker 3: our own chain, the Robinhood chain, and we've been hard
Speaker 3: at work. We'd like to have that powering the underlying
Speaker 3: infrastructure and all the DeFi elements. We wanted to be
Speaker 3: the best chain optimized for real world assets, which I
Speaker 3: think is an important niche that's missing in the market,
Speaker 3: and for that it has to be secure. Basically military
Speaker 3: grade security has to be fast, low cost. So we
Speaker 3: felt like that didn't really exist and so we're excited
Speaker 3: to bring that to market.
Speaker 1: I am curious flat about the idea of staking, particularly
Speaker 1: here in the US obviously a program I believe starting
Speaker 1: today if I have that correct, and also certainly some
Speaker 1: appetite for that amongst European investors. And I'm wondering how,
Speaker 1: if at all, those two elements in the US and
Speaker 1: Europe would differ or be the same.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we announced a lot of new products.
Speaker 3: You mentioned Staking, which has been live in the European
Speaker 3: Union for our customers here for many months, and it's
Speaker 3: actually been the number one most requested feature in the US.
Speaker 3: So now that's live, and I think it's two things
Speaker 3: that are interesting for Staking. One is from a practical standpoint,
Speaker 3: it allows holders in the US to earn yield on
Speaker 3: their Ethereum and Solana and expanding to hopefully any stakable
Speaker 3: asset in the future. But also, crypto is all about
Speaker 3: us coming together individually and collectively to secure the network
Speaker 3: and the blockchain. So the participant, the individual, is really
Speaker 3: the network, and Staking allows that to be opened up
Speaker 3: to the millions of customers on robinhood. So that's what
Speaker 3: makes it so exciting for us.
Speaker 1: I am curious as we start to see this ecosystem,
Speaker 1: the broader crypto ecosystem evolve and more importantly expand, and
Speaker 1: you kind of pointed out in your previous response this
Speaker 1: idea that sort of the DeFi world and the traditional
Speaker 1: finance world are starting to overlap in that Ven diagram,
Speaker 1: and I am curious as to what your ambitions are
Speaker 1: for Robinhood. Is this a more of a move of
Speaker 1: a ship where that Ben diagram for Robinhood looks more
Speaker 1: like traditional finance or something in between.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Two things. One is I think this is the
Speaker 3: year and the time is now for crypto to move
Speaker 3: beyond bitcoin and mean coins and introduce fundamental utility. And
Speaker 3: that's why we're most excited about tokenization of real world assets,
Speaker 3: real world assets with utility being live on blockchains and
Speaker 3: taking getting the benefit from everything that crypto technology has
Speaker 3: to offer. That's one. Two. We think in the future
Speaker 3: crypto and traditional financial services will fully merge and crypto
Speaker 3: will become the infrastructure layer behind all kinds of financial services,
Speaker 3: from payments, which are starting to see with stable coins,
Speaker 3: to holding deposits, which has been the realm of traditional
Speaker 3: checking and savings accounts. So you'll have stable coins that
Speaker 3: pay interest in the future, including USDG, which is the
Speaker 3: stable coin that we've helped create, and then of course
Speaker 3: investments with tokenized private shares, equity stock tokens as well.
Speaker 3: What you're starting to see is the entire financial system
Speaker 3: being possible to build on crypto technology. And what we
Speaker 3: can do is show what the world looks like if
Speaker 3: we rebuild Robinhood entirely on crypto technology. And I think
Speaker 3: that's what we're starting to demonstrate.
Speaker 2: Well, let's take a little bit of a step back here,
Speaker 2: because you have talked about how the US is finally
Speaker 2: ready to catch up to the rest of the world
Speaker 2: when it comes to being a big player in the
Speaker 2: crypto world. But what needs to happen? What's the missing
Speaker 2: ingrediment now for the US to become the true backbone
Speaker 2: of the global financial system when it comes to corporating crypto.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the bills that are making their way
Speaker 3: through Congress, the Genius Bill and the Market Structure Bill,
Speaker 3: are a great step in the right direction. As for tokenization,
Speaker 3: we actually believe that there doesn't need to be a
Speaker 3: just additional legislation. The SEC has the mandate, the authority
Speaker 3: to make tokenization of securities happen, and they're keen to
Speaker 3: do it. You know, they've posted a roundtable our crypto
Speaker 3: GM Johann was a part of it on tokenization, and
Speaker 3: I think that it's going to happen in the not
Speaker 3: too distant future. Private companies require reform of the accreditation standards,
Speaker 3: which currently shut eighty plus percent of the population out.
Speaker 3: So that needs to be completely reformed. But there's actually appetite.
Speaker 3: Several members of Congress are interested in taking that on,
Speaker 3: and I believe we can make significant progress on reforming
Speaker 3: the accreditation standards as well. It's crazy that these companies
Speaker 3: like Opening Eye and SpaceX can be worth hundreds of billions,
Speaker 3: can get so much appreciation in the private markets, and
Speaker 3: retail is essentially a shut out from that. So that's
Speaker 3: that's something that we'd like to fix with our technology
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: All Right, well, you guys have already made a lot
Speaker 1: of progress toward that. Glad really appreciate you taking the time. Also,
Speaker 1: love to suit there. I'll let you get back to
Speaker 1: it fresh off this.
Speaker 2: Thanks.