Robinhood’s strategic embrace of blockchain expertise and tokenization has fueled a virtually 30% rally in its inventory over the previous month, highlighting the brokerage’s new progress drivers regardless of regulatory scrutiny of a few of its merchandise.
Robinhood inventory, buying and selling beneath the ticker HOOD, surged on Wednesday to $94.65 in New York buying and selling, placing it inside 4% of its all-time closing excessive set on July 2.
The inventory has climbed greater than 27% over the previous month and is up 137% year-to-date, lifting its market capitalization to over $82 billion.
Whereas Robinhood’s share value has been lifted by a variety of things — together with a 50% year-over-year income surge within the first quarter to $927 million — its positive factors accelerated on the finish of June after the corporate unveiled a tokenization-focused layer-2 blockchain.
Constructed on Arbitrum, the brand new blockchain will allow Robinhood to supply tokenized US shares and exchange-traded merchandise to buyers in Europe.
In the US, Robinhood has additionally proposed creating the Actual World Asset Trade, a platform for onchain settlement of real-world belongings.
Associated: VC Roundup: DeFi, AI, hybrid exchanges showcase resilient month for crypto
Robinhood CEO doubles down on tokenization
Robinhood’s tokenization push has been well-received by buyers, however regulators in Europe have raised considerations in regards to the firm’s so-called tokenized fairness choices, which reportedly present publicity to privately held corporations.
The central financial institution of Lithuania — Robinhood’s major regulator in Europe — has requested extra info from the brokerage about its inventory token choices tied particularly to OpenAI and SpaceX.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has clarified that these merchandise should not technically fairness choices however nonetheless give buyers publicity to those corporations. In line with Galaxy Analysis, such non-public fairness tokens perform extra like “derivatives” that present oblique publicity to personal corporations.
In a Tuesday interview with Bloomberg Information, Tenev stated that many non-public corporations have approached Robinhood about making their fairness accessible to buyers via the identical sort of personal fairness tokens used for SpaceX and OpenAI.
Associated: OpenAI says Robinhood tokens should not fairness within the firm
