Robinhood launches tokenized stocks for private companies like OpenAI and SpaceX. The announcement came at the Ethereum Community Conference (ETHCC) in Cannes, making Robinhood not just a broker but a next-generation financial super app.
Robinhood and the tokenized shares for OpenAI, SpaceX, and private companies
Robinhood is implementing a true transformation, transitioning from a broker company to a next-generation financial super app.
At the center of its latest news is also the announcement of the launch of tokenized shares for private companies like SpaceX and OpenAI, announced during the Ethereum Community Conference (ETHCC) in Cannes.
In practice, according to the words of the CEO of Robinhood, Vlad Tenev, such digital assets will be offered exclusively to eligible clients in the European Union.
Tenev specifically mentioned OpenAI and Spacex as selected private companies, whose tokenized shares will be issued and made available to eligible EU customers during the summer, thus expanding access to high-profile private equity, previously inaccessible.
Not only that, the tokenized OpenAI shares will initially be issued on Arbitrum, a layer-2 scaling solution of Ethereum known for its speed and low fees.
Given its involvement with the development of its own network, Robinhood then plans in the future to migrate all its offerings from Arbitrum to its proprietary blockchain.
Robinhood and the new offering of tokenized shares
In reality, Robinhood had presented precisely this new offer of tokenized shares for private companies a few days ago, even without mentioning OpenAI and SpaceX.
Here, there was talk about Robinhood’s progress in this field, given that since June 2024, the company had started offering tokenized stock trading to European users, particularly of over 200 stocks and ETFs listed in the USA.
These tokenized stocks were also issued on Arbitrum and gave users the opportunity to trade 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, changing the game compared to traditional exchanges.
Not only that, this offer is without commissions, without additional spreads, with support for dividends and compatibility with cryptocurrency wallets.
Here too, there has been talk of developing a proprietary blockchain, inspired by Arbitrum technology. The new Robinhood blockchain will be optimized to manage tokenized assets, offering a platform oriented towards self-custody, cross-chain bridging, and seamless trading.
At the moment, no launch date has been released for Robinhood’s new blockchain.
The acquisition of Bitstamp
At the beginning of June, Robinhood made headlines for having completely acquired the European exchange Bitstamp, for a value of 200 million dollars.
The operation was an important step for Robinhood in its international expansion, reaching Europe, the United Kingdom, and Asia.
In fact, Robinhood was able to inherit from Bitstamp not only an established customer base but also over 50 operational licenses.
This is therefore an expansion in terms of numbers, given that Bitstamp currently serves 5000 institutional clients and 50,000 real users. But also in terms of legality, with the licenses allowing the offering of its products in new regulated markets.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2025/07/03/robinhood-tokenized-shares-for-private-companies-like-spacex-and-openai/