Robinhood's Vlad Tenev says tokenized stocks will do for U.S. equities what stablecoins did for the dollar

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev is positioning the company as a global financial conglomerate centered on the philosophy of broad asset ownership, which he argues is essential for societal stability. To facilitate this, Robinhood has launched its own blockchain, Robinhood Chain, specifically designed to support tokenized securities with full DeFi interoperability. This infrastructure allows users to trade stock tokens that can be moved to external wallets or integrated into lending pools, mirroring the accessibility model of stablecoins. Tenev views these financial primitives as a foundation for a new developer platform, enabling innovations like stock-token-linked NFTs and native smart-contract options. Beyond tokenization, the company is aggressively scaling agentic trading, with users performing 30 million tool calls daily through its AI-driven trading agents. Tenev contends that providing retail investors with early-stage access to assets and sophisticated trading tools is the only way to democratize wealth in an era where high-growth AI companies remain private for longer. By integrating these technologies, Robinhood aims to make U.S. equities as accessible globally as stablecoins have made the U.S. dollar.