Dialogue with Robinhood CEO: Want to tokenize SpaceX equity and create a pocket private bank

เรียบเรียงโดย TechFlow

Guest: Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood

Moderator: David Hoffman

ที่มาของพอดแคสต์: Bankless

Vlad Tenev Wants to โทเค็นize SpaceX OpenAI on Robinhood

Air date: March 31, 2025

สรุปประเด็นสำคัญ

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev was once again a guest at Bankless for an in-depth discussion on asset tokenization, การเข้ารหัสลับcurrency regulation, and Robinhood’s new products.

In the interview, Vlad outlined an exciting future picture: through tokenization technology, equity in companies such as SpaceX and OpenAI will be brought to ordinary investors. In addition, he also discussed how the prediction market can become a truth machine and detailed Robinhoods three latest products: Strategies, Cortex, and Banking.

Summary of highlights

• Our goal is to provide all clients with the same access, opportunities and strategies as high net worth individuals. This service philosophy is similar to the promise of the iPhone: how to provide users with a luxurious and proud product experience at a price that everyone can afford.

• Of our three new businesses, Robinhood Strategies is your digital investment advisor, Robinhood Cortex is your research assistant, and Robinhood Banking acts as your personal banker.

• The SEC’s announcement that it was ending its investigation into crypto and some other companies in the industry was a relief, and it felt like we could move forward as a company and an industry without having to deal with this unrelenting attack.

• If you can issue a token that is a company on a blockchain in one jurisdiction, you instantly have access to this increasingly liquid global market with hundreds of millions of participants. I think this makes the U.S. eventually accept that as well.

• The Stablecoin Bill may be the first to be implemented, which is a positive signal for the industry. But we are more concerned about the ตลาด Structure Bill because it will provide a clear framework for how crypto assets can be integrated into the real world financial system.

• Just like stablecoin legislation can drive the dominance of the U.S. dollar, I think tokenized securities can really drive the dominance of U.S. companies in global markets, thereby increasing the shareholder pool of U.S. companies.

• I have always supported fair competition in the market. I think the relationship between traditional banks and the crypto space may be more integrated rather than differentiated in the future. Some advantages in the traditional banking system can be borrowed from the crypto space, and many innovations in crypto technology are also suitable for integration into the banking system.

Views on the new government

เดวิด :

Vlad, its great to have you back on the show. Welcome to Bankless.

Vlad:

Thank you for your invitation. Its great to be here again.

เดวิด :

I want to start by talking about an important topic in the cryptocurrency space: the new changes in the U.S. regulatory environment. The new administrations policies have opened up many opportunities for the U.S. crypto industry, especially for institutional investors who have been hesitant due to regulatory uncertainty. So what new opportunities does Robinhood have under the new management? What businesses can you now conduct that were not possible before? In which areas will you prioritize action?

Vlad:

I think the most immediate change is the cessation of regulation through enforcement, and a big improvement is no longer being subjected to a full-scale attack on every aspect of the crypto business. For example, the SEC announced that it had ended its investigation into crypto and some other companies in the industry, which gave us a sense of relief and felt that we could move forward as a company and an industry without having to deal with this endless attack from previous management who clearly believed that cryptocurrencies should not exist in a physical form and certainly should not be integrated with the traditional financial system. So I think thats a big step forward, and there are two important pieces of legislation in progress now.

Additionally, the legal status of Memecoin has become clearer. The SEC recently issued a memo that clearly states that Memecoin is not a security. While this is a relatively simple conclusion to make in legal analysis, each company previously needed to conduct a separate analysis for each coin, which was time-consuming and expensive. Robinhood has always taken compliance very seriously and conducted a rigorous securities analysis for each coin. Therefore, this legal clarity is a big help to us.

Likewise, there is increasing clarity around whether or not staking is a security. Thats also a good thing, staking is actually people contributing their computing power to support the blockchain. There are staking providers that aim to reduce the complexity of this process. Generally speaking, this results in more benefits and more crypto in the customers pocket. So the lack of clarity is actually hurting American consumers because they are not able to get more benefits from more regulated platforms.

So, its good to have this clarity. There are two important pieces of legislation going on right now: one is a bill on stablecoins, and the other is a bill on market structure. The stablecoin bill is likely to be the first to be implemented, which is a positive sign for the industry. But we are more concerned about the market structure bill because it will provide a clear framework for how crypto assets will be integrated into the real world financial system. For example, which crypto assets are securities and which are commodities? As a platform, what steps do we need to take to list crypto asset securities? The answers to these questions will unlock huge potential for the industry.

I think these are big questions, and legislation will help us answer them and unlock the true potential of crypto, which is something we are very excited about.

You mentioned that some companies are trying to combine stablecoins with banking, such as generating yield through staking or pooling. I think the Market Structure Act will pave the way for such products, and also bring more competition to the industry. At present, stablecoins have not quite reached this stage, because the relevant regulations for yield-generating stablecoins are not clear. Therefore, more regulatory clarity is needed to put it on a more solid foundation, but we are optimistic about its arrival, and I think things are moving in a positive direction.

เดวิด :

If I understand correctly, many potential product lines are currently in the theoretical stage. Only when the market structure bill is passed can we really enter the product landing and construction stage, right?

Vlad:

Yes, for example, a yield-bearing stablecoin that pays interest directly to holders works similarly to a money market fund. The underlying assets of stablecoins also usually include safe assets such as government bonds. Therefore, stablecoins are very similar to money market funds in structure, but due to the lack of regulatory clarity, they are treated as different things. I think this is where regulation can play a role.

Benefits of Tokenization

เดวิด :

So what about the tokenization space? I think its a very hot topic because I think its really the bridge between traditional banking, traditional finance and the crypto world, like, lets tokenize more assets and start leveraging the value of public permissionless blockchains.

What role does Robinhood play in this tokenization movement? Im assuming you guys are optimistic about it. Do you see yourselves as an issuer, a platform? Will Robinhood create tokenized products? Or are you more of a ตลาด for these products? Where do you stand in the technology stack for tokenization?

Vlad:

By this เด็ดขาดnition, tokenization is the allocation of a representation of a non-crypto native asset onto a blockchain so that it can be freely traded.

Weve seen this in stablecoins, which are effectively tokenized treasuries. Also, Paxos has a tokenized gold product, which is a very interesting product. We actually partnered with Paxos and a few other companies to launch USDG, the Dollar Global Network, which is designed to build a globally available stablecoin that pays attractive yields to holders.

The next step is obviously the tokenization of securities, which we are very excited about. This allows you to take ownership of companies in the same way that stablecoin legislation ensures the dominance of the U.S. dollar around the world, and I think thats why people are excited about this. Everyone wants U.S. dollars and U.S. Treasuries to be accepted and purchased, and there is a high demand for these products around the world.

So just like stablecoin legislation can drive the dominance of the U.S. dollar, I think tokenized securities can really drive the dominance of U.S. companies in global markets, and therefore increase the shareholder pool of U.S. companies. Right now, its very difficult to invest in U.S. companies overseas. Just like stablecoins make it easy to access dollars, tokenized securities will make it much simpler to access U.S. companies. So were excited about this. I think its good for companies, but also for people outside of the U.S. because theyll be able to access these effective wealth-building tools, and its also a way to diversify, especially if their local currency depreciates dramatically, to help them deal with the loss of purchasing power.

I think its also good for our entrepreneurs in terms of capital formation. If you make it easier to raise capital in the U.S. by tapping into the global crypto market, youre going to get more interesting companies. We actually published an editorial in the Washington Post a few months ago making the case for tokenized private securities. Its hard to invest in a private company like OpenAI or SpaceX right now, and I think crypto can help solve that problem. So if you tokenize private companies, its good for both the company and the investor. Its incredible to me that there are still so many restrictions on investing in companies like SpaceX and OpenAI, but we have a clear definition for Memecoin, and people can basically invest in these tokens freely.

Tokenization of SpaceX

เดวิด :

Based on the information that is available, it seems like there is indeed a market for SpaceX equity. It wouldnt be crazy to find a way to access SpaceX equity. So I guess what youre saying is that since the market already exists in the private market space, we can tokenize this equity and use crypto to turn it into a more formal, more structured market. And then I imagine Robinhood would be happy to be the marketplace for tokenized equity. If I put this information together, this seems like a very viable future. Do you think this is your roadmap? How close are we to tokenizing SpaceX equity on Robinhood?

Vlad:

Yes, I think Robinhood is at the intersection between traditional finance and crypto. We have all the crypto technology, but we also have the infrastructure of traditional finance. So I think tokenized equity is one of the important areas where we can contribute to the entire ecosystem.

The future of tokenized equity may be similar to the way ETFs (แลกเปลี่ยน Traded Funds) operate. ETF issuers will hold a basket of securities and then issue ETF shares in a certain way, which is actually the predecessor of tokenized securities. In this process, if you come to the ETF issuer with a basket of securities, they will exchange it for ETF shares, and vice versa, you can exchange the ETF for the underlying basket of securities. This is an analogy of what has already happened in traditional finance, and tokenization can evolve using crypto technology.

Alternatives to IPOs

เดวิด :

The number of public market IPOs has not dropped significantly, but the overall trend is downward. This is mainly because the cost of IPOs is prohibitive and the barriers to entry for companies to enter the public capital markets are getting higher and higher. Do you think this trend will drive the prospect of private market tokenization? Or is it too complicated in terms of national compliance and too cumbersome in terms of financial regulations?

Vlad:

I think the trend towards tokenized securities really paves the way for an IPO alternative. While it may not be possible in the U.S. in the short term, it is already happening in international markets. Many countries are building frameworks for issuing crypto asset securities, and crypto is global in nature. So if you can issue a company token on a blockchain in one jurisdiction, you immediately have access to this increasingly liquid global market with hundreds of millions of participants. I think this makes the U.S. eventually accept this as well.

For private companies, this is actually primary capital in the early stages of a companys formation, which is equivalent to raising funds from shareholders in a traditional IPO. Primary capital is very useful in the early stages, because I remember when I was an entrepreneur running a seed-stage company, the fundraising model took up a lot of energy and resources. And when you are a small company, these resources are very important. If tokenization can give entrepreneurs quick access to global capital markets, it will become a great choice for early founders. Not only will it help more companies get financial support at the riskiest stage, but it will also provide investors with potential high-return opportunities.

For mature private companies like OpenAI or SpaceX, the value proposition is different. At this point, it may not be very interesting to the founders of these companies because they have raised a lot of money and may be planning an IPO or something, but it is very attractive to employees. These companies have thousands of employees who are looking for liquidity, and they dont know when there will be an IPO or liquidity event, so employees want to diversify in some way, and this becomes a strong value proposition.

There are some secondary platforms out there, like Equity Zen or Forge, that operate in this space and actually proactively reach out to employees of these companies because that’s an audience that’s looking to diversify and sell secondary shares. However, the problem with these models is that liquidity is actually fragmented, so the platform itself has to figure out how to source supply and bring it in, whereas crypto benefits from interoperability, you just put it on a blockchain and it can be traded freely, you have immediate access to global liquidity, which is why I think it’s a superior technical solution.

เดวิด :

There are certainly some trends that clearly point in that direction. Also, there are a lot of great companies like SpaceX and OpenAI that are private and don’t seem to be planning to go public. These AI labs as a broad category don’t really have public equity, or are too big like Facebook or Google to be a vehicle for diluting investments.

Vlad:

As a regular investor, if you want exposure to AI, your options are very limited. You can pick NVIDIA, Alphabet, or Tesla, but you can’t get exposure to interesting AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, or Perplexity.

เดวิด :

Looking back at market trends over the past few decades, it can be seen that opportunities in modern society are no longer in the public market, but in the private market. As I said before, the compliance costs of IPOs are getting higher and higher, and at the same time, crypto provides a technological solution. I see multiple different tailwinds pointing to this inevitable conclusion: tokenizing private market equity and making it some kind of pseudo-public market.

ตลาดทำนาย

เดวิด :

I also want to talk about prediction markets because Robinhood is also involved in this space. Robinhood has a tagline of Everything is a Market, is this a misunderstanding on my part, or do you have an official brand goal like this?

Vlad:

We dont use that slogan. The name of our company is Robinhood Markets, and thats our parent company. So our mission is Democratizing Finance for Everyone. That means we believe in the power of markets and were committed to making them accessible to everyone. Generally speaking, if its an institutional market and regular users are interested in it, then they should be allowed to participate on an equal playing field with the institutions.

The same applies to prediction markets. But I think theres additional value to prediction markets. For me personally, having a robust prediction market means theres a social benefit beyond just trading, which means you can get better predictions on all kinds of events. We saw this in elections, where prediction markets provided relevant information hours and even days before traditional media. I think youre going to see this across multiple different categories. So I think prediction markets are truth machines, theyre the evolution of news, theyre the evolution of newspapers, and in some cases, you can even get news before it happens with prediction markets.

Kalshi Platform

เดวิด :

Like many people, I threw an election party. We watched mainstream media coverage of the election while discussing the election with crypto friends. In addition to traditional news, we also opened the Polymarket platform. Everyone switched between watching Polymarket and mainstream media, and Polymarkets data was more real-time and obviously more interesting. Recently, Robinhood released an announcement, I read the content, and then we can talk more specifically about prediction markets.

Recently, Robinhood launched a prediction market hub that allows customers to trade the outcomes of some of the worlds biggest events. The first markets include predictions for the cap on the Federal Reserve Funds rate, as well as the results of the upcoming NCAA mens and womens basketball tournaments. These two markets, while different in type, are both very attractive. I think you have partially answered my question about why Robinhood integrated prediction markets into the platform. However, it is worth mentioning that this prediction market product is powered by Kalshi. Can you talk about the partnership between Robinhood and Kalshi? What role does Kalshi play specifically in this prediction market?

Vlad:

Kalshi is a designated contract market (DCM). You can think of a DCM as being similar to an exchange, like a stock exchange. In the stock space, there are exchanges like NASDAQ and the NYSE. Brokers including Robinhood connect to these exchanges or market makers that trade on these exchanges, where buyers and sellers actually cross paths, and the exchange essentially creates a market.

In the stock space, Robinhood is a brokerage, and we take orders from our customers and route them to market makers or directly to exchanges. In the futures market, the CFTC-regulated space, there are designated contract markets (DCMs), which are like exchanges, where buyers and sellers meet. Then there are futures commission merchants (FCMs), and in this case, Robinhood is an FCM. We are responsible for the customer relationship and interface, and then we route orders to DCMs and match them through market makers.

So you can think of Kalshi as being similar to the NASDAQ or the NYSE, and we are playing the role that brokers always play. In fact, during the presidential election, we also connected to a different DCM called Forecast Decks, which is a subsidiary of Interactive Brokers. So we have the ability to connect to multiple DCMs and offer different products that those exchanges offer. In fact, the DCM has the ultimate responsibility for listing the contract. So all the contracts that we list must be listed on the DCM for us to offer them.

เดวิด :

So you cant offer your own prediction market. You have to do it on a third-party DCM.

Vlad:

Yes, actually platforms like Polymarket cant legally operate prediction markets in the US because theyre not DCMs. Theyre using a crypto approach. And I think thats some of the things that need to be clarified in the market structure legislation that we talked about earlier. The CFTC regulates these as commodities and has licenses to do so. So, would a prediction market like Polymarket be handled under that regulation? Or would there be some other regulation because its crypto? These are all things that we need legislation to allow big prediction markets like Polymarket to operate in the US.

Predicting the future of the market

เดวิด :

I think a lot of listeners would like to use Polymarket in the U.S. The last question about prediction markets is, currently Robinhoods prediction markets start with the Federal Reserve Funds Rate and mens and womens basketball games, so what is the future direction? Next, what prediction markets can users participate in on Robinhood?

Vlad:

With the launch of our latest round of contract markets, we have gone from being able to list just one contract to being able to list hundreds of contracts simultaneously. Of course, this involves clearing, payments, and the operational complexity of setting up new contracts, especially those that rely on data from previous contracts. This is already happening with predictions for men’s and women’s college basketball. But soon, we will be able to scale the number of contracts from hundreds to thousands, which will open the door to all types of prediction markets.

We are very interested in prediction markets on the economic side, and I am also very interested in progress in artificial intelligence. There are some very cool prediction markets that provide clear information about different AI developments, and I think our customers are very interested in this. In fact, I think the coverage of prediction markets should be as broad as that of a newspaper. A newspaper has a front page news, a sports section, a business section, and an arts and leisure section, and prediction markets can provide users with comprehensive information in similar categories.

เดวิด :

Prediction markets as truth machines, I think this is one of the reasons why people in the crypto community are so interested in prediction markets. There have been some pretty important and sensitive geopolitical events in the past, such as the conflict between Israel and Iran, where there was a set of prediction markets on Polymarket that actually provided real information about peoples views on future events, and these were also highly influential and sensitive topics. If we go into an unstable geopolitical future, people will be more interested in understanding what the market thinks about the likelihood of certain outcomes. What do you think of the idea of integrating high-risk global macro geopolitical prediction markets inside Robinhood?

Vlad:

I think its important for society. Now the CFTC has a แนะนำline for prediction markets and event contracts that basically states that prediction markets that are contrary to the public interest should not be listed. I think thats a relatively vague general category, but we should try to limit it because I really think the vast majority of prediction markets are in the public interest.

Robinhoods three new businesses

Robinhood Banking

เดวิด :

You had a pretty big event, kind of like a Robinhood Summit, where you announced three different new business areas: Robinhood Strategies, Robinhood Banking, and Robinhood Cortex. Let’s start with Robinhood Banking. Can you tell us a little bit more about that product and why you created this product line?

Vlad:

The overall inspiration comes from our goal to provide all clients with the same access, opportunities and strategies as high net worth individuals. We want to put a sophisticated, high net worth family office style financial team into everyones pocket and provide it to our gold subscribers for only $5 per month. This service concept is similar to the promise of the iPhone: how to provide users with a luxurious and proud product experience at a price that everyone can afford.

So thats the thread behind the three products that we announced at the Gold event. Strategies is your digital investment advisor, Cortex is your research assistant, and Robinhood Banking acts as your personal banker. And I think in the future, this is also the first AI product that weve launched within Robinhood. So in the future, youll see the latest intelligence models and reasoning models further integrated into the product experience, further combining these two together to really give you a great experience where each part understands each other.

Robinhood Cortex

เดวิด :

When I saw the announcement, I saw Robinhood Cortex and thought, What? Robinhood released an AI agent?

But after digging deeper, I found that its functionality does make sense. Can you give an example of how users can use Robinhood Cortex? I guess it will be embedded in the Robinhood app and users can use it to ask various finance-related questions. So, is it a finance-themed large language model (LLM)? Or is it a pop-up window? Can you explain more about it?

Vlad:

Currently in the Robinhood app, it has two application scenarios. One is to answer the current stock dynamics. If you use Robinhood, you will occasionally receive notifications about market fluctuations, such as a certain stock has risen or fallen by 5%. Then, a typical use case is to check this stock and figure out what happened. Cortex will answer this question on the stock detail page. It will try its best to explain what caused this fluctuation. This is the stock dynamics part.

Another use case is options trading. Options are very complex, you need to process a lot of information, and you have to be quite experienced to construct an options trade, especially if it is a multi-leg option trade (involving multiple trade combinations). Cortex does this with a trade builder, which takes a prediction of what a stock will do at a certain time in the future and builds an options trade that helps you execute that prediction. Its a pretty magical experience. We did a demo at the gold event where you could select a specific stock, make a prediction, and it would generate a trade plan that you could execute directly or direct you to our upcoming side-by-side options chain interface.

เดวิด :

The core idea of Cortex is to convert the investment intentions expressed by users in natural language into trading strategies. Users input their ideas, and after AI processes this information, it returns some possible options trading combinations, such as This is a trading plan you may be interested in. Is this the basic logic of Cortex?

Vlad:

But it doesn’t stop there. Cortex synthesizes all available information, including real-time market data, technical indicators, and news updates from multiple sources. By integrating this data, it not only generates forecasts, but also provides users with insights and analysis to help them make better decisions.

เดวิด :

Can you tell me what is unique about this LLM? I guess it is not a simple ChatGPT shell, but optimized for the financial field. What is special about its training data, or what unique processing is done in the post-training to make it a financial LLM focused on Robinhood?

Vlad:

Traditional large language models usually do not have access to real-time market data or financial data. Their data is often outdated, so they cannot accurately tell you the current price of a stock. Moreover, they are prone to hallucination when providing financial information, that is, generating inaccurate or false content. To solve these problems, we built a technical layer to ensure that the data obtained by users is real-time, interpretable, and avoids the occurrence of hallucinations. This solves two key problems of most LLMs in financial applications.

เดวิด :

If we don’t handle this well, hallucinations in a financial context can be catastrophic.

Vlad:

Yes, but fortunately we have a real data source. Unlike writing a historical paper, the authenticity of financial data can be verified. Therefore, we are able to set strict guardrails to ensure that the generated content is accurate and can quickly identify and correct illusions.

เดวิด :

This may be Robinhood’s main competitive advantage in developing financial AI assistants. You have real-time market data, user behavior data, and a large number of financial-related resources, which are integrated into LLM’s capabilities.

Vlad:

Yes, that is one advantage. Another advantage is that you can trade within our app. If we can make Cortexs suggestions closely tied to the context of what the user is actually doing, it will be much more useful. We dont want to just put a chat box in the app because people dont know how to use it. We want Cortex to not only generate smooth answers, but also avoid long and hallucinatory questions, which is what we are working on.

Robinhood Strategies

เดวิด :

Regarding Strategies, is it possible to expand this product to the field of crypto assets in the future? After all, in the crypto industry, many people are asked similar questions by their friends, such as What cryptocurrency should I buy? Or how should I invest in crypto assets? Because they really dont know. If strategy products can support some complex, crypto-centric investment strategies, it will be very attractive. So, what preparations need to be made to achieve this?

Vlad:

From a technical perspective, we don’t face any obstacles. In fact, we have a list of dozens, if not hundreds, of features that could be added to the strategy product. We want to prioritize the most pressing needs of our customers.

We have already laid a solid foundation. We chose to start with individual stocks because most other digital advisory platforms only support ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). We have developed features that support the inclusion of individual assets and individual stocks in portfolios. Of course, we also support ETFs and have designed an intuitive interface, such as a donut chart that clearly displays asset allocation. In addition, we also provide automatic rebalancing to help users adjust their portfolios according to market changes, making investing more worry-free.

I think weve built a great foundation. We wanted to start with individual stocks because most other digital advisor platforms only offer ETFs. So we built the ability to put individual assets and individual stocks into a portfolio. Of course, we also support ETFs, and we built a great interface with a donut chart to clearly define your asset allocation. We can rebalance on behalf of the client. So this is as close to a button for worry-free investing as possible.

I would also like to specifically mention that one of the unique features of strategy products is that it subverts the traditional fee model. Traditional investment advisors usually charge a fee based on assets under management (AUM), with a fee rate of around 1%, while the fee rate of robot advisors is lower, about 0.25%. However, there is a problem with this proportional fee model: as the size of the portfolio increases, the fees paid by the user will also increase, but the value of the service provided by the advisor will not increase synchronously. For example, managing a million-dollar portfolio is not more complicated than managing a hundred thousand dollar portfolio, but users need to pay 10 times the fee. This model may make high-net-worth clients dissatisfied because they pay more fees but do not get more service value.

To address this problem, Robinhood strategies use a capped fee model, no matter how large your portfolio is, the fee will not exceed $250. Therefore, for users with millions of dollars in assets, switching to Robinhood strategies is very cost-effective.

เดวิด :

How does this fee model affect the incentives of the product? As it moves away from being an AUM-driven business and into a customer-driven model, how does Robinhood benefit from the growth of its strategy products, especially with the fee capped at $250 per customer?

Vlad:

Indeed, this model has attracted more high-net-worth customers to transfer their funds to our platform. The revenue we get from this comes mainly from asset management fees. In addition, we also benefit from Robinhood Gold subscriptions. We have found that once users become Robinhood Gold subscribers and put a considerable portion of their wealth with us, such as investing $1,000, they will gradually discover more value and tend to use more of our services, such as credit cards and self-trading functions.

So our goal is to take as many of our clients financial relationships as possible and make it easier for them to move all of their money to Robinhood. At the same time, as the total amount of money we manage grows, our revenue will grow as well.

Cash on delivery

เดวิด :

I have two more questions about this new product line. One is about the cash delivery service youre launching. Ive likened it to cash delivery service similar to Uber Eats, and I dont know if thats accurate. Can you talk about why you want to launch such a service? How does it work specifically? For example, how do users operate in the app and how does the cash get delivered to users?

Vlad:

You can understand that we are actually entering the logistics field, which makes me very excited. This service is mainly for high-end customers of private banks, and there are two reasons behind it.

First of all, we don’t have physical branches. So we thought about how to provide users with digital banking services without compromise? Without branches, when users need cash, they often can only go to convenience stores like 711 or CVS to withdraw money. But this is obviously not in line with the high-end positioning of private banking services. By the way, currently 16% of payments in the United States are still completed in cash. Although the use of cash is gradually declining, it is still very important in many scenarios. Therefore, we need a new solution that can proactively deliver banking services to your doorstep.

Today, these on-demand logistics platforms have become very powerful. They can deliver things to you in 10 or 15 minutes. You can buy an iPhone and have it delivered to your home. So this is a solution to the problem. Of course, we will not undertake the operation of the entire logistics chain ourselves, but will work with partners to complete it. Although this is a complex task, we believe it can bring great value to users.

Of course, we will not undertake the operation of the entire logistics chain ourselves, but will work with partners to complete it. Although this is a complex task, we believe it can bring great value to users.

As the service rolls out, we’ll learn more about how it actually works, what challenges exist, what users actually want, and what typical transaction amounts are. I expect the average transaction amount to be in the low hundreds of dollars range.

Cryptocurrency listing

เดวิด :

Back to the topic of crypto assets. Does Robinhood plan to list more crypto assets? Currently, the types of crypto assets offered in the Robinhood app are relatively small. Will you expand this selection in the future?

Vlad:

Yes, we have added many new assets since the election. I think we have covered most of the high volume assets that our customers are interested in. For example, Trumpcoin was launched on the day of the inauguration and was very popular. We have been adding new assets all the time, but now there are dozens or even hundreds of new assets being created every week, which makes us realize that we need to rethink how to handle the listing process of these assets more efficiently.

Next, you will see more development of the Robinhood wallet. The Robinhood wallet is an on-chain product based on decentralized finance (DeFi), and the functionality between it and the Robinhood main app is not yet tight enough. But I believe that over time, the two will gradually merge. We plan to add some on-chain functions to the main app, and make it easier for the wallet app to support seamless conversion between fiat and cryptocurrencies.

I think in the future, Robinhoods services and the industry as a whole will move towards a more tightly integrated direction. Under this trend, the threshold for listing assets will be lowered and the process will become more automated. If we find that a certain asset has a large trading volume, we will make it more efficient and simplified to list it through back-end optimization.

Our goal is to provide customers with more choices, but also to ensure that users are not confused by the emergence of hundreds of new tokens every week. As the number of asset types in the market proliferates, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between high-quality and low-quality tokens. We need to solve this problem to avoid promoting unreliable tokens and prevent customers from easily investing without understanding.

Why separate multiple apps?

เดวิด :

So you have the Robinhood Wallet, the core Robinhood app, and the Robinhood Credit Card, which I assume is the direction of Robinhood Banking. So is the separation of these apps primarily for regulatory and compliance reasons? Are there plans to integrate all of these features into a financial super app in the future?

Vlad:

We did consider integrating all functions into one app initially, but found that it was very challenging. If an app serves both active traders and bank users, the user experience of its homepage needs to be very precise to meet different needs. However, the needs of trading users and bank customers are often very different. For example, traders are more concerned about asset quotes and buying and selling operations, while bank users need more convenient payment and account management functions. Therefore, most users are used to separating the trading interface and the banking interface. Although it is theoretically possible to unify them, there are no successful cases to refer to. Therefore, my attitude is open and willing to try different approaches.

The concept of a super app is indeed attractive, and we may be able to develop a full-featured app, but I dont think all functions must be concentrated in one app. What is more important is to achieve unified customer identity verification (KYC) and the convenience of fund flow between accounts. In addition, we hope to create the best interface based on the actual needs of users. In the future, we may add more features to the main Robinhood app, and we also encourage teams to develop independent apps. In the end, we may launch more than three apps. Similar to Uber and Uber Eats, we may recombin or split these apps in the future based on actual operating experience to better suit user needs.

How “de-banked” is Robinhood?

เดวิด :

Vlad, as we wrap up this interview, I want to talk about Robinhoods relationship to crypto and fintech. As you know, this podcast is called Bankless, and we advocate for decentralization and self-custody of your own finances and crypto assets. Some parts of Robinhood are very bank-like, like youre launching bank-related products. I think crypto, especially DeFi, has a certain advantage in competing with traditional finance, because traditional finance has a savings account with an annual interest rate of only 0.25%, such as the product at Wells Fargo, which is a very bad product, and innovation also comes from old traditional finance.

Nevertheless, I also appreciate that Robinhood brings real competitiveness in the traditional financial field. At the same time, I noticed that although Robinhood is not completely decentralized, more and more crypto features are being integrated into your products. So my question is: How decentralized is Robinhood? What is the future direction? Where do you think Robinhood will balance between decentralization and traditional models?

Vlad:

Robinhood is “unbanked” and we do not have a bank charter. Many people ask us if we will apply for a bank charter and what that means. Traditional financial companies typically need a bank charter to access services such as Fed Wire, Zelle, and to conduct lending. However, our current model is to act as a neutral platform and partner with banks to provide necessary services. For example, we partner with Coastal Community Bank to provide credit and banking services, and we have other partners to participate in our cash sweep program.

In fact, many large crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols still require the support of banks on the back end. If users want to transfer fiat currency to the chain, banks are an indispensable part of the process. I think in the future, as the regulatory framework becomes clearer, we may see the emergence of crypto banks. Such banks may obtain some form of license, and the regulatory requirements may be looser than the OCCs national bank charter, but they still need to comply with financial management and reserve regulations. After all, if there are no rules, users may be harmed. For example, Terra Lunas Anchor Protocol and Celsius, these seemingly banked protocols ultimately led to serious problems due to the lack of key regulatory mechanisms.

I have always supported fair competition in the market. I think the relationship between traditional banks and the crypto space may be more integrated rather than differentiated in the future. Some advantages in the traditional banking system can be borrowed from the crypto space, and many innovations in crypto technology are also suitable for integration into the banking system. We are at a critical moment where we can combine the two to provide users with more practical solutions. This is an exciting opportunity for the crypto industry and users. If Robinhood can play a role in promoting this integration, I think it will be a very meaningful thing.

This article is sourced from the internet: Dialogue with Robinhood CEO: Want to tokenize SpaceX equity and create a pocket private bank

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