Robinhood Can Get 'More Efficient' by Tokenizing Real-World Assets, Says Crypto Head

By Sander Lutz

Robinhood has plans to integrate blockchain more deeply across its products and services, according to the company’s top crypto executive. 

“We want to start using blockchain technologies to power more and more things,” Robinhood Crypto General Manager Johann Kerbrat said during a Wednesday appearance on the FOMO Hour podcast. 

“I think we can do more with blockchain,” he continued. “We can tokenize real-world assets and actually make them a lot more efficient.”

Kerbrat’s comments echo those made earlier this week by Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev. On Monday, Tenev declared his belief that blockchain could soon become an essential component of traditional finance.

“The cost of running a crypto business is an order of magnitude lower,” Tenev said while speaking onstage at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference. “You don’t have to squint too hard to imagine a world where stocks are on blockchains.”

Robinhood sits at a rarified intersection in mainstream finance, by offering both traditional stock trading and access to buying and selling a wide range of cryptocurrencies. Earlier this month, the company completed its expansion into every American territory. 

In June, the publicly traded firm shelled out $200 million to acquire Europe-based crypto exchange Bitstamp, in a move it said would “expand our footprint outside of the U.S. and welcome institutional customers to Robinhood."

Robinhood is only the latest firm to advocate for bringing real-world assets (RWAs) like commodities, stocks, and real estate on-chain. Shortly after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved spot Ethereum ETFs in May, companies began expressing enthusiasm about bringing RWAs onto the Ethereum blockchain without fear of a regulatory crackdown. 

Key Wall Street figures have been supportive of the idea dating back to 2022. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink highlighted tokenization that year as the “next generation for markets,” due to crypto’s ability to provide financial market participants with “reduced fees” and “instantaneous settlement.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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