Robinhood's 3-Phase Tokenization Plan to Disrupt Traditional Finance with Permissionless Assets
Robinhood has outlined a comprehensive three-phase plan aimed at creating a permissionless financial ecosystem that begins with a tokenized stock offering in Europe.
Phase 1 launches with nearly 800 publicly traded securities available for purchase within the Robinhood app in the European Union. However, tokens acquired in this phase cannot be moved outside the app. The plan also includes the eventual addition of private equity.
Phase 2 will focus on building the infrastructure necessary to enable 24/7 trading of stock tokens, supported by Bitstamp — a major crypto exchange Robinhood acquired earlier this year for $200 million.
Phase 3 envisions fully permissionless tokens that users can withdraw to external wallets. These tokens will be usable across decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols such as Aave, including as collateral, thus expanding their utility beyond the app ecosystem.
The tokenized stock offering will operate on Arbitrum, a Layer-2 Ethereum scaling network. A key technology in this effort is Arbitrum Stylus, developed by Offchain Labs, which enables smart contracts to be written in C++, Rust, and Python while maintaining compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. This addresses cross-language compatibility challenges between blockchain technologies and traditional financial systems.
A.J. Warner, Chief Strategy Officer at Offchain Labs, highlighted this approach at the Devconnect conference in Buenos Aires.
Overall, Robinhood aims to make these stock tokens programmable building blocks within a global, open financial system, substantially reducing reliance on conventional brokerages and clearinghouses.
