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Points of Focus
- Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said public companies should not have veto power over third-party tokens that track their shares.
- Robinhood Chain now supports stock tokens linked to more than 190 companies, up from roughly 95 at launch in July.
- AMC and OpenAI have challenged Robinhood’s model, raising questions over issuer consent, shareholder rights, and whether tokens accurately track underlying shares.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev is doubling down on the company’s stock-token strategy, arguing that public companies should not be able to veto third-party securities that reference their shares even as issuer criticism intensifies.
The comments follow a public dispute with AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron, who demanded Robinhood stop offering AMC-linked tokens and threatened regulatory and legal action. Tenev told CNBC that issuers should control the rights attached to shares they issue, but that does not give them control over separate products created by other firms.
Robinhood’s token catalog has expanded rapidly. The company launched with 95 Stock Tokens in July, but Robinhood Chain now supports more than 190, according to The Block. Tokenized equities accounted for about $115 million, or 77%, of the network’s $149.4 million in tokenized value as of Sept. 4.
Robinhood CEO: Tokenized Stocks Do Not Need Company Approval if Underlying Share Rights Remain Unchanged
Robinhood Co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev said that public companies should control the rights attached to their shares, but not every lawful use investors make of those shares… pic.twitter.com/FoHua4gMe0
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) September 12, 2026
Stock tokens give exposure without full shareholder ownership
Robinhood’s structure is central to the argument.
Its Stock Tokens are not blockchain versions of shares issued directly by companies such as AMC. They are debt securities issued by Robinhood Assets, backed 1:1 by underlying shares held as collateral, according to Tenev.
Tokenholders receive economic exposure and dividends but currently do not receive voting rights attached to the underlying shares. Tenev said Robinhood has not yet announced how it will vote shares held as collateral.
Robinhood is already responding to some criticism. Tenev said this week that the company plans to add share-redemption capabilities and voting rights to its stock-token products, bringing them closer to conventional equity ownership.
But that still leaves a fundamental legal distinction: Buying a Robinhood token is not the same as appearing on a company’s shareholder register.
AMC and OpenAI challenge Robinhood’s model
AMC’s Aron has been among the loudest critics.
He called the AMC token market “quasi-fake,” argued that AMC neither approved nor participated in the product, and questioned whether parallel token markets could undermine public companies’ ability to raise capital. He has asked outside securities counsel to examine possible action.
OpenAI made a similar objection when Robinhood introduced private-company tokens linked to it in 2025. OpenAI said the products were not its equity, were not issued in partnership with the company, and had not been endorsed by it.
Tokenization executives have raised narrower technical concerns, too.
Graham Rodford, CEO of regulated digital-asset exchange Archax, has argued that an actual share placed onchain should be distinguished from a separate financial instrument designed merely to track that share.
Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo highlighted another risk: Thin token markets can diverge dramatically from the securities they reference. He pointed to one AMC-linked trading pair that changed hands at about 60 times AMC’s reference share price, illustrating how poor liquidity can undermine the assumption that a token will accurately mirror the stock.
Tokenized equities remain tiny beside traditional markets
Robinhood is pushing ahead because the potential market is much larger than its current size.
Stock tokens promise 24/7 trading, fractional access, faster settlement, and the ability to move equity-linked instruments through blockchain applications. Robinhood said its broader strategy is to combine traditional finance with decentralized finance (DeFi) through Robinhood Chain, which launched its mainnet in July and offers Stock Tokens to eligible users in more than 120 countries.
Yet tokenized equities remain small compared with traditional markets. Reuters Breakingviews estimates digital stocks at roughly $3 billion in value and below $30 billion in monthly trading volume, versus trillions traded through conventional equity markets.
Major exchanges are nevertheless moving in the same direction. The London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, and Deutsche Börse are exploring tokenized or digitally settled equities, while LSE’s work with Payward aims specifically to preserve rights associated with ordinary shares.
Robinhood is taking a more aggressive position: Companies should not need to opt in before investors can gain tokenized exposure to their shares.
With its catalog already above 190 companies, that principle is no longer theoretical. The next question is whether issuers, regulators, and courts agree that economic exposure to a company can be separated from the company’s consent and how closely those tokens must resemble the shares whose names they carry.
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