The online brokerage Robinhood is doubling down on its crypto ambitions. On Monday, the company announced that it was letting customers in the European Union trade U.S. stocks and ETFs on a blockchain. Dubbed Robinhood Stock Tokens, the assets—basically shares of popular companies in a crypto wrapper—will have zero commission fees, and holders will receive dividend payments within the brokerage’s app.
Customers will have access to stock tokens representing more than 200 different companies and be able to trade them 24 hours a day, five days a week. Vlad Tenev, Robinhood chairman and CEO, said during an event on Monday those tokens even include privately traded companies like OpenAI and SpaceX. The blockchain-based stocks will initially be issued on Arbitrum, a so-called layer 2 blockchain built on top of Ethereum.
