Robinhood CEO Says Tokenization Will 'Eat The Whole Global Financial System,' Tokenized Real-World Assets Are An 'Unstoppable Freight Train'
“Tokenization is like a freight train. It can’t be stopped, and eventually it’s going to eat the entire financial system, but it's going to take time for for everyone to be comfortable with it.”
Speaking at a panel discussion at the Token2049 conference in Singapore, the world’s largest cryptocurrency event, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev asserted that tokenization will become the entire world’s financial system.
Robinhood is a popular stock and crypto trading app. Tenev was invited to the July signing event when President Trump signed the GENIUS Act, a bill that established a legal framework for digital dollars in the form of stablecoins, which are effectively privatized central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
At the recent symposium, Tenev told the host on CNBC:
“Tokenization is like a freight train. It can’t be stopped, and eventually it’s going to eat the entire financial system. I think most major markets will have some framework in the next five years, but it's going to take time for for everyone to be comfortable with it.”
Tenev said that tokenization of private companies is still “quite early,” but as people are eased into this new system, he did say that things such as tokenized stocks - which will be traded in 24/7 in real-time - “I think in the next probably 5 to 10 years where it is ubiquitous.”
“I think that will come, starting in Europe, but then expanding to the rest of the world,” he added, though feels places such as the United States will take a little longer but will happen eventually, he said on stage at the event.
“The biggest challenge in the U.S. is that the financial system basically works. It’s why we don’t have bullet trains — medium-speed trains get you there well enough,” he said. “So the incremental effort to move to fully tokenized will just take longer.”
Tenev cited the Genius Act and the creation of digital dollar stablecoins as a prime example of real-world asset tokenization, and that this will become the de-facto standard, CoinDesk noted. He explained that traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) are finally beginning to coalesce into one.
“In the same way that stablecoins have become the default way to get digital access to dollars, tokenized stocks will become the default way for people outside the U.S. to get exposure to American equities. That’s why we launched our stock tokens in Europe first, it’s the future of how global investors will hold U.S. assets.
“I think that crypto technology has so many advantages over the traditional way we’re doing things that in the future there’s going to be no distinction.
“I actually think cryptocurrency and traditional finance have been living in two separate worlds for a while, but they’re going to fully merge.”
But it’s not stablecoins and stocks, Robinhood is also primed to begin offering tokenized real estate.
CoinDesk wrote:
Tenev told the crowd that tokenizing property is “mechanically” no different from tokenizing a private company, such as SpaceX or OpenAI: you place the assets into a company structure and then issue tokens against it.
While OpenAI called the move to tokenize its private shares “unauthorized“ and crypto lawyers that spoke to CoinDesk said the move walked a legal tightrope, Tenev dismissed the controversy as part of a broader regulatory lag, arguing that the main hurdles aren’t technical but legal.
Europe is already moving ahead, he said, while the U.S. will likely trail, but he framed real estate as the next logical step in Robinhood’s tokenization push — an asset class that could one day be traded as easily as a stock or stablecoin.
Tenev’s words aligns with the vision set forth in a 166-page document published by the White House in July, as explained by The WinePress last month, which clearly establishes a new tokenized financial system of “money-like” and real-world assets (RWAs) in the form of a tradeable and trackable token on blockchain ledgers, which then can link back to a digital ID wallet.
The authors wrote:
“Tokenization refers to the practice of using blockchain technology to record ownership of an asset. These assets can take the form of traditional financial assets, such as money market fund shares or bank deposits, or non-financial assets, such as trade receivables or interests in rare items such as art or collectibles. Industry estimates suggest that over $600 billion in “real world assets” could be tokenized by 2030.
Similar to the benefits that arose from the electronification of financial markets decades ago, which involved the dematerialization of securities, tokenization can enable new financial products by dematerializing and mobilizing them through smart contracts and other blockchain-based technologies.
Several other benefits of tokenization include the programmability and peer-to-peer transferability of assets, operational efficiencies (e.g., 24/7 trading and simplified recordkeeping), and increased transparency relative to traditional financial markets.
Where tokenized instruments have been regulated, they tend to be regulated as securities, as much of the current volume in tokenization falls with underlying assets that are securities (e.g., fixed income and private credit). Additional non-security uses of tokenization include tokenized commodities (e.g., gold) and tokenized non-financial assets (e.g., commercial real estate and rare items).
Similar to what Tenev described, the document notes the merger of TradFi and DeFi into one.
Assets that exist on one chain and pass through a cross-chain bridge to be represented on another are referred to as wrapped, and the ecosystem that operates around dApps is broadly known as decentralized finance (DeFi). Some traditional finance (TradFi) institutions have explored using smart contracts to power new financial products or streamline agreements with counterparties. They often build these products on permissioned blockchains, which allow an administrator to control or reverse parts of onchain transactions.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Tenev is absolutely correct: tokenization will “eat” the old system, and it is coming like a “freight train.” That’s why I have been warning about it for the last several years emphatically, as this is something that cannot and should not be overlooked. Unfortunately, most people still don’t see it and won’t see it; and if some do, they will just laugh at this as some “crypto bro” nonsense.
The whole world is moving in this direction. Central banks, governments and private interests such as BlackRock are moving at lightning speed to bring this system to fruition.
I should also mention that Tenev and Robinhood were under heavy scrutiny in 2021, if you may recall, that whole GameStop fiasco where some internet investors, Wall Street Bets, called the bluff of hedge funds that were short selling the stock, so they bought in and refused to sell when hedge fund investors tried to cash out. It became this national fiasco and Robinhood manually stepped in and blocked all trading, causing normies to lose their money and to protect their rich friends in the club.
Now just imagine this guy and his club of fat cats who will now manage and manipulate stablecoins and tokenized RWAs (because the Genius Act lets him do that). Nothing but fairness, honesty, and transparency aye?
Furthermore, if you go to the Token2049 website there is a video that plays in the background showcasing the event, and one of the clips shows a woman performing a ritualistic seance worshipping crypto, or at least that’s what it looks like. It’s digital sorcery.
That White House document I exposed last month really lays out where things are headed in the United States. Other countries will be slightly different but they will all reach a similar conclusion.
Proverbs 22:7 The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.
Again, the WH document clearly specifies that these stablecoins are “money-like” tokens (their words); and they have to say that because they know they are not money: they are programmable, trackable, traceable permission slips that allow executable rights and privileges (again, their language).
Jeremiah 52:11 Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.
And that’s what ‘they’ are doing: blinding the eyes of the masses, chaining up the masses in digital fetters, hauled away and enslaved in the Babylonian prison state where you will own nothing and be happy.
It’s why we have to warn people so we can try to delay this. ‘They’ are going to pull out every trick in the book, and it will get hard, but we have to try our best to fight this.
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On one of his missionary journeys, the apostle Paul visited Athens, Greece, where he said he witnessed “the city wholly given to idolatry,” and who were “too superstitious” and worshipped a plurality of gods and deities, though the people acknowledged that there was still one God above all that was a mystery to them. When questioned by the philosophers …
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Reading the WEF and UN Agenda 2030 it is apparent that EVERYTHING is intended to be tokenise in the name of protecting natural environments and 'saving the planet' literally, rivers, lakes, mountains, trees, all the environment. Once tokenise the asset can be traded and... Voilla, what is rightfully ours moves from the public domain into private ownership. Fear and greed has been doing this for decades as politicians ask people if they want things and people blindly say 'of course' yet never care where the money comes from. In this way, we have and will, become masters of our own destruction... Yet continue to blames someone else.
It was planned. They wanted to control the population in year 2030.