Vlad Tenev, chief govt officer of Robinhood Markets Inc., through the Token2049 convention in Singapore, on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025.
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The tokenization of real-world belongings, from shares to actual property, will unfold to monetary markets all over the world, in accordance with Robinhood Markets Chief Government Officer Vlad Tenev.
“Tokenization is sort of a freight practice. It may well’t be stopped, and ultimately it should eat the whole monetary system,” Tenev advised a panel at a crypto convention in Singapore on Wednesday.
“I feel most main markets may have some framework within the subsequent 5 years,” he mentioned, although he added that reaching 100% might take greater than a decade.
A tokenized asset is a digital illustration of a real-world asset, like shares, bonds, or commodities, that may be recorded and traded on a blockchain or distributed ledger.
In June, Robinhood started providing greater than 200 tokenized U.S. shares to clients within the European Union, giving them a brand new technique to acquire publicity to the underlying belongings. The transfer despatched its inventory surging to a then-record excessive.
“I feel it’s going to turn into the default technique to get publicity to U.S. shares outdoors the U.S.,” Tenev mentioned.
He expects the follow to achieve traction as soon as there may be larger licensing and regulatory readability in additional jurisdictions.
“I feel that can come, beginning in Europe, however then increasing to the remainder of the world,” he mentioned.
Alternatively, Tenev expects the U.S. to be among the many final economies to truly totally tokenize, as a result of what he calls the larger sticking energy of the monetary infrastructure.
The crypto business has lengthy predicted {that a} mass tokenization of belongings on the blockchain was coming, promising larger market effectivity.
And, together with Robinhood’s launch of tokenized shares, there’s been extra indicators this 12 months that actual implementation is coming, with institutional giants Morgan Stanley and BlackRock signaling curiosity.
“I really suppose cryptocurrency and conventional finance have been dwelling in two separate worlds for some time, however they are going to totally merge,” Tenev mentioned on the occasion.
He cited stablecoins — digital currencies designed to not fluctuate wildly, and pegged to a commodity or a fiat forex just like the U.S. greenback — as an early instance of a tokenized real-world asset.
“I feel that crypto expertise has so many benefits over the standard method we’re doing issues that sooner or later there’s going to be no distinction,” Tenev mentioned.
