#598
The Everything Exchange, In Motion
Published:
Jul 05, 2025
Author:
Sarah Parsons Wolter
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Robinhood’s first-ever crypto keynote marked more than a product launch, it was a directional bet on the next era of financial infrastructure. By introducing 200+ tokenized U.S. equities for EU users, alongside perpetual futures, ETH and SOL staking, and Layer 2 ambitions, Robinhood joined a growing club of platforms re-architecting capital markets from the edges inward.
The playbook is becoming clear: wrap legacy assets in crypto rails, abstract away traditional custody, and deliver a 24/7, composable user experience. Robinhood’s tokenized equities—initially launched on Arbitrum and eventually migrating to its own chain—will offer fractional ownership, integrated dividends, and, eventually, the ability to move assets into self-custody wallets and DeFi. In short, they bring TradFi assets into crypto’s native environment.
They’re not alone. Kraken already offers over 60 tokenized equities to non-U.S. users. Coinbase is in active dialogue with the SEC to bring similar functionality to U.S. clients. As regulatory clarity improves, the convergence is accelerating, not as a theoretical theme, but as a tangible, competitive shift. The everything exchange is no longer an idea; it’s a product roadmap.
To be clear, today’s offerings are still early. These are tokenized-TradFi wrappers relying on legacy custody, market-hour settlement, and offchain price discovery. But they mark an important first step toward the real goal: a system that is fractionalized by default, 24/7, permissionless, global, on-chain, and programmable.
That’s the eventuality. These early integrations are the scaffolding. And with every wrapped equity, every cross-platform bet, and every TradFi-Crypto bridge, the foundation gets stronger. The convergence isn’t coming, it’s underway.
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