Conversation with Robinhood CEO: Want to tokenize SpaceX's equity and create a "pocket private bank" that everyone can afford

Guest: Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood

Host: David Hoffman

Podcast source: Bankless

Original title: Vlad Tenev Wants to Tokenize SpaceX & OpenAI on Robinhood

Broadcast date: March 31, 2025

Summary of key points

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev once again visited Bankless and had in-depth discussions on asset tokenization, cryptocurrency regulation and Robinhood 's new products.

In the interview, Vlad outlines an exciting future: bringing equity in companies such as SpaceX and OpenAI to ordinary investors through tokenization technology. In addition, he explores how the prediction market becomes a “truth machine” and details three of Robinhood’s latest products: Strategies, Cortex and Banking.

Wonderful view summary

• Our goal is to provide all clients with the same access rights, opportunities and strategies as high net worth individuals. This service philosophy is similar to the promise of the iPhone: how to provide users with a luxurious and proud product experience at an affordable price.

• Among our three new businesses, Robinhood Strategies is your digital investment advisor, Robinhood Cortex is your research assistant, and Robinhood Banking acts as your private banker.

• The SEC announced the end of its investigation into encryption and other companies in some industries, which gave us a relief that we can move forward as a company and an industry without having to deal with this endless attack.

• If you can issue a company-related token on a blockchain within a jurisdiction, you will immediately be exposed to this increasingly mobile global market with hundreds of millions of participants. I think this makes the United States accept this eventually.

• The stablecoin bill may be the first to be implemented, which is a positive signal for the industry. But we are more concerned with the Market Structure Act because it will provide a clear framework for how crypto assets can be integrated into the real-world financial system.

• Just as stablecoin legislation can drive the dominance of the dollar, I think tokenized securities can really drive the dominance of U.S. companies in the global market, thereby increasing the shareholder pool of U.S. companies.

• I have always supported fair competition in the market. I think the relationship between traditional banks and the crypto field may be more integrated rather than differentiated in the future. Some of the advantages of traditional banking systems can be borrowed from the field of encryption, and many innovations in encryption technology are also suitable for integration into the banking system.

Views on the new government

David:

Vlad, I'm glad you're back on the show again. Welcome to Bankless.

Vlad:

Thanks for your invitation. Very happy to be here again.

David:

I would like to first talk about an important topic in the cryptocurrency field - new changes in the US regulatory environment. The new administration’s policies have opened many doors of opportunity for the crypto industry in the U.S., especially for institutional investors who are hesitant about regulatory uncertainty. So what new opportunities does Robinhood have under the leadership of the new management? What businesses can you do that were previously unavailable? In what areas will you prioritize?

Vlad:

I think the most direct change is that it has stopped supervision through law enforcement, and a big improvement is that it is no longer being fully attacked on all aspects of the crypto business. For example, the SEC announced the end of its investigation into crypto and other companies in some industries, which gave us a relief that we can move forward as a company and an industry without having to deal with this endless attack . Previous management clearly believed that cryptocurrencies should not exist in substance, and of course they should not be integrated with traditional financial systems. So I think this is a big step forward and there are two important legislation in progress right now.

In addition, the legal status of Memecoin has become more clear. Recently, the SEC issued a memorandum that clearly states that Memecoin does not belong to securities. Although this is a relatively simple conclusion to a legal analysis, each company had to analyze each currency separately before, which was time-consuming and expensive. Robinhood has always attached great importance to compliance and has conducted rigorous securities analysis for each currency. So this legal clarity is a great help to us.

Similarly, the clarity about whether pledge belongs to securities is also increasing. This is also a good thing, staking is actually people contributing their computing power to support blockchain. Staking providers aim to reduce the complexity of this process. Generally speaking, this leads to more profits and gives customers more cryptocurrency in their pockets. Therefore, the lack of clarity is actually hurting American consumers because they cannot get more benefits from a more regulated platform.

So, having that clarity is a good thing. There are two important legislation currently being advanced: one is a bill on stablecoins and the other is a bill on market structure. The stablecoin bill may be the first to be implemented, which is a positive signal for the industry. But we are more concerned with the Market Structure Act because it will provide a clear framework for how crypto assets can be integrated into the real-world financial system. For example, which crypto assets belong to securities and which ones belong to commodities? As a platform, what steps do we need to take to launch crypto asset securities? The answers to these questions will unlock huge potential for the industry.

I think these are big questions and legislation will help us answer these questions and unlock the real potential of encryption technology, which we are very much looking forward to.

You mentioned that some companies are trying to combine stablecoins with banking, such as generating revenue through pledges or pools of funds. I think the Market Structure Act will pave the way for such products, and will also bring more industry competition. At present, stablecoins have not yet fully reached this stage, because the relevant regulations on income-based stablecoins are not yet clear. So more regulatory clarity is needed to build it on a stronger foundation, but we are optimistic about its arrival and I think things are moving in a positive direction.

David:

If I understand correctly, many potential product lines are currently at the theoretical stage. Only when the Market Structure Act is passed can we truly enter the stage of product implementation and construction, right?

Vlad:

Yes, for example, a income stablecoin that pays interest directly to the holder works similar to a money market fund. The underlying assets of stablecoins usually include safe assets such as treasury bonds. As a result, stablecoins are very similar in structure to money market funds, but they are seen as different things due to the lack of regulatory clarity. I think that's where regulation can come into play.

Benefits of tokenization

David:

So what about the field of tokenization? I think it's a very hot topic because I think it's actually a bridge between traditional banking, traditional finance and the crypto world, like let's tokenize more assets and start leveraging the value of public permissionless blockchains.

What role does Robinhood play in this tokenization movement? I assume you are optimistic about this. Do you think of yourself as a publisher or platform? Will Robinhood create tokenized products? Or are you more inclined to be the market for these products? What is your position in the tokenized technology stack?

Vlad:

By this definition, tokenization is the allocation of representativeness of non-crypto-native local assets onto the blockchain so that it can be traded freely.

We have seen this in stablecoins, which are actually tokenized Treasury bonds. In addition, Paxos has a tokenized gold product, which is a very interesting product. We actually partnered with Paxos and several other companies to launch USDG, the US dollar global network, aiming to build a stablecoin available worldwide to pay attractive benefits for holders.

The next step is obviously tokenization of securities, and we are very excited about it. This allows you to own the company in the same way as stablecoin legislation ensures that the dollar is dominant around the world, and I think that's why people are excited about it. Everyone wants the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasury bonds to be accepted and purchased, and these products are in high demand worldwide.

So just as stablecoin legislation can drive the dominance of the dollar, I think tokenized securities can really drive the dominance of U.S. companies in the global market, thereby increasing the shareholder pool of U.S. companies. At present, it is very difficult to invest in American companies overseas. Just as stablecoins make it easy to acquire the dollar, tokenized securities will make access to U.S. companies easier. So we are excited about it. I think it is good for the company and for people outside the United States, as they will be able to get these effective tools for wealth building, which is also a diversified way to help them cope with the loss of purchasing power, especially in the case of sharp devaluation of local currencies.

I think this is also good for our entrepreneurs in terms of capital formation. If it makes it easier for the United States to raise funds by entering the global crypto market, it will get more interesting companies. A few months ago, we actually published an editorial in The Washington Post, arguing about the case of tokenized private securities. It is currently difficult to invest in a private company like OpenAI or SpaceX, and I think encryption can help solve this problem. Therefore, if private companies are tokenized, this will be beneficial to both the company and investors. What makes me incredible is that there are still many limitations to investing in companies like SpaceX and OpenAI, but we have a clear definition of Memecoin, and people are basically free to invest in these tokens.

SpaceX's tokenization

David:

According to existing information, it seems that there are indeed transactions of SpaceX equity in the market. It's not crazy to find a way to access SpaceX equity. So I think what you mean is that now that the market already exists in the private market sector, we can tokenize these equity and use crypto to transform it into a more formal and structured market. Then I imagined Robinhood would be happy to be a market for serving tokenized equity. If I combine this information together, it seems like a very feasible future. Do you think this is your roadmap? How close is we to tokenize SpaceX equity on Robinhood?

Vlad:

Yes, I think Robinhood is at the intersection between traditional finance and encryption. We have all the encryption technology and the infrastructure of traditional finance. Therefore, I think tokenized equity is one of the important areas where we can contribute to the entire ecosystem.

Future tokenized equity may be similar to the operating model of ETFs (trading open-end funds). ETF issuers will hold a basket of securities and then issue a share of the ETF in some way, which is actually the predecessor of tokenized securities. In the process, if you bring a basket of securities to ETF issuers, they will exchange the share of the ETF, and vice versa, you can exchange the underlying securities basket with the ETF. This is an analogy of what has happened in traditional finance, and tokenization can be evolved with crypto.

Alternatives to IPOs

David:

Although the number of public market IPOs has not declined significantly, the overall trend is on the decline. This is mainly because the cost of IPOs is so high that it is becoming increasingly high for companies to enter the public capital market. Do you think this trend will drive the prospect of tokenization in private markets? Or is this too complicated in terms of national compliance and too cumbersome in terms of financial regulations?

Vlad:

I think the trend of tokenized securities really paves the way for IPO alternatives. Although it may not be possible in the United States in the short term, this trend has gradually emerged in the international market. Many countries are establishing frameworks for issuing crypto asset securities, and crypto is essentially global. So if you can issue a corporate token on a blockchain within a jurisdiction, you will be immediately exposed to this increasingly mobile global market with hundreds of millions of participants. I think this makes the United States accept this eventually.

For private companies, in the early stages of a company’s establishment, this is actually primary capital, equivalent to raising funds from shareholders in a traditional IPO. In the early stages, primary capital was very useful because I remember that when I was running a seed-stage company as an entrepreneur, the fundraising model took up a lot of energy and resources. And when you are a small company, these resources are very important. If tokenization allows entrepreneurs to quickly access global capital markets, it will be a great choice for early founders. It not only helps more companies get financial support at the most risky stage, but also provides investors with potential high returns opportunities.

For mature private companies like OpenAI or SpaceX, the value proposition differs. At this point, this may not be too interesting for the founders of these companies, as they have raised a lot of money and may be planning an IPO or something, but it is very attractive to the employees. These companies have thousands of employees who are looking for liquidity and they don’t know when there will be an IPO or liquidity event, so employees want to diversify to some extent, which becomes a strong value proposition.

There are currently some secondary platforms, such as Equity Zen or Forge, which operate in this field and actually actively reach out to the employees of these companies because it is an audience seeking to diversify and sell secondary shares. However, the problem with these models is that liquidity is actually decentralized, so the platform itself has to figure out how to get supply and introduce it, while encryption benefits from interoperability, just put it on the blockchain to trade freely, and get instant access to global liquidity, which is why I think it is an excellent technical solution.

David:

There are indeed some trends that clearly point in this direction. In addition, there are many excellent companies, such as SpaceX and OpenAI, both private companies and do not seem to intend to go public. These AI labs, as a broad category, do not actually have public equity, or companies like Facebook or Google are too large to become a tool to dilute investment.

Vlad:

As an ordinary investor, if you want to get involved in AI, the choices are very limited. You can choose NVIDIA, Alphabet, or Tesla, but you won't have access to interesting AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, or Perplexity.

David:

Looking back at the market trends over the past few decades, we can find that opportunities in modern society are no longer in the public market, but in the private market. As I said before, the compliance costs of IPOs are getting higher and higher, while at the same time, encryption provides a technical solution. I see multiple different tailwind factors pointing to this inevitable conclusion: tokenize private market equity and make it a pseudo-public market of some sort.

Forecasting the market

David:

I also want to talk about the forecast market, because Robinhood has also gotten involved in this field. Robinhood has a slogan "Everything is the market". Is this my misunderstanding, or do you do have such an official brand goal?

Vlad:

We didn't use that slogan. Our company is called Robinhood Markets, which is our parent company. Therefore, our mission is to “democratize finance for all.” This means we believe in the power of the market and are committed to making it fair for everyone to participate in market transactions. Generally speaking, if this is an institutional market and the average user is interested in it, they should also be allowed to participate in an equal playing field with the institutions.

The same applies to the forecast market. But I think there is additional value in the forecast market. For me personally, having a strong forecasting market means social benefits beyond trading, which means you can get better predictions in various events. We saw this in the election, and the forecast market provided information several hours or even days before traditional media. I think you'll see this in multiple different categories. So I think the prediction market is “truth machines”, they are the evolution of news, they are the evolution of newspapers, and in some cases you can even get news by predicting the market before the event happens.

Kalshi Platform

David:

Like many people, I also had an election party. While watching election reports from mainstream media, we discussed election situations with friends in the encryption circle. In addition to traditional news, we have also opened the Polymarket platform. Everyone takes turns to watch Polymarket and mainstream media, and Polymarket's data is more real-time and obviously more interesting. Recently, Robinhood released an announcement, I read the content, and then we can talk more clearly about the forecast market.

Recently, Robinhood launched a forecast market hub that allows customers to trade the results of some of the world’s biggest events. The first markets include forecasts for the Fed fund rate cap, as well as the upcoming NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments. Although these two markets are different in types, they are both attractive. I think you've partially answered my question, which is why Robinhood integrates the forecast market into the platform. But it is worth mentioning that this forecast market product is powered by Kalshi. Can you talk about the partnership between Robinhood and Kalshi? What role does Kalshi play in this prediction market?

Vlad:

Kalshi is a designated contract market (DCM). You can think of DCM as similar to an exchange, such as a stock exchange. In the stock space, there are exchanges like the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange. Brokers including Robinhood connect to these exchanges or market makers trading on these exchanges, where buyers and sellers are actually crossing the exchanges, and the exchange essentially creates a market.

In the stock space, Robinhood is a broker and we take orders from clients and route them to market makers or directly to exchanges. In the futures market, the CFTC regulatory field, there are designated contract markets (DCMs), which are like exchanges, where buyers and sellers meet. Then there is the Futures Commissioner (FCM), in which case Robinhood is an FCM. We are responsible for customer relationships and interfaces, and we then route orders to DCM and match them through market makers.

So you can think of Kalshi as similar to Nasdaq or NYSE, and we play the usual role of brokers. In fact, during the presidential election, we also connected a different DCM called Forecast Decks, which is a subsidiary of Interactive Brokers. Therefore, we have the ability to connect multiple DCMs and provide different products that these exchanges offer. In fact, DCM is ultimately responsible for listing contracts. Therefore, all contracts we list must be listed on DCM for us to provide.

David:

So you can 't provide your own forecast market. Must be done on a third-party DCM.

Vlad:

Yes, platforms like Polymarket actually cannot legally operate forecast markets in the United States because they are not DCM. They use encryption methods. I think these are some of the issues that need to be clarified in the market structure legislation we discussed earlier. The CFTC treats these as commodities and has corresponding licenses. So, will forecast markets like Polymarket handle this regulation? Or is it because it is encrypted and there will be other supervision? These are big forecast market issues that we need legislation to allow for big forecast markets like Polymarket operating in the United States.

Forecast the future of the market

David:

I think many listeners would like to use Polymarket in the United States. The last question about the forecasting market is that Robinhood 's forecasting market currently starts with the Federal Reserve fund rate and men's and women's basketball games, so what is the future direction? Next, what are the predictive market transactions users can participate in on Robinhood?

Vlad:

With the launch of our latest round of contract markets, we have gone from the ability to list only one contract to the ability to list hundreds of contracts at the same time. Of course, this involves the operational complexity of clearing, payment and setting up new contracts, especially those that rely on data from previous contracts. This has been reflected in the predictions of men's and women's college basketball. But soon, we will be able to expand the number of contracts from hundreds to thousands, which will open the door to various types of forecast markets.

We are very interested in the forecast market on the economic side, and I am also interested in the progress of artificial intelligence. There are some really cool forecasting markets that can provide clear information about the development of different AIs, which I think our customers are very interested in. Actually, I think the coverage of the forecast market should be as wide as that of newspapers. Newspapers have front page news, sports, business, and art and leisure editions, and the forecast market can also provide users with comprehensive information in similar categories.

David:

Prediction markets are the truth machine, I think this is one of the reasons why people in the crypto world are so interested in the prediction markets. There were also some pretty important and sensitive geopolitical events in the past, such as the conflict between Israel and Iran, and there was a set of forecast markets on Polymarket that actually provided real information on people’s perception of future events, and these are also highly impactful and sensitive topics. If we enter a volatile geopolitical future, one will want to understand the market’s perception of the possibility of certain outcomes. How do you view the idea of ​​integrating high-risk global macro-geopolitical forecasting markets within Robinhood?

Vlad:

I think this is important to society. Now the CFTC has a guideline for forecast markets and event contracts, which basically stipulate that forecast markets that should not be listed that should not be listed in public interest. I think this is a relatively vague general category, but we should try to limit it as much as possible because I really think that the vast majority of forecasting markets are in the public interest.

Robinhood's three new businesses

Robinhood Banking

David:

You held a pretty important event, similar to the Robinhood Summit, announcing three different new business areas: Robinhood Strategies, Robinhood Banking and Robinhood Cortex. Let’s start with Robinhood Banking. Can you explain in detail this product and why this product line was created?

Vlad:

Overall inspiration comes from our goal to provide all clients with the same access, opportunities and strategies as high net worth individuals. We want to put a complex, high net worth home office-style financial team into everyone’s pocket and offer it to our gold subscribers for just $5 a month. This service philosophy is similar to the promise of the iPhone: how to provide users with a luxurious and proud product experience at an affordable price.

So, that's the main line behind the three products we announced at the gold event. Strategies is your digital investment advisor, Cortex is your research assistant, and Robinhood Banking acts as your private banker. I think in the future, this is also the first AI product we will launch within Robinhood. So in the future, you will see the latest intelligent and inference models further incorporate the product experience, further combining the two to truly provide you with an excellent experience where each part can get to know each other.

Robinhood Cortex

David:

When I saw this announcement, I saw Robinhood Cortex and thought to myself, "What? Robinhood has released an AI agent?"

But after a deeper understanding, I found that its functions are indeed very meaningful. Can you give an example of how users use Robinhood Cortex? I guess it will be embedded in the Robinhood app, through which users can ask various financial-related questions. So, is it a big language model ( LLM ) with the theme of finance ? Or a pop-up window? Can you give a detailed introduction?

Vlad:

Currently in the Robinhood application, it has two application scenarios. One is to answer the current stock trends. If you use Robinhood, you will occasionally receive notifications about market fluctuations, such as a stock that rises or falls by 5%. Then, a very typical use case is to look at this stock and figure out what's going on. Cortex will answer this question on the stock details page, and it will try its best to explain what causes this volatility, which is part of the stock dynamics.

Another use case is option trading . Options are very complex, you need to process a lot of information and have to be quite experienced in order to build an option trading, especially when trading multiple legs (involving multiple trading combinations). Cortex does this with a trading builder, which predicts the trend of a stock at a certain time in the future and builds options trading that helps you execute that prediction. This is a pretty magical experience. We did a demo at the Gold Event where you can select specific stocks, make predictions, and then it will generate a trading plan that can be executed directly, or direct you to our upcoming side-by-side options chain interface.

David:

Cortex 's core idea is to transform the investment intentions expressed by users in natural language into trading strategies. The user enters his or her own ideas, and after the AI ​​processes this information, it returns some possible option trading combinations, such as "This is a trading plan that you may be interested in." Is this the basic logic of Cortex?

Vlad:

But its capabilities are more than that. Cortex combines all available information, including real-time market data, technical indicators, and news updates from multiple parties. By integrating this data, it not only generates predictions, but also provides users with insights and analysis to help them make better decisions.

David:

Can you introduce the uniqueness of this LLM ? I guess it 's not a simple ChatGPT shell, but is optimized for the financial sector. What is special about its training data , or what are the unique processing in late training that makes it a financial LLM focused on Robinhood?

Vlad:

Traditional large language models often do not have access to real-time market data or financial data. Their data are often outdated and therefore cannot tell you exactly the current price of a stock. Moreover, they are prone to "illusions" when providing financial information, i.e., generating inaccurate or false content. To solve these problems, we construct a technology layer that ensures that the data obtained by users is real-time, interpretable, and avoids hallucinations. This solves two key issues for most LLMs in financial applications.

David:

If we don’t handle this well, hallucination in the financial context can be disastrous.

Vlad:

Yes, but luckily we have a real data source. Unlike writing historical papers, the authenticity of financial data can be verified. Therefore, we are able to set up strict "guardrails" to ensure that the generated content is accurate and can quickly identify and correct hallucinations.

David:

This may be Robinhood’s main competitive advantage in developing financial AI assistants. You have real-time market data, user behavior data and a large number of financial-related resources, which are integrated into the capabilities of LLM

Vlad:

Yes, that's an advantage. Another advantage is that you can trade in our app. If we can closely combine Cortex's suggestions with the context of the user's actual operation, its practicality will be greatly improved. We don't want to just put a chat box in the app because people don't know how to use it. We hope that Cortex will not only generate smooth answers, but also avoid lengthy and hallucinatory questions, which is the direction we are working on.

Robinhood Strategies

David:

Regarding the Strategies part, is it possible to expand this product into the crypto assets sector in the future? After all, in the crypto industry, many people will be asked similar questions by friends, such as "What cryptocurrency should I buy? Or how should I invest in crypto assets?" because they really don't know. It would be very attractive if the strategy product could support some complex, crypto-centric investment strategies. So, what preparations are needed to achieve this?

Vlad:

From a technical perspective, we have not encountered any obstacles. In fact, we have a feature list that lists dozens or even hundreds of features that can be added to the strategy product. We hope to prioritize meeting our most urgent needs.

At present, we have laid a solid foundation. We choose to start with individual stocks, because most other digital advisory platforms only support ETFs (traded open-end index funds). We have developed the capability to support the inclusion of individual assets and stocks into the portfolio. Of course, we also support ETFs and design an intuitive interface, such as clearly displaying asset allocation through a ring graph. In addition, we also provide automatic rebalancing function to help users adjust their investment portfolios according to market changes, making investments more worry-free.

I think we have built a good foundation. We want to start with individual stocks, because most other digital advisory platforms offer only ETFs. Therefore, we build the ability to put individual assets and stocks into the portfolio. Of course, we also support ETFs, and we have built a good interface with a ring chart to clarify your asset allocation. We can rebalance on behalf of our customers. So, this is as close as possible to a "worry-free investing" button.

I also want to mention in particular that one of the unique features of strategy products is that it subverts the traditional charging model. Traditional investment advisors usually charge at asset management fees (AUM) at a rate of around 1%, while robot advisors have lower rates at around 0.25%. However, this pro-fee model has a problem: as the portfolio size increases, the fees paid by users will also increase, but the value of services provided by consultants will not grow simultaneously. For example, managing a million dollar portfolio is no more complicated than managing a hundred thousand dollar portfolio, but users pay 10 times the fee. This model may displeased high-net-worth customers because they paid more but did not receive more value for the service.

To address this, the Robinhood strategy adopts a cap-offer model that costs no more than $250 no matter how large your portfolio is. Therefore, for users with millions of dollars in assets, the price-performance ratio of turning to the Robinhood strategy is very high.

David:

How does this charging model affect the incentive mechanism of the product? Because it is no longer a business with asset management scale ( AUM ) as its core driving force, it has transformed into a customer-oriented model. So, how does Robinhood benefit from user growth in strategic products, especially with the charging cap set at $250 per customer?

Vlad:

Indeed, this model has attracted more high-net-worth clients to transfer their funds to our platform. The income we earn from it comes primarily from asset management expenses. Additionally, we benefit from the Robinhood Gold subscription. We found that once users become subscribers to Robinhood Gold and put a considerable portion of their wealth here, such as investing $1,000, they will gradually discover more value and tend to use more of our services, such as credit cards and autonomous transaction capabilities.

So our goal is to get as much financial relationships as possible for clients and make it easier for them to transfer all their funds to Robinhood. At the same time, as the total amount of funds we manage increases, so does our revenue.

Cash Delivery

David:

I have two more questions about this new product series. One of them is about the cash delivery service you launched. I liken it to "a cash delivery service similar to Uber Eats," and don't know if the metaphor is accurate. Can you talk about why you want to launch such a service? How does it work specifically? For example, how do users operate in applications and how do cash be delivered to users?

Vlad:

It can be understood that we are actually entering the logistics field, which makes me very excited. This service is mainly aimed at high-end customers of private banks, and there are two reasons behind it.

First, we don't have physical branches. So we think about how to provide digital banking services to users without compromise? Without a branch, when users need cash, they tend to be able to withdraw money from convenience stores like 711 or CVS. But this obviously does not conform to the high-end positioning of private banking services. By the way, 16% of payments in the United States are still made in cash. Although cash usage is gradually declining, it is still very important in many scenarios. Therefore, we need a new solution to allow banking services to be proactively "delivered to your door".

These on-demand logistics platforms have become very powerful today. They can deliver the stuff to you in 10 or 15 minutes, you can buy an iPhone and deliver it to your home. So this is a solution to the problem. Of course, we will not undertake the operation of the entire logistics chain ourselves, but will cooperate with our partners to complete it. Although this is a complicated task, we believe it can bring great value to users.

Of course, we will not undertake the operation of the entire logistics chain ourselves, but will cooperate with our partners to complete it. Although this is a complicated task, we believe it can bring great value to users.

随着服务的推出，我们会逐渐了解更多实际运作中的细节，比如哪些环节存在挑战、用户的实际需求是什么，以及典型的交易金额是多少。我预计平均交易金额会在几百美元的低范围内。

加密货币的上市

David：

回到加密资产的话题。Robinhood 是否计划上线更多加密资产？目前在Robinhood 应用中提供的加密资产种类相对较少，你们未来是否会扩展这方面的选择？

Vlad：

是的，自从选举以来，我们已经上线了许多新资产。我认为我们目前已经涵盖了大部分客户感兴趣的高交易量资产。例如，特朗普币在就职典礼当天上线后，受到了广泛欢迎。我们一直在不断增加新的资产，但现在每周都会有几十甚至上百个新资产被创建，这让我们意识到需要重新思考如何更高效地处理这些资产的上线流程。

接下来，你会看到Robinhood 钱包的更多发展。Robinhood 钱包是一个基于去中心化金融(DeFi) 的链上产品，目前它与Robinhood 主应用之间的功能还不够紧密。但我相信，随着时间的推移，这两者会逐渐融合。我们计划在主应用中增加一些链上的功能，同时让钱包应用更方便地支持法币与加密货币的无缝转换。

我认为未来，Robinhood 的服务以及整个行业都会朝着更紧密整合的方向发展。在这种趋势下，资产的上线门槛会降低，流程也会变得更加自动化。如果我们发现某种资产的交易量很大，我们会通过后台优化让上线变得更加高效和简化。

我们的目标是为客户提供更多选择，但同时也要确保用户不会因为每周数百个新代币的出现而感到困惑。 随着市场上资产种类的激增，区分高质量和低质量代币变得越来越困难。我们需要解决这个问题，既要避免推广不可靠的代币，也要防止客户在不了解的情况下轻易投资。

为什么要分离多款自家的应用？

David：

所以你们有Robinhood 钱包、核心的Robinhood 应用，还有Robinhood 信用卡 ，我认为这也是Robinhood Banking 业务的方向，那么，这几款应用之间的分离，是否主要是出于监管和合规的考虑？未来是否有计划将所有功能整合到一个类似金融超级应用的产品中？

Vlad：

我们最初确实考虑过将所有功能整合到一个应用中，但后来发现这样做的挑战很大。一个应用如果同时服务于活跃交易者和银行用户，其主页的用户体验就需要非常精准地满足不同需求。然而，交易用户和银行客户的需求往往截然不同。比如，交易者更关注资产行情和买卖操作，而银行用户则更需要便捷的支付和账户管理功能。因此，大多数用户的习惯是将交易界面和银行界面分开。虽然理论上可以将它们统一起来，但目前还没有成功的案例可以参考。因此，我的态度是开放的，愿意尝试不同的方式。

超级应用的概念确实很吸引人，我们可能能够开发出一个功能齐全的应用，但我并不认为所有功能必须集中在一个应用中。更重要的是实现统一的客户身份验证(KYC) 和账户之间资金流动的便利性。除此之外，我们希望根据用户的实际需求打造最优的界面。未来，我们可能会在主Robinhood 应用中增加更多功能，同时也鼓励团队开发独立的应用。最终，我们可能会推出超过三款应用。类似于Uber 和Uber Eats，我们可能会根据实际运营经验，在未来对这些应用进行重新组合或拆分，以更好地适应用户需求。

Robinhood 有多“去银行化”？

David：

Vlad，在我们结束这次采访时，我想聊聊Robinhood 与加密货币和金融科技的关系。正如你所知道的，这个播客叫做“Bankless”，我们提倡去中心化，主张自我保管自己的财务和加密资产。Robinhood 的某些部分非常“银行化”，比如你们正在推出银行相关产品。我认为加密货币，尤其是DeFi，在与传统金融竞争中具有一定的优势，因为传统金融的储蓄账户年利率只有0.25%，比如在富国银行的产品，很糟糕的产品，创新也来自于老旧的传统金融。

尽管如此，我也很欣赏Robinhood 在传统金融领域带来了真正的竞争力。同时，我注意到，虽然Robinhood 并不是完全去中心化，但越来越多的加密功能正在融入你们的产品中。所以我的问题是： Robinhood 的去中心化程度如何？未来的发展方向是什么？你认为Robinhood 在去中心化与传统模式之间的平衡点会在哪里？

Vlad：

其实Robinhood 是“无银行化”的，我们并没有银行特许经营权。 很多人会问我们是否会申请银行特许经营权，以及这意味着什么。传统金融公司通常需要银行特许经营权以接入联邦支付系统(Fed Wire)、Zelle 等服务，并开展贷款业务。然而，我们目前的模式是作为一个中立的平台，与银行合作来提供必要的服务。例如，我们与Coastal Community Bank 合作提供信贷和银行服务，同时还有其他合作伙伴参与我们的现金清扫计划。

事实上，许多大型加密和去中心化金融(DeFi) 协议在后端仍需要银行的支持。如果用户想将法币转入链上，银行是这个过程中不可或缺的一环。我认为未来随着监管框架的逐步清晰，我们可能会看到“加密银行”的出现。这类银行可能会获得某种形式的许可，监管要求可能会比OCC 的国家银行特许经营权更宽松，但仍然需要遵守财政管理和储备规定。毕竟，如果没有规则，用户可能会受到损害。比如Terra Luna 的Anchor Protocol 和Celsius，这些看似银行化的协议由于缺乏关键监管机制，最终导致了严重的问题。

我一直支持市场的公平竞争。我认为传统银行与加密领域的关系未来可能会更加融合而非分化。传统银行系统中的一些优势可以借鉴到加密领域，而加密技术中的许多创新也适合融入银行系统。 我们正处于一个关键时刻，可以将这两者结合起来，为用户提供更实用的解决方案。这对加密行业和用户来说都是一个激动人心的机会。如果Robinhood 能在推动这种融合中发挥一点作用，我认为这将是一件非常有意义的事情。