Robinhood's crypto ambitions: becoming the "one-stop financial gateway" for the younger generation
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Robinhood's crypto ambitions: becoming the "one-stop financial gateway" for the younger generation
Whoever captures Gen Z's crypto wallets holds the future of finance.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy Nina Bambysheva, Forbes
Translated by Luffy, Foresight News
Cryptocurrency financiers might seem out of place at Château de la Croix des Gardes. This 25-acre Belle Époque villa perched on a hillside overlooks the Bay of Cannes. Yet on a sunny afternoon in June, Robinhood rented this legendary estate—famous for its appearance in Hitchcock’s film "To Catch a Thief"—to host an event called "To Catch a Token," a crypto-themed gala orchestrated by Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood's head of crypto who resides on the French Riviera.
The event opened with cinematic flair: a video showed Robinhood co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev driving a 1962 Midnight Blue Jaguar E-Type convertible along the coastal road, echoing Cary Grant’s iconic entrance in "To Catch a Thief." After the video ended, Tenev appeared in person—wearing a Tom Ford white pinstripe suit, black-and-white striped necktie, holding a green briefcase—to welcome over 300 invited guests, including Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and executives from financial giants like JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, and Stripe.
This “theatrical” debut was far from arbitrary. Robinhood shares have reached $111 each, hitting an all-time high, up 384% from last year, pushing its market value to nearly $98 billion, placing it among the world’s top 250 most valuable companies. In 2024, Robinhood generated $1.4 billion in profit, nearly $3 billion in revenue, managed $255 billion in assets, and achieved a 44% net deposit growth rate over the past year. By number of active or non-zero balance accounts, Robinhood’s 26 million accounts are rapidly closing in on Charles Schwab (37 million), and are three times the size of Morgan Stanley’s E-Trade and six times that of Merrill Lynch. Tenev’s personal wealth grew sixfold in one year to $6.1 billion.
Vlad Tenev cover photo by Guerin Blask for Forbes
The 38-year-old CEO is constantly on the move. In late May, he spoke to 35,000 Bitcoin enthusiasts in Las Vegas about how “tokenization”—converting stocks, bonds, real estate, and other assets into digital tokens tradable 24/7 on blockchain networks—could further disrupt global finance. Then he headed to Tampa for the Registered Investment Advisor conference, and weeks later delivered his annual shareholder letter from Robinhood’s luxurious Manhattan office. “New York this week, then France, then the UK,” he rattled off his schedule, listing over a dozen Robinhood offices across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. “I need to visit each at least once a year, and there are still more opening.”
Despite his youthful appearance and Errol Flynn–like haircut and goatee reminiscent of the 1938 Robin Hood, Tenev now speaks like a seasoned CEO of a major financial group. The brokerage born from the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the “Occupy Wall Street” movement has “grown up.” It aims to become a one-stop financial services provider for the “digital native” generation—those more comfortable with digital trading. According to Cerulli Associates, this group will inherit around $124 trillion in assets over the next two decades, mostly from their baby boomer parents.
One week before the “choreographed” debut at the French chateau, Tenev explained the purpose of such events: “We’re launching new products so quickly; it’s a great way to show the world what we’re doing. We have to think through the story each event tells, and it really energizes the team.”
The castle event marked Robinhood’s first international crypto-focused gathering, unveiling several major announcements: Starting in July, Robinhood will allow European users to trade blockchain-based “stock tokens”—non-voting derivatives tracking hundreds of U.S. stocks and ETFs, including private tech giants like SpaceX and OpenAI. Trading will be commission-free, available 24/7 for five days a week. For U.S. users, Robinhood launched staking for cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Solana, allowing users to lock assets on blockchain networks to earn yield. In June, Robinhood acquired Luxembourg-based crypto exchange Bitstamp for $200 million, unlocking perpetual futures trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum for European users. And underpinning all of this is a blockchain that Robinhood is building in-house.
“Our industry is at a pivotal turning point,” Tenev told VIPs vacationing on the Riviera. “We have a chance to prove our long-held belief to the world: cryptocurrency is far more than just a speculative asset—it has the potential to become the backbone of the global financial system. We want to turn that possibility into inevitability.”
To understand Tenev’s “ambition,” consider Robinhood’s turbulent past. In 2013, Stanford physics and math graduate Tenev and co-founder Baiju Bhatt saw a disruptive opportunity. After graduation, they developed high-frequency trading software for large hedge funds and witnessed firsthand these firms’ massive demand for trade volume. Meanwhile, retail investors paying $10–25 per trade at brokers like Schwab, Fidelity, and Merrill Lynch could become a huge source of volume. So they built a mobile trading app for beginners, eliminating account minimums and commissions, knowing hedge funds would pay to execute retail orders. They promoted the zero-commission platform under the slogan “democratizing investing,” and its launch created buzz akin to a blockbuster game.
Even before Robinhood launched, nearly a million people were already on Apple’s App Store waitlist. By September 2019, legacy brokers like Schwab, E-Trade, Fidelity, and TD Ameritrade (acquired by Schwab in 2020) had eliminated commissions, making the startup’s model the new industry standard.
Yet victory didn’t last. In early 2021, amid pandemic lockdowns and government stimulus, app trading volume surged, but the “GameStop meme stock frenzy” triggered a regulatory storm. Driven by Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, GameStop’s stock soared despite weak fundamentals. This unprecedented volatility triggered massive collateral demands from Robinhood’s clearinghouse, forcing Tenev to temporarily halt buying of the stock on the platform. The backlash followed swiftly: user anger, public criticism, and congressional hearings—including questions about the suicide of a young Robinhood options trader.
But the controversy exposed the outdated, opaque, and inefficient nature of U.S. stock trading, clarifying Tenev’s long-standing idea: “Can we really put stocks on the blockchain? I believe the value lies in enabling 24/7 stock trading.”
Initially, Robinhood tried extending trading hours through partnerships with alternative trading platforms like Blue Ocean in West Palm Beach to innovate within the traditional system, but these efforts failed. “I didn’t realize how hard it would be to change core infrastructure—so many things depend on it. Maybe I was a bit naive,” Tenev admitted.
Meanwhile, his crypto chief Kerbrat explored other paths. With U.S. regulators cautious toward digital assets during the Biden era, the team moved experiments to Europe, where rules were clearer. “Sometimes, it’s easier to build new infrastructure from scratch. We believe this technology can adapt to any jurisdiction, and eventually deploy globally,” Tenev said, knowing his profitable volume engine could grow exponentially as millions worldwide start trading U.S. stocks like meme coins.
While Kerbrat deepened tokenization efforts in Europe, Robinhood reshaped itself elsewhere. In March 2024, Bhatt—who now has a $6.7 billion fortune and stepped down as co-CEO in 2020—left the company to pursue space-based solar power. Despite unresolved lawsuits from GameStop users, Tenev pushed ahead with new offerings: individual retirement accounts (IRA), high-yield savings accounts, a 3% cashback credit card (with a 3-million-person waitlist), on-demand cash delivery via private banking, and sophisticated options tools previously reserved for institutional investors. As Cantor Fitzgerald managing director Brett Knoblauch put it, Robinhood became “a mousetrap that trades everything.”
This rapid-fire product rhythm matches the CEO himself. The Bulgaria-born executive shrugged helplessly when reflecting: “I just wake up, work, eat, exercise, sleep. My wife doesn’t like me saying this, but I actually prefer integrating work into my personal life.”
Tenev said he hadn’t fully anticipated how deeply “accessible trading” would resonate with entrepreneurial spirit during Robinhood’s explosive growth. At a private event in Miami last year, top users included not only self-taught day traders but also small business owners and startup founders whose market approach mirrored the DIY ethos of starting a company. He believes this strong sense of independence is Robinhood’s true “moat”: “Entrepreneurs don’t trust other experts to manage things for them—they like figuring it out themselves.” Robinhood is designed for them—a control panel for managing money without gatekeepers.
Tenev plans to dominate the next generation of investors in three “phases.” First, win the active trader market—already delivering clear returns given Robinhood’s current momentum. Mid-term (about five years), cover users’ full range of financial needs, from credit cards to crypto, mortgages, and IRAs. Finally, build the world’s leading financial ecosystem, possibly anchored by Robinhood’s own blockchain. Preparing for the next day’s shareholder meeting, Tenev said: “The scale will be much larger than the first two phases. Opportunities start slowly but compound over time.”
Tokenization may be Robinhood’s long-term goal, but its core crypto business is already a powerful force. In 2024, Robinhood generated $626 million in crypto-related revenue, a sharp rise from $135 million the previous year, accounting for over a third of total trading income. In Q1 2025, crypto-related revenue hit $252 million. “They’re now capturing Coinbase’s market share in the U.S.,” said Rob Hadick, general partner at crypto venture firm Dragonfly. Knoblauch noted that in May 2025, Robinhood’s crypto trading volume surged 36% month-on-month while Coinbase declined. He acknowledged Coinbase still dominates institutional markets—“their offerings are broader and include custody”—but after Robinhood’s June acquisition of Bitstamp, it gained 5,000 institutional accounts and licenses in Europe and Asia.
Tenev and Kerbrat insist Robinhood’s model is fundamentally different from crypto exchanges like Coinbase. “People in this industry always tell you this (blockchain) has advantages over that, forgetting about the end user. We don’t want to build technology just to talk about technology—we want to create things people use daily and see are better than traditional financial systems,” Kerbrat said.
Micky Malka, founder of Ribbit Capital and an early investor in Robinhood, Coinbase, and European rival Revolut, believes focusing on the Coinbase-Robinhood rivalry is shortsighted: “For me, the question over the next decade is how much market share they’ll take from legacy institutions, not how they fight each other.”
Knoblauch estimates Robinhood’s $255 billion in managed assets will catch up to Interactive Brokers (with $665 billion in client assets) within seven years, followed by Schwab. He says Robinhood has captured market share from rivals for 14 consecutive months.
Tenev is also seriously advancing diversification. The original Robinhood faced criticism for relying too heavily on “payment for order flow” (PFOF), a model dependent on high volume and aggressive Wall Street hedge funds. Today, trading still accounts for 56% of revenue (down from 77% in 2021), but according to Needham & Company managing director John Todaro, Robinhood now has 10 business lines expected to generate over $100 million each within two years.
Take Robinhood Gold. Originally a $5/month or $50/year premium service offering margin trading, professional research, and enhanced balance yields, it’s now central to Tenev’s subscription model. Current benefits include a 4% yield on brokerage cash, interest-free margin loans up to $1,000, and a 3% match on IRA contributions. The newly launched “Robinhood Gold Credit Card” (3% cashback on all purchases) has already been issued to the first 200,000 customers. “If Gold reaches 15 million members, subscription revenue would approach $1 billion. That adds recurring income to a highly cyclical business, diversifying the overall revenue base,” Knoblauch said.
Then there’s Robinhood Strategies. This hybrid “human-in-the-loop” robo-advisor, launched by Tenev, targets the $60 trillion U.S. wealth management market dominated by firms like Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch. With an annual fee of 0.25%, capped at $250 for Gold members, clients receive custom stock and ETF portfolios managed algorithmically and rebalanced under human oversight. Since its March launch, this disruptive platform has attracted $350 million in assets.
Tenev describes his company’s product development method as scientific—empowering small internal teams to test hypotheses with customers, who provide immediate feedback on social media.
“Many companies just look at what others are doing and copy—it’s competitive benchmarking. We launch products or features because we enjoy experimenting,” Tenev said. Robinhood’s recently introduced home mortgage—30-year fixed rate at 6.1%, with $500 in closing cost credits—emerged from a secret online pilot started in June. “It blew up on social media. Later I admitted on Twitter we were testing it—that might’ve been one of my most viral tweets this year.”
Tenev’s tokenization push in Europe is somewhat of a “moonshot.” With Europe adopting many crypto regulations still debated in U.S. Congress, it has become their “laboratory.” “The experiment we’re running in Europe is: What would Robinhood look like if rebuilt entirely on crypto rails? Then we’ll assess pros and cons and bring the best of this EU version back to the U.S. and globally,” he said.
Currently, stock tokenization remains small-scale. xStocks, operated by Swiss firm Backed Finance, has tokenized over 60 listed stocks—including major names like Apple and Amazon—for trading on large crypto exchanges like Kraken and Bybit, but its daily trading volume is under $10 million. Structural issues persist: these tokens are derivatives backed by off-chain assets, meaning regular corporate actions (dividends, stock splits, or weekend events) could disrupt collateral calculations and trigger unexpected liquidations.
“Market makers must bear this risk, but how do they hedge when markets are closed? If they take on risk, they widen spreads and charge users high fees,” said Dragonfly’s Hadick. “Right now, off-chain infrastructure isn’t ready, and on-chain products aren’t mature… I worry these early products will end up being duds.”
Still, others are joining. In June, Winklevoss brothers’ Gemini launched tokenized trading of Strategy stocks for EU users. Coinbase is reportedly seeking SEC approval for tokenized stocks, and even BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, overseeing $12.5 trillion in assets, is urging the SEC to approve tokenized stocks and bonds. Robinhood goes further: beyond public stocks, it’s tokenizing private companies and has announced tokenization of OpenAI and SpaceX shares, both valued above $300 billion. OpenAI publicly denied Robinhood’s product, stressing these tokens are unauthorized and unaffiliated. “No founder wants their equity circulating on-chain, held by strangers,” warned Hadick.
Facing skeptics, Tenev is a seasoned veteran. “It’s definitely still a bit ‘rough,’ ” he admits. “I think brokers don’t want us easily pulling their stocks out. But what happens when it becomes self-custody? When you can tokenize and self-custody, you become independent of broker infrastructure—just like using a crypto wallet on MetaMask, Robinhood, or Coinbase. In the future, you’ll seamlessly hold stocks through any interface and trade them in nearly every scenario.”
This is precisely why Tenev is obsessed with making Robinhood the “one financial app” for younger users. In retail financial services, inertia is second only to compounding. Users are inherently “sticky,” but Tenev knows financial giants like Fidelity, Schwab, and Merrill Lynch are vulnerable as trillions in baby boomer wealth pass to digitally native heirs. In fact, he sees his biggest competitors not as Coinbase or Fidelity, but companies like Anthropic and OpenAI: “They move fastest and do the most interesting things. Still, it’s too early to say ChatGPT will disrupt finance.”
Malka, an early Robinhood investor whom Tenev calls a mentor (and who Forbes estimates has earned over $5 billion from the investment), is a staunch Tenev supporter: “Robinhood’s leader is under 40, deeply ‘AI-native,’ understands AI’s future and tokenization, and can combine both strategies—few can do that. We’re on the cusp of money’s ‘internet moment’—where anyone, anywhere, can invest in the same product. Credit approvals will improve, loans will be cheaper. All of this will happen.”
Tenev believes Robinhood will ultimately deploy AI agents that replicate and optimize services of high-net-worth family offices, putting the ‘family office in your pocket.’
AI is so central to Tenev’s vision that the former math PhD candidate recently co-founded and chairs an AI startup, Harmonic, with computer scientist Tudor Achim, formerly of autonomous driving firm Helm.ai. In July, Harmonic raised $100 million in a Series B round led by Kleiner Perkins, Paradigm, and Sequoia Capital, reaching an $875 million valuation. This “mathematical superintelligence” lab is building an advanced reasoning engine that “guarantees accuracy and eliminates hallucinations”—a crucial feature in an age where AI and money converge.
“It would be amazing if a mobile app could solve the Riemann Hypothesis or other major Millennium Prize problems,” Tenev mused. “I don’t want to just watch—I want to actively participate.”
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