Robinhood’s Vlad Tenev Claps Back: From Memecoins to Real Assets

Original Source: Unchained

Original translation: Sleepy.txt

Editor's Note: In this podcast, Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev systematically expounds on Robinhood's future strategy from multiple levels: product, market, and regulation.

Speaking of Robinhood Chain, he emphasized that it's a cross-border venture, aiming not only to serve crypto users but also to bring traditional financial assets onto the blockchain. In his vision, stablecoins offer the best analogy. Just as stablecoins first took off in markets outside the United States, tokenized stocks and private equity may also find success overseas before thriving in the domestic market.

In the second half of the show, he turned the topic to AI. The Aristotle model from the Harmonic project has already achieved gold medal-level results on International Mathematical Olympiad problems and, using Lean, outputs machine-verifiable formal proofs. Vlad believes this isn't just a mathematical breakthrough; it addresses fundamental issues in the financial and crypto industries. When the scale of AI-generated code and contracts exceeds the capacity of human review, verification will become the new infrastructure. From smart contracts to financial derivatives, healthcare, and aerospace, the value of formal verification will rapidly expand.

This conversation offers three key insights worth noting: the positioning and implementation of Robinhood Chain; how private equity tokenization can navigate regulatory compliance; and how formal verification can establish a secure foundation for the AI and crypto industries. Together, these insights point to a broader question: how retail investment, on-chain finance, and machine intelligence might converge over the next decade, reshaping the market order.

The following is the full content of the conversation:

Haseeb: Hello everyone and welcome to The Chopping Block, and today we have a special guest - Vlad, fintech futurist and founder of Robinhood.

Vlad: Hello everyone.

Haseeb: Vlad, you've been very busy lately. We've talked about the rise of Robinhood many times on the show over the past year and a half. But we're excited to have you here this time to directly address the community's biggest questions: What exactly is Robinhood Chain? Why did you build Robinhood Chain as a Layer 2 rather than just a Layer 1?

Vlad: I think this topic has been discussed on Twitter. Someone described it very well, saying it's really about choosing between being a "landlord" or a "tenant." We believe that owning our own chain will ultimately allow us to control every detail of the platform from start to finish.

Of course, this may initially come at the cost of interoperability. However, I believe that in the long run, tokenized products, including stocks and other derivatives, will exist on all chains. Developers will build cross-chain capabilities, and ultimately, the question of "which main chain to choose" may become less important.

But it was important for us to have a chain from the beginning that could control the entire experience from the smart contract to the Sequencer mechanism.

Haseeb: But the problem is, we're hearing that Stripe is also building its own chain—though Stripe hasn't officially confirmed it yet, it's been reported in the media. Circle has also confirmed its intention to launch its own chain. Both of these chains will be Layer 1, like Ethereum or Solana, while Robinhood Chain, like Base, has chosen Layer 2.

Do you think this difference is crucial to Robinhood's goals? Or is it just irrelevant, as long as it works and users can use it?

Vlad: I think the advantage of Layer 2 is that it is easier to achieve interoperability. Because there is a lot of related infrastructure already, some of it was even built by our friends Offchain Labs (Arbitrum’s development team), which saves us from having to “reinvent the wheel”.

Of course, choosing Layer 1 makes sense, since you can completely rebuild everything from scratch. I don't think that's an unreasonable choice. But when we evaluated it, we asked ourselves, what are we doing now? What do we want to be doing two or three years from now? We concluded that Layer 2 meets our needs today.

Haseeb: Got it. So the story we're seeing with Robinhood Layer 2 is basically about tokenized shares being issued on the chain, traded both within Robinhood and directly on the chain. Users can even transfer tokenized shares from Robinhood to the chain. Correct me if I'm wrong—but that's pretty much the ultimate goal of the V0 and V1 phases of this chain, right?

So let's say we move forward five or ten years. If Robinhood Chain becomes wildly successful, what would that look like? Would it become the next Ethereum or the next Solana? Would it have more users than those chains? Can you help me paint that picture?

Vlad: Let me start by saying that when we decided to build this blockchain, we looked at the landscape at the time. Many companies were trying to build the best blockchain for decentralization. But that field was already crowded, and we didn't feel we had a unique competitive advantage there. While this statement might be controversial, and you could argue we have some advantages, I believe Robinhood's core strength lies in its intersection with traditional finance and crypto.

So, when we saw B2B opportunities, we launched Robinhood Connect, an on/off ramp tool. Many leading non-custodial wallets and DApp providers have integrated Robinhood Connect because it's the most convenient and cost-effective way to convert fiat to crypto and back. If you have crypto assets and want to convert them to fiat, we provide a very seamless mechanism.

This stems from our existing capabilities: As a large consumer retail platform, we're highly experienced in seamless account onboarding and fraud prevention. We offer a diverse selection of assets and products. Over time, my goal is to ensure that no matter the financial market or asset, whether you want custody or trading, you can do so in the easiest way possible on Robinhood.

So when we talked about Robinhood Chain, our core thesis was, can we build it to be the best chain for real-world assets? I think the answer is yes. We can start with existing assets, like US stocks.

You can imagine that any asset offered on Robinhood, as regulation matures, may be issued in an on-chain form, mainly for markets outside the United States, but it also has potential in the United States.

Beyond that, we can also unlock things that are difficult or even impossible today, like private equity markets, through on-chain approaches. This is exactly what we demonstrated at our own Robinhood Con: on one hand, the expected—the tokenization of public stocks; on the other hand, the unexpected—the ability to use the same technology for private companies, assets that have been almost completely inaccessible to retail investors.

Haseeb: So one of the things that caused a stir before was the tokenization of OpenAI and SpaceX. When the news came out, the internet went crazy. Everyone was excited, thinking that Robinhood was going to bring stocks to the blockchain, and even include private companies.

Soon after, OpenAI posted a tweet that essentially said, "Guys, this wasn't us. We don't know who owns this stock. Robinhood, this has nothing to do with us."

I'm curious if Robinhood gave an official response at the time, because this actually reveals your structural model: basically, any financial asset, no matter what it is, can be turned into a token that can be traded on the chain and held in real time, regardless of whether the relevant companies know about it or not.

Can you tell us about that incident? How should we interpret it? Does it mean that private companies will explicitly resist this type of tokenization? Or do you think there are private companies that are more open than OpenAI?

Vlad: I think there are a few points worth mentioning. First, similar efforts have been attempted in the past, such as by other companies offering exposure or by using the Reg A+ (Regulation A Plus) mechanism in the US for limited crowdfunding. The problem is that these models often encounter adverse selection. That is, companies willing to open up their shares to retail investors are often those without many other financing options.

Of course, there are exceptions. Some companies, especially at later stages, truly value retail investor participation and want to ensure that these investors have the opportunity to participate. This has become increasingly common in recent years. Here, we can also discuss our observations regarding the IPO Access business.

IPO Access allows companies to directly open subscriptions to retail investors during their IPOs. I believe this is beneficial for both retail investors and the companies themselves. When we launched this service in 2021, we actually put a lot of effort into convincing companies of its value. Now, almost all of the best companies are actively approaching us, offering higher allocations to retail investors.

So we see companies gradually realizing that having a diverse and large group of retail shareholders is a strength in itself. This is an evolutionary process.

But when it comes to private companies, the problem of adverse selection persists. Companies like OpenAI and SpaceX, for example, have been free to raise tens of billions of dollars from private market institutional investors. Often, they are reluctant to deal with complex new mechanisms, especially when those mechanisms lack established cases and precedent.

Therefore, the tokenization of private companies is a completely new thing, and the ability for retail investors to participate in private company equity is also completely new.

While these companies have ample access to financing, their core focus remains on serving customers and building products. They don't want to be innovators in the capital markets. We, however, do, and we believe this is a significant problem. Retail investors may have to wait until these world-changing, industry-leading private companies go public and reach valuations of hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars before they have a chance to participate.

If this problem isn't resolved, I believe the risks are enormous. Ordinary people might be completely unable to participate in the distribution of value from these technologies, and instead become repelled by them. This could even trigger social conflicts and hinder overall progress.

For example, if AI truly changes the world, even disrupting the workforce and replacing your job, but you don't own any of the companies involved, you might be inclined to oppose it. But if you own a stake, you'll have some degree of hope for its success. We've seen this in the public markets, and I think it will be true in the private markets as well. That's why we're so focused on giving retail investors access to opportunities.

Tom: This is actually related to a recent case. In Anthropic's most recent round of financing, they required all new investors not to participate through an SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle). This meant that not only retail investors, but even accredited investors, if they weren't funds, were excluded.

So, I have a question: What are your thoughts on the lack of information disclosure by private companies? Does this create valuation discrepancies between private financing and the public market? There's a strange situation right now: disclosures to retail shareholders are often less than those to private equity investors (who hold preferred stock). This persistent information asymmetry persists. How do you envision this situation ultimately being resolved? In my opinion, this is one of the biggest structural challenges facing the private equity derivatives market.

Vlad: Yes, my view is that in the private equity market, if a company's financing round is oversubscribed by 30 to 40 times, then for SPVs (special purpose vehicles), some institutional investors, private wealth management clients, or private banking departments of large banks, when they get a share, they actually don't do much due diligence.

Imagine a company's funding round is 40 times oversubscribed. Everyone is scrambling for quotas, and the company doesn't bother to have each SPV investor conduct in-depth due diligence on the company. For many investors, this is perfectly acceptable. When they see top-tier funds like SoftBank and Altimeter invest, they happily follow suit, viewing their due diligence as an endorsement.

So, I generally support information disclosure. But I also think many people will say, "I understand the risks, and I'm willing to take them." I've used ChatGPT, I have some knowledge of the aerospace industry, I can see publicly available information, and I fully understand that this investment could go to zero, but I still want to invest. As a believer in the free market, I believe people should have the right to make this decision for themselves.

In the United States, we currently have standards for "accredited investors." But we've been pushing for reform of these rules. I believe the foundation of these standards is outdated—they were developed before the internet, when information about companies was very limited. Now, with advances in AI and social media, public information is readily available, and we have the tools to digest and understand it.

Therefore, I believe regulation should be re-evaluated and evolve towards disclosure-based, investor self-certification. Otherwise, if you force companies to make all sorts of additional, non-standardized disclosures for retail shareholders, they'll likely become unwilling to open up to retail investors altogether, instead preferring to deal only with a small group of large fund managers. Ultimately, we'll return to the very problem we set out to address: the concentration of market opportunities in the hands of a small number of institutions.

Tom: Exactly. Let's get back to the current regulatory landscape. You mentioned earlier that your product will primarily target markets outside the US, rather than within the US. Is this because existing US regulations are too restrictive? When you launch, how do you plan to structure your overseas product? For example, will you restrict US users through KYC and geofencing? Or will you make the blockchain itself permissionless, and the assets on it completely permissionless?

In other words, given the current regulatory environment, what is the actual structure you envision? I know you hope the rules will change, but given the current situation, what would you do?

Vlad: It really depends on the regulatory maturity of each market. Generally speaking, we envision a model where Robinhood will acquire or hold shares or positions in private companies, then package them and offer them to retail investors in various ways. This could be directly or through a variety of investment vehicles, depending on the regulatory requirements of each market.

I think a good analogy is stablecoins. Stablecoins are actually the earliest tokenized assets. In the United States, where capital markets and financial infrastructure are relatively robust, people can easily transfer money through ACH, debit cards, and credit cards. Therefore, stablecoins are more commonly used as a tool for cross-border transfer of US dollars, especially in markets outside the United States.

I think a similar situation will occur in the future with the tokenized version of US stocks: in the United States, because the capital market is already very well-developed, the acceptance rate may be relatively slow; but outside the United States, in markets with higher entry barriers and more limited channels, the tokenized version may become the main channel for investing in US assets.

Of course, the specific direction of the US market is difficult to predict. Currently, tokenization is not widely accepted as an investment tool for retail investors. But this may change. If it does, I believe the most immediate and significant improvement will be in retail investor exposure to private companies. This is because tokenization can address a core issue: liquidity.

In the past, even if you could acquire shares in a private company in the private equity market, you faced numerous restrictions, such as limited transfers and opaque pricing. While some secondary markets and trading platforms have emerged, they had to build their own liquidity, often struggling to attract a sufficient number of buyers and sellers.

But once connected to the global encryption network, the liquidity problem will be significantly alleviated. So I think that when the regulation gradually matures and tokenization is allowed, this will be the biggest change.

Robert: I understand what you said, "tokenization is essentially about solving the problem of accessibility." Stablecoins are indeed a good example.

However, I've also noticed that other companies in the crypto space are leveraging blockchain to accelerate product market entry and improve access to financial services. For example, Coinbase offers Bitcoin lending services directly within their wallet through Morpho, while Phantom integrates Hyperliquid perpetual contracts directly into its products.

They leverage this self-custody model to interact with on-chain DeFi applications, accelerating go-to-market. Essentially, they're just wallets or service providers. I'd like to ask if Robinhood has considered a similar approach. What are your thoughts on this model?

Vlad: We have Robinhood Wallet, which has grown rapidly in the past, and we continue to invest in it. Robinhood Chain is obviously another important component.

We believe that through tokenization, especially in international markets—and hopefully in the US in the future—Robinhood can offer a wide range of truly valuable financial products, starting with stocks and private equity, and ultimately expanding to all asset classes on our platform. We hope to bring these assets onto the blockchain in a permissionless manner.

I think we have a unique advantage because we are probably the only financial services platform with a large-scale business in both crypto assets and traditional assets. The essence of tokenization is the intersection of the two.

On-chain tokenization still requires a traditional financial company to custody all TradFi assets in order to complete minting and burning and put them on-chain.

So there are two paths to vertical integration. The first is the blockchain dimension. If you control the chain, wallet, and intermediaries, you can provide users with better pricing. The second is the custody dimension. If you control the custody layer of traditional assets, you have more room for pricing and economic models, providing users with lower costs and a better experience.

Tarun: I have a question: In the future, if 10%, 25%, or even 50% of stocks are transferred on-chain, what will happen to institutions like transfer agents and DTCC (Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation)?

This is quite interesting because once this structure reaches a larger scale on existing underlying assets, will it completely change the existing brokerage business logic? For example, processing transfers and connecting to the entire ecosystem (those websites that don't even have two-factor authentication) will be completely disrupted?

Vlad: My guess is that the final form will likely be similar to an ADR (American Depositary Receipt) or ETF custodian model. That is, traditional assets will still be held by a TradFi custodian, and will still be traded there when a better price can be obtained on a traditional exchange - this is the system design we demonstrated at the Robinhood Con event.

At the same time, tokenized assets will form a secondary market. The initial selling point is that tokens can be traded when traditional markets are closed, such as on weekends and holidays. Over time, this market will gradually expand.

Haseeb: So, Vlad, expanding from daily trading hours from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM to 24/7 trading, with stocks being able to be bought and sold on weekends and during market hours, makes perfect sense to me. I think it's almost inevitable, especially given Robinhood's product direction, which has always been to make trading easier for retail investors.

But by comparison, I think the more interesting thing is your mention of the private equity market. From your previous answer, I can tell that you believe that the private equity market, in the long run, is actually a bigger story than simply making the public equity market more efficient.

As someone who has invested in private companies myself, I've been deeply impressed by the ongoing tug-of-war between the private and public markets. Companies are staying private longer and longer. You mentioned earlier that while some people might lose their jobs because of OpenAI, at least they can buy some OpenAI stock.

But the reality is that while private companies hope for looser listing rules and lower costs, they also clearly dislike certain things and are much smarter than Facebook was in its day. For example, they increasingly do not allow secondary market transactions or share transfers between SPVs.

So there's a kind of adversarial game here: as long as there are enough SPVs in the market, Robinhood will be able to find one and tokenize its holdings, providing retail investors with access and liquidity. So, where do you think this game ends? After all, the company can easily say, "We don't like what you're doing, get out," or even remove you from the cap table (shareholder register).

Vlad: Yes, I think there are two points. First, the tokenization mechanism must be able to operate smoothly without relying on companies to actively "opt in".

Haseeb: Wait, how is that even possible?

Vlad： We have actually demonstrated this. As you just said, if you get indirect exposure through an SPV or an institution, you can put these traditional assets into a pool and then tokenize them or use other tools to make them accessible to retail investors.

For example, if every company in the public market had to approve every shareholder change or every transaction, the market wouldn’t work. Similarly, if tokenization in the private market required individual company approval, it wouldn’t work either.

So I think the mechanism must be independent of the direct involvement of companies, not only because companies may not be willing, but also because they probably don't want to bear the additional workload and process.

Haseeb: I think a lot of times, companies really don't want this. They really don't want a liquid price to be quoted every day. You can probably understand why: you've experienced the pressures of public markets both before and after Robinhood went public—the stock price fluctuates every day based on what you tweet, what you say, what you do.

The private market, on the other hand, prefers a state of illiquidity and inflated valuations. They prefer this opacity, where no one can say, "Oh, it seems the company is worth less today than it was yesterday."

Vlad: A lot of people would point to this and say, “When you were still private companies, you probably wouldn’t have wanted this kind of liquidity.”

I think it varies from company to company, and every private company has different priorities. Personally, I'm totally fine with that—obviously, I'm not the best counterexample.

But there are also many companies that are willing to do this, and not just those that have no other financing channels, but also some companies that are well aware of the value of retail investors.

Ideally, we can partner with these companies who see the value of what we’re doing and open it up to retail investors at earlier and earlier stages, so that eventually, retail investors can even be an integral part of the company’s creation.

In other words, at the seed round stage, the company can include retail investors in the cap table and allow them to participate from the earliest stage.

Haseeb: It sounds very crypto-like. It's very similar to an ICO.

Tom: But in this model, companies actively choose to "join", right? They are excited about this thing and think that a large number of retail investors on the cap table is a good thing, so they take the initiative to open up.

This is completely different from being passively and unintentionally pulled on-chain by Robinhood, right? I understand it as opt-in, not "forced on you."

Haseeb: But it sounds like some of it is indeed opt-in, and some of it is more like, "This is what we're going to do. For example, OpenAI is such an important company that retail investors should be able to access it."

Vlad: There is actually a subtle difference here, depending on who the “customer” is who is issuing the stock.

In the early stages, the customers of so-called "capital as a service" are entrepreneurs. When entrepreneurs raise funds, they seek capital from the primary market, which is a typical opt-in method—they actively decide whether to open up. However, as companies enter later stages, customers are no longer entrepreneurs, but senior management, employees, and early investors, who seek liquidity in the secondary market.

At this level, the question of whether employees and early investors can freely sell their shares is itself a controversial topic. Different companies have different approaches: some are very strict, while others are relatively relaxed. In these relaxed situations, investors can sell their shares without the company's consent—in other words, the company does not need to actively "opt-in." Therefore, each case is different.

You understand that nuance. But if you ask me if I believe that all employees and early shareholders must obtain company approval when transferring their shares, I wouldn't say that. That's more of a corporate-level legal decision.

Haseeb: I don't really care who the tokenized shares of Robinhood come from—whether it's employees or an early investor. I believe there are always people on the edge of the cap table who the founders don't care about, and whether they can cash out or not is irrelevant.

Tarun: But there will also be some shares that the founders care about very much.

Haseeb: Yes, some stock companies do care. I think it's unlikely that Robinhood will actually get that part.

I'm more interested in the question you just touched on—the story of Robinhood has always had a Promethean quality: bringing down the flame from the sky, allowing retail investors to access any financial asset, any stock, any financial instrument they weren't allowed to touch. Now they can.

I understand this narrative, and it fits the spirit of the crypto world. But at the same time, it blurs the line between "private companies" and "public companies." After all, the entire system is essentially established to draw a clear distinction between the two.

If the company is private, regulations can be relatively relaxed, allowing them to operate more freely; but if the company is a listed company, everything must be open and transparent, and all disclosure requirements for retail investors must be met.

So, when retail investors have access to both public and private equity stocks, even if only to some attractive private companies, will this, from a social perspective, weaken the significance of the "public vs. private equity" system?

In your imagined world, how do you think this system should be transformed?

Vlad: I don't think it diminishes the significance of the system. I don't think anyone ever deliberately designed a system that would prevent 80% of ordinary Americans from participating in these value-added opportunities. It's more of an accidental result of historical evolution. It was originally based on investor protection—making it easier for companies to operate and get started without excessive disclosure requirements, which made sense.

But over the past few decades, the situation has changed. Going public has become increasingly difficult, with increasingly complex processes and requirements. At the same time, the private equity market has become more accessible to companies, with more VC and PE firms providing funding.

The combination of these two factors has led many companies to be reluctant to go public, or to wait until their IPOs to reach extremely high valuations. The real victims are retail investors, who are shut out of these value-added opportunities. Therefore, I believe it is entirely possible to address some regulatory concerns while allowing retail investors to participate in the early stages of these excellent companies.

Tarun: Actually, what you said reminds me of an interesting phenomenon in the crypto world. To me, it's like an inevitable tug-of-war between the private and public markets - who can get the earlier shares first.

This situation has been repeated repeatedly in the crypto space. For example, during bull markets, many private equity rounds are partially open to retail investors. Platforms like Echo and Legion have emerged where companies first complete private equity financing and then sell a portion of the funds to retail investors through AngelList special purpose vehicles (SPVs).

However, this model often expands faster than the company's actual growth. As a result, once the hype gets too intense, the project quickly reverses and becomes completely private, closing its doors to retail investors. Crypto is unique in that its cycles are incredibly fast, with the equivalent of seeing 20 public offering cycles in an hour.

So a key question is: if this pattern crosses a critical point, will there be a reversal, or is the path you envision a one-way street, irreversible once it opens?

Vlad: Yes, it’s hard to predict where this will end up. My view is that the biggest problem in crypto is that we haven’t been allowed to truly connect crypto assets to companies, equity, or what I call “basic utility.”

As a result, due to this lack of connection, market activity has largely flowed into meme coins, which are popular precisely because of their disconnect from real utility, which is precisely what is allowed.

At the same time, everyone keeps emphasizing "investor protection," claiming it's about preventing investors from making bad decisions and losing money. Yet, the reality is: you can buy all the meme coins you want, but OpenAI and SpaceX are deemed too risky. This strikes me as absurd and perhaps an unintended consequence.

Tarun: Since you mentioned limited accessibility, I would like to ask what you think about digital asset treasury companies?

They're a bit like the hybrids you just mentioned: These vehicles aren't traditional companies themselves, but they package assets and let you buy them as shares. Similar vehicles have also emerged in private equity, such as closed-end funds, which claim to hold a bunch of Stripe stock. If you buy their ETFs, you indirectly own Stripe shares. These "wrapper" products have grown rapidly in the past year. What are your thoughts on these unusual financial instruments?

Vlad: I don't want to comment too much on specific investment targets, but I can say this: I believe in the free market.

If someone legally and compliantly lists a stock, a certain type of financial instrument, or even a cryptocurrency, I believe it should, in principle, be open to retail investors. The beauty of a free market is that it's left to the market to decide. If a product truly appeals to consumers, over time, the fundamentals will become apparent, and the market will naturally decide. Therefore, I won't conduct a "bull or bear" analysis on each individual, whether it's a treasury company, a closed-end fund, or an open-end fund.

For me, our goal is to provide users with access to all types of financial assets and transactions. We believe Robinhood can be that platform that is both safe and compliant, provides a great user experience, and keeps costs low. So, regardless of the asset, we have the opportunity to bring it in.

Haseeb: It seems that we still can’t get you to talk directly about the topic of “Digital Asset Treasury”, but that’s okay.

But here's an interesting twist: Robinhood used to be primarily a platform for trading US stocks. Over the past few years, a growing portion of your revenue and profits have come from crypto. Meanwhile, one of your biggest competitors, Coinbase, once a pure crypto business, is now talking about adding stock trading—almost a crossover.

Does this mean that as millennials, Generation Z, and even Generation Alpha grow up, their future trading venues will increasingly resemble a fusion of crypto and traditional finance?

How do you view Robinhood's position in this shift? I imagine you didn't anticipate the rapid growth of crypto within your business. Has your understanding and positioning of Robinhood changed as this portion of your business has grown?

Vlad: I think Robinhood's fundamental thesis remains the same. Our goal has always been to be a financial super app that helps users meet all their financial needs: custody of any asset, and access to any financial transaction.

Of course, as you mentioned, crypto already accounts for a significant portion of our business. Last quarter, our revenue was close to $1 billion, with crypto accounting for approximately 20%–30%. As crypto becomes more like infrastructure and Robinhood's business becomes increasingly global, I believe the boundaries between traditional finance and crypto will continue to blur.

For example, if you complete a tokenized stock transaction on the chain, or when we are custodial stock tokens or private placement tokens, should you count it as a crypto business or a TradFi business?

This categorization actually encounters many boundary issues. Just as the concept of the "tech industry" is becoming increasingly irrelevant—today, almost no company can claim not to be a tech company, as all companies rely on technology—then, over time, the "crypto vs. tradfi" distinction will become less relevant.

As a Robinhood user, you’ll likely be using crypto more and more, but it won’t be an “explicit part” of the experience.

Of course, if you buy Bitcoin, it is clear that you are buying a crypto asset; but if you buy a tokenized asset, encryption is more of an infrastructure and transmission mechanism, and what you ultimately get is the financial instrument you really want.

Tarun: This is actually related to the previous question: Robinhood started with stocks and then expanded into crypto, while Coinbase started with crypto and wanted to expand into stocks. Another difference between the two companies is at the institutional/infrastructure level.

For example, Coinbase prefers to "control the entire stack" when it comes to custody, staking, and the infrastructure that supports institutional clients. In the public market, it's rare to own the entire stack. But in the crypto space, it's somewhat surprising that a single entity can actually provide the entire stack to end users.

How do you think about this? As Robinhood aims to serve the "full market" across both crypto and non-crypto, will you gradually acquire more of the infrastructure yourself? I think this is a big shift. For example, if tokenized stock trading volume far exceeds your existing traditional stock trading, will Robinhood also need to become a "full stack"?

Vlad: I divide Robinhood's development into three stages: short-term, medium-term and long-term.

Short-term: Our goal is to become the number one platform for all active traders, covering all asset classes we offer - cryptocurrencies, stocks, options, futures, and more.

Mid-term: This is the phase we're building to become the number one financial super app for our customers. All your wealth is on Robinhood, and all your transactions are done through Robinhood. The first two phases are primarily focused on retail, and we believe this business doesn't require full vertical integration with the institutional level.

Long-term: As we continue to build these capabilities (such as 24/7 trading, extremely low margin rates, and asset tokenization), these features will inherently become more attractive to corporate and institutional clients. After all, institutional investors also want 24/7 trading, exposure to both crypto and traditional assets in one place, and the lowest margin rates.

These features will naturally lead to opportunities in the B2B and institutional business. Looking ahead 10 years, I believe Robinhood's international business could be larger than its US operations, and its institutional business could be larger than its retail business. This is very exciting because we're just getting started. I see at least several paths that could grow Robinhood's business tenfold, and we can pursue multiple of these simultaneously.

Haseeb: So Robinhood’s role is very unique right now:

On the one hand, you have become builders of the crypto ecosystem through products such as Robinhood Chain; on the other hand, you are also considered "external users" and through cooperation with Arbitrum and others, you can feel what the entire industry has built.

I'm sure you've probably felt the same way, like, "This is something we're doing poorly, and we need to improve." Our audience includes many entrepreneurs, developers, and builders. I'd love to hear Vlad's thoughts: Where do you think the crypto industry is falling short? What areas should be improved? What areas would you like to see developers invest more in?

Vlad: I don't really consider myself a "crypto customer." I consider Robinhood a very active participant. In terms of market share, trading volume, and revenue, especially in the United States, we are already one of the largest companies in the crypto space.

I think what was missing in the past was that crypto and traditional finance were two almost separate worlds, with no connection between them. Stablecoins are a rare exception, and they're starting to serve as a bridge. But my attitude isn't to say, "You go fix it." Instead, I'm working hard on improving it within the market, leveraging Robinhood's capabilities and strengths to build this bridge.

Robert: Of course, there is also a time factor here. For example, you are now developing the Robinhood Chain L2, but perhaps you wanted to do it a few years ago.

I'm sure there are things you think, "I wish I could do this now," but the technology wasn't mature enough, the product experience was poor, or liquidity wasn't there. This even includes the private market assets you're exploring now, or your attempts at prediction markets. It feels like the time is just now ripe. So, what are some things you'd like to do but haven't had the time yet?

Vlad: I think there are a lot of discussions around AI agents right now: Will these AIs use cryptocurrencies to pay each other and complete transactions in the future?

But beyond that, there's also real-world AI, like robots and medical devices. Will these real-world AI agents also use cryptocurrency to pay each other in the future? What would that look like? I believe we're only one step away from both scenarios. The next step will be for crypto to truly become a tool for agentic commerce.

Haseeb: Since you mentioned AI, I'd like to ask: You're also working on a company called Harmonic. If I understand correctly, you're building a foundational model, using Lean and theorem proving to validate the math and thus the answers generated by the model. As CEO of Robinhood, how do you find time for this? What's your involvement with the company? Why did you choose this direction?

Vlad: I'm the chairman of Harmonic. It's a completely separate company from Robinhood, and I don't have a day-to-day operational role, but I'm a founder and I care deeply about it.

A few weeks ago, Harmonic announced that our model, Aristotle, achieved gold medal performance in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). As you may know, this is an extremely difficult math exam. Existing large models like GPT-5 and Grok often fail to solve even a complete problem on this type of exam, performing very poorly.

The problem is twofold. First, these problems require a flash of creative inspiration; if you can't find that starting point, you'll be completely unsolvable. Second, they typically require more than 10 steps of logical reasoning; if even one step is wrong, the entire proof is flawed, and so is the result.

Therefore, we must possess both creativity and logical rigor. Furthermore, in this scenario, AI's "hallucination" problem will be compounded. Therefore, this result is a good validation of our technology.

In fact, we do this formally. You just mentioned the Lean theorem prover, and we actually use it to generate formal proofs. This means that the results don't require manual verification by humans; they're simply fed into the Lean kernel, and the system will step through and verify the correctness of each step of the proof.

You might then ask: what are the applications of this? We call it “mathematical superintelligence.”

Its significance lies in the fact that AI can not only generate answers but also verify their correctness to extremely high standards. Consider the vast amounts of code already generated by AI today. The work of senior software engineers is shifting from "writing code" to "verifying AI-generated code." Verification is relatively easy for front-end UIs; you can visually confirm compliance with design specifications. However, for back-end systems or smart contracts, rigorous human verification is essential, especially in scenarios where failure could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

This has created a market for formal verification. So we're very excited about this. I think its applications will extend beyond mathematics to all software and even hardware.

Haseeb: So you think this is a better path to building a "software engineering agent" faster than the Anthropic approach. You think that theorem proving and mathematics as a foundation are necessary prerequisites for achieving true AGI.

Vlad: I think this is not only the better path, but also inevitable, because in a world where AI is generating so much content that humans can't even read it all, we need a new way to ensure it's correct.

There are two key points here: We must ensure the results are correct; they don't even need to be expressed in human-readable language, as humans no longer read line by line. Therefore, the entire underlying logic changes. The question becomes: How can we quickly verify that the AI's results meet expectations without manually checking each line?

Tarun: I have two related questions. The first one is an aesthetic criticism of formal verification.

You dropped out of college and became deeply involved in mathematical research, perhaps because you were drawn to the beauty of certain proofs. It's the same for me—the simplicity and elegance of some theorems' proofs are truly beautiful. Mathematics has always been characterized by a tension: the difficult coexistence of formal computation and aesthetic intuition.

Lean-generated proofs might resemble the computer proof of the Four Color Theorem—extremely long and unsightly, compared to the more elegant indirect proofs produced by humans. What are your thoughts on this situation? How can we preserve the beauty of mathematics?

Vlad: Have you seen the proofs that Aristotle generated in Lean?

Tarun: I have seen one or two but not the complete collection.

Vlad: I actually think they're beautiful. Furthermore, converting Lean proofs into natural language isn't difficult and can be done almost automatically.

Because Lean's functions and definitions are described, it's easy to convert highly formalized details into more descriptive English statements. I believe this is why Lean is easier to use than traditional formal languages, and why it's become popular not only in the AI field but also among mathematicians.

On the other hand, the reverse is much more difficult. Converting an informal proof into a formal one is a very laborious task. Currently, Professor Kevin Buzzard at Imperial College London is leading a large-scale project to fully formalize Fermat's Last Theorem. This is a massive undertaking, requiring hundreds of mathematicians and years of manual work to complete. This comparison illustrates the difference in difficulty.

Tarun: My last question is: Besides the Millennium Prize Problems, what problems do you hope Aristotle or its successor models will solve?

Millennium problems are so obvious, like the Riemann hypothesis and P=NP, that everyone's discussing. But do you have a "personal obsession"? If it's solved, you'll feel like, "Great, that's my greatest achievement."

Vlad: Okay, let’s not talk about the Riemann hypothesis.

Tarun: Yes, that is so obvious.

Vlad: But I actually still like the Riemann hypothesis (laughs). To put it another way, I think it would be cool to make a "benevolent HAL 9000." I'd love to build the logic core and control center of a spacecraft, provided it doesn't spin out of control and take off on its own like in the movies.

Haseeb: Uh…are you sure this is the example you want to share?

Vlad: (Laughs) Yeah, I mean a formally verifiable spacecraft control system. A truly benevolent AI. We really need a reliable control core. I think the original goals were separate, but now they're starting to overlap. For example, smart contract verification.

Smart contracts are essentially relatively independent pieces of code running in languages like Solidity and Rust. We must ensure certain basic properties, such as preventing contract stalls and double-spending. Errors can result in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, as has been the case in many cases. Currently, smart contract companies rely almost exclusively on manual audits—spending hundreds of thousands, or even millions, on external firms to scrutinize the code line by line.

So, in the crypto space, I think formal verification will be incredibly powerful once it becomes feasible. There are many other use cases, too, such as those requiring complex mathematical calculations—margin calculations, option pricing, and so on. These are software where the cost of errors is extremely high. Therefore, I believe that financial services, as well as industries like healthcare, automotive, aerospace, and robotics, are all well-suited for formal verification.