Robinhood CEO says future of crypto is in real-world assets, not memecoins

Quick Take

• When asked to explain why crypto is struggling this year, Robinhoods Vlad Tenev told CNBC that TradFi and crypto are merging and the future of digital assets is in bringing real-world assets online.
• Memecoins and “memecoin-like things” dont warrant much attention, he argued.

A day after Robinhood unveiled an expansion of its tokenized equities offering, CEO Vlad Tenev said the growth of the digital assets industry hinges on bringing real-world assets (RWAs) onchain rather than creating tokens without underlying utility.

“The future of crypto is in real-world assets,” Tenev told CNBC on Thursday morning. “If an asset is not tied to an underlying utility, it's not a productive asset. What's the benefit of making a million different memecoins？”

On Wednesday, Robinhood launched Stock Tokens, a service that allows eligible users to trade tokenized equities 24/7, and eventually deploy those assets into lending pools where they can be used as trading collateral across the broader DeFi ecosystem. Robinhood is also working on ways to offer users exposure to privately held companies like OpenAI.

Asked whether the crypto market has entered into an “enduring crypto winter,” Tenev spoke to his belief in the merging of traditional finance and crypto. Robinhood, which started as a popular app for retail traders to buy and sell stocks, has been expanding its offerings of tokenized RWAs to include U.S. equities and derivatives of private companies.

Broadly speaking, digital assets, particularly major tokens like bitcoin and Ethereum, have declined so far this year, with the overall crypto market losing roughly $1 trillion in market capitalization. Bitcoin was changing hands at $61,601.41 as of 11:43 a.m. ET on Thursday, down 30% year to date.

One bright spot for the industry has been growing institutional adoption, with Wall Street firms and major payments companies increasingly embracing blockchain technology and tokenized assets.

“Crypto is becoming infrastructure that powers financial markets,” Tenev said. “Everything that is running on traditional rails will eventually become onchain, tokenized. It's like a freight train that can't be stopped.”

Tenev also said he didn't think bitcoin would become less important, but said the industry's next phase of growth would come from tokenizing real-world assets.