SEC’s innovation exemption poses constraint on bringing stock tokens to US, Robinhood crypto chief says

Robinhood's crypto chief Johann Kerbrat said the broker's stock-token volumes are already high enough to approach caps in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's innovation exemption for tokenized U.S. equities. Speaking at Korea Blockchain Week 2026, Kerbrat said Robinhood is still reviewing the SEC order, which places limits on trading volume and on the assets that can be tokenized.

The SEC issued a five-year exemption on Sept. 17 that lets certain U.S. venues trade tokenized versions of listed stocks without registering as exchanges. The relief includes caps on symbols and volume and requires tokens to carry the same rights as the underlying shares. Kerbrat said the exemption signals that the SEC wants to support tokenization, and Robinhood will keep pushing for broader coverage of U.S. stocks and ETFs.

Robinhood's Stock Tokens are issued as debt securities by a Jersey-based entity and are available in more than 120 countries through Robinhood Wallet, but not to U.S. users. The SEC order covers tokenized National Market System stocks with equivalent rights and requires venues to notify issuers, who can object. Kerbrat and CEO Vlad Tenev have said Robinhood will add in-kind redemption and voting rights. Kerbrat said those plans existed before a public dispute with AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron, and that in-kind redemption was discussed at a July 1 event in London. He called Aron's criticism, which included claims that the tokens were illegal offerings and lacked AMC's consent, mostly a marketing stunt, and defended Robinhood's legal structure.

Separately, Robinhood is moving crypto perpetual futures onshore after announcing the plan on Sept. 29. It intends to offer U.S. perps trading for eight cryptocurrencies: BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, ADA, LINK and HYPE. Kerbrat described a global waterfall clearing system that he said some launching venues, including Kalshi, did not support. He added that Robinhood recalculates funding rates continuously, while competing platforms do so every 15 minutes.

The 10x leverage on bitcoin and ether and 3x on six other tokens was Robinhood's own choice, Kerbrat said. Raising U.S. leverage limits remains to be decided based on user behavior and liquidity. He declined to detail a 2027 U.S. derivatives list but said commodity and ETF perpetuals have drawn interest in Europe. Robinhood has no single-stock perpetual plans to announce and points customers to its options business for multi-leg strategies.