Vlad Tenev on Robinhood's Three Lines of Business: DeFi, Retail Investing, and AI

Original Title: Robinhood's Vlad Tenev Claps Back: From Memecoins to Real Assets

Original Source: Unchained

Original Translation: Sleepy.txt

Editor's Note: In this podcast episode, Robinhood's co-founder Vlad Tenev elaborated on Robinhood's future strategy from product, market, and regulatory perspectives.

When discussing Robinhood Chain, he emphasized that this is a cross-border initiative, aiming not only to serve crypto users but also to bring traditional financial assets onto the blockchain. In his vision, stablecoins are the best reference point. Just as stablecoins first exploded in markets outside the United States, the tokenization of stocks and private equity may also gain traction overseas before returning to the domestic market.

In the latter part of the program, he shifted the conversation to AI. The Harmonic project's Aristotle model has already achieved a gold medal level in international math competition problems and can output machine-verifiable formal proofs using Lean. In Vlad's view, this is not just a math breakthrough but also a fundamental issue for the finance and crypto industry. When AI-generated code and contract scales surpass human review capabilities, verification will become a new infrastructure. From smart contracts to financial derivatives, and to healthcare and aerospace, the value of formal verification will quickly magnify.

This dialogue provides three noteworthy clues: how Robinhood Chain is positioned and implemented; how the tokenization of private equity seeks mechanism breakthroughs within compliance boundaries; and how formal verification establishes a secure foundation for AI and the crypto industry. They collectively point to a broader theme: over the next decade, retail investment, decentralized finance, and artificial intelligence may converge in what paths and reshape market order.

Below is the full conversation:

Haseeb: Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Chopping Block. Today, we have a special guest—Vlad, a fintech futurist and co-founder of Robinhood.

Vlad: Hello, everyone.

Haseeb: Vlad, you've been very busy recently. Over the past year and a half, we've talked many times on the show about Robinhood's rise. But this time, I'm glad to have you here to directly address the community's most pressing question: What is the deal with Robinhood Chain? Why are you building Robinhood Chain as a Layer 2 rather than directly creating a Layer 1?

Vlad: I think this topic has already been discussed on Twitter. Someone described it well, saying that this is actually a choice between being a "landlord" or a "tenant." We believe that having a chain of our own will ultimately allow us to have full control over all the details of the platform from start to finish.

Of course, this may initially come with some interoperability costs. But I believe that in the long run, all chains will have tokenized products, including stocks and other derivatives. Developers will work on building cross-chain capabilities, and in the end, the question of "which main chain to choose" may not be so important.

But for us, having a single chain from the beginning, being able to control the entire experience from smart contracts to the Sequencer mechanism, is crucial.

Haseeb: However, the issue is that we have heard that Stripe is also building their own chain—although Stripe has not officially confirmed this yet, there have been media reports. Additionally, Circle has also stated that they will be launching their own chain. These two chains will be Layer 1, like Ethereum or Solana, while Robinhood Chain and Base, like them, have chosen Layer 2.

Do you think this difference is key to Robinhood's goal? Or is it more like, as long as it works and users can use it, that's enough?

Vlad: I think the benefit of Layer 2 is that it is easier to achieve interoperability. Because there is already a lot of related infrastructure, some of which is even built by our friends at Offchain Labs (the Arbitrum development team), which allows us to avoid "reinventing the wheel."

Of course, choosing Layer 1 also makes sense because that way you can completely rebuild everything from scratch. I think this is not an unreasonable choice. But as we evaluate, we ask ourselves what we are trying to do now? What do we want to do two or three years from now? In the end, we believe that Layer 2 can meet the current needs.

Haseeb: I see. So the story we see now about Robinhood Layer 2 is roughly that tokenized stocks will be issued on this chain, and these stocks can be traded both internally on Robinhood and directly on the chain. Users can even transfer tokenized stocks from Robinhood to the chain. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is probably the ultimate goal for this chain in its V0, V1 stages, right?

So let's assume we rewind the timeline by five, ten years. If Robinhood Chain were to achieve tremendous success, what would that look like? Would it become the next Ethereum, the next Solana? Would it have more users than these chains? Can you help me paint that picture?

Vlad: Let me start by saying that when we decided to build this chain, we looked at the landscape at that time. Many companies were trying to create the best chain for so-called degens. But that track was already very crowded, and we didn't feel we had a unique competitive advantage in that aspect. Perhaps this statement is debatable, you could say we still had some advantages, but I think Robinhood's core strength lies in—it being a meeting point of traditional finance and crypto.

So when we saw the B2B opportunity, we launched Robinhood Connect, which is an on/off-ramp tool. Many top non-custodial wallets and DApp providers have integrated Robinhood Connect because it is the most convenient and cost-effective way to convert fiat to crypto and vice versa. Suppose you have crypto assets and want to convert them to fiat; we can provide a very smooth mechanism for that.

This actually stems from the capabilities we have already accumulated: as a large-scale consumer retail platform, we are very experienced in seamless onboarding and very good at fraud prevention. The platform offers a diverse range of assets and products for users to choose from. Over time, my vision is that—whether it's any financial market or any asset, whether you want custody or trading—it can all be easily done on Robinhood.

Therefore, when we talk about Robinhood Chain, our core argument is whether we can build it into the most suitable chain for real-world assets? I think the answer is yes. We can start with existing assets, such as US stocks.

You can imagine that any asset offered on Robinhood could, as regulation matures, potentially be issued on-chain, mainly targeting markets outside the US, but there is also potential within the US.

In addition, there are some things that are currently difficult or even impossible to do, such as the private market. We can also open them up through on-chain means. This is exactly what we showcased at our in-house event, Robinhood Con: on the one hand, what everyone expected—tokenization of public stocks; on the other hand, what no one expected—that the same technology could also be used for private companies, assets that have been almost completely out of reach for retail investors in the past.

Haseeb: So, one thing that caused a stir before was tokenizing OpenAI and SpaceX. When that news came out, the internet exploded with excitement, thinking Robinhood was going to bring stocks onto the chain, and even private companies would be included.

Soon after, OpenAI posted a dynamic tweet along the lines of, "Hey guys, this wasn't us. We don't know who holds these shares. Robinhood, this has nothing to do with us."

I was quite curious, did Robinhood give an official response at the time? Because this actually reveals your structural pattern: essentially, any financial asset, no matter what it is, and regardless of whether the related company is aware, can be turned into a tokenized asset that is tradable on the chain and can be held in real-time.

Could you help us understand that event at the time? How should we interpret this? Does this mean that private companies would explicitly resist such tokenization? Or do you think there will be more open private enterprises than OpenAI?

Vlad: I think there are several points worth mentioning. First, there have been attempts in the past to do similar things, such as other companies attempting to provide "openness," or leveraging the Regulation A Plus mechanism in the U.S. to do a limited form of crowdfunding. The issue is that such models often encounter "adverse selection." That is to say, companies willing to open up shares to retail investors are often those with limited other financing options.

Of course, there are exceptions. Some companies do indeed care about retail investor participation, especially in later stages, hoping that retail investors will have the opportunity to participate. This has become more and more common in recent years. We can also discuss our observations in the IPO Access business here.

IPO Access, is to allow companies to directly offer subscriptions to retail investors during an IPO. I think this is a good thing for retail investors and for the companies themselves. When we launched this service in 2021, we did a lot of work to convince companies of its value. And now, almost the highest quality companies actively approach us, willing to give a higher allocation to retail investors.

So we see that companies are gradually realizing that having a diverse and large shareholder base of retail investors is a strength in itself. This is an evolving process.

However, when it comes to private companies, the issue of "adverse selection" still exists. For example, companies like OpenAI and SpaceX can freely raise tens of billions of dollars from private market institutional investors. Most of the time, they are unwilling to deal with complex new mechanisms, especially when these mechanisms lack mature cases and precedents.

Therefore, the tokenization of private companies is a completely new phenomenon, and retail investor participation in private equity is also new.

When these companies themselves have access to a large number of funding sources, their core focus is still on serving customers and building products. They do not want to be the innovators of the capital markets. However, we are willing to do so, as we believe this is a significant issue. Because these privately held companies that are changing the world and leading their industries may only be accessible to retail investors once they go public and have reached valuations in the hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars.

If this issue is not addressed, I believe the risk is very high. Ordinary people may be completely unable to participate in the value distribution of these technologies, which may lead to their rejection. This could even lead to societal conflicts that hinder overall progress.

For example, if AI truly changes the world, even impacting the labor market and replacing your job, but you have no ownership of these companies, you may be inclined to oppose it. However, if you can hold relevant shares, you would somewhat hope for its success. We have already seen this in the public markets, and I believe it will be the same in the private markets. That is why we are so concerned about giving retail investors the opportunity.

Tom: Actually, this is also related to a recent case. In a recent funding round for Anthropic, all new investors were required not to participate through an SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle). In other words, not to mention retail investors, even qualified investors, if not funds, were also excluded.

So I have a question, how do you view the lack of transparency in private companies? Will this create a valuation gap between private financing and the public markets? Because there is currently a strange situation: disclosures to retail shareholders are often less than those to private investors (who hold preferred shares). There is always an issue of information asymmetry here. How do you think this situation will eventually be resolved? In my opinion, this is actually one of the biggest structural challenges in the "private company equity derivatives market."

Vlad: Yes, in my opinion, in the private placement market, if a company's funding round is oversubscribed by 30 to 40 times, when it comes to SPVs, some institutional investors, private wealth management clients, or private banking divisions of large banks, when they receive their allocation, they actually do not conduct much due diligence.

Imagine a scenario where a company's funding is oversubscribed by 40 times, and everyone is scrambling to get a share. The company does not have time to allow each SPV investor to conduct in-depth due diligence. For many investors, this is not a problem. They see top-tier funds like SoftBank and Altimeter investing, and they are willing to follow suit, using the other party's due diligence as an endorsement.

So overall, I am supportive of disclosure. But I also think many people would say: I understand the risk, I am willing to take it. I have used ChatGPT, I also have some understanding of the aerospace industry, I can see public information, I fully understand that this investment could go to zero, but I still want to invest. As a believer in the free market, I think people should have the right to make this decision for themselves.

In the U.S., we now have the standard of "accredited investors." But we have been pushing for reform of this set of rules. I think the foundation of these standards is outdated—they were created before the internet, when information about companies was very limited. And now, with the development of AI plus social media, public information is easily accessible, and we have tools to digest and understand this information.

So I think regulation should be reexamined, moving towards a direction based on disclosure and investor self-certification. Otherwise, if you force companies to make various additional, non-standard disclosures for retail shareholders, companies may simply be unwilling to open up to retail participation and prefer to deal only with a small group of large fund managers. In that case, we will ultimately return to the problem we originally wanted to break: the market opportunity being highly centralized in the hands of a few institutions.

Tom: Exactly. So let's bring the conversation back to the current regulatory rules. Because you mentioned earlier that your product will mainly target markets outside the U.S., not the domestic U.S. Is this because the existing U.S. regulations are too strict? When you go live, how do you plan to design the structure of overseas products? For example, will you use KYC and geofencing to restrict U.S. users? Or will you set the blockchain itself as a permissionless model, with on-chain assets completely permissionless?

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

Vlad: This actually depends on the regulatory maturity of each market. Overall, the model we anticipate is: Robinhood will first acquire or hold some shares or positions in private companies, and then we will package them and offer them to retail investors in different ways. It could be direct provision, or through some diversification investment tools, depending on the compliance requirements of different markets.

Currently, I think there is a good analogy, which is Stablecoins. Stablecoins are actually the earliest tokenized assets. In the U.S., the capital markets and financial infrastructure are relatively sound, and people can easily transfer funds through ACH, debit cards, credit cards, so stablecoins are more used as a means of cross-border transfer of the U.S. dollar, especially in markets outside the U.S.

I believe that in the future, a similar situation will arise with the tokenization of US stocks: domestically in the US, the acceptance may be relatively slower due to the already well-established capital markets; however, outside the US, in markets with higher entry barriers and limited channels, the tokenized version may actually become the primary channel for investing in US assets.

Of course, predicting the specific direction the US will take is difficult. Currently, tokenization is not widely allowed as a retail investment tool. However, this situation may change. And once it changes, I think the most direct and significant improvement will be retail exposure to private companies. Tokenization can address a core issue here: liquidity.

In the past in the private placement market, even if you could acquire shares in a private company, you would face many restrictions. For example, restricted transfers and opaque pricing. While some secondary markets and trading platforms have emerged, they must build their own liquidity markets and often struggle to attract enough buyers and sellers.

But once connected to the global crypto network, liquidity issues will be significantly alleviated. So, I believe that when regulation matures and allows for tokenization, this will be the biggest change.

Robert: I understand what you mean by "tokenization is essentially solving an accessibility issue," and stablecoins are indeed a very good example.

But I have also noticed that other companies in the crypto space are leveraging on-chain activity to speed up product launches and enhance the accessibility of financial services. For example, Coinbase, through Morpho, directly offers Bitcoin lending services in their wallet; and then there's Phantom, directly integrating Hyperliquid perpetual contracts into their product.

By using this self-custody model, they interact with on-chain DeFi applications to accelerate go-to-market. Essentially, they are just wallets or service providers themselves. My question is, has Robinhood also considered a similar path? How do you view this model?

Vlad: We have Robinhood Wallet, which has seen rapid growth in the past, and we are continuing to invest in it. Robinhood Chain is clearly another important component.

We believe that leveraging tokenization, especially in overseas markets—of course, we also hope to do so domestically in the US in the future—Robinhood can offer a variety of truly practical financial products, starting with stocks and private placements, eventually expanding to all asset types on our platform. We hope to onboard these assets onto the chain in a permissionless manner.

I believe we have a unique advantage because we may be the only financial services platform with a large-scale business in both the cryptocurrency and traditional asset sectors. 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 to deploy them on-chain.

So, there are two vertical integration paths here. The first is on the blockchain dimension, where if you control the chain, wallet, and middleware, you can offer users better pricing. The second is on the custody dimension, where if you can control the custody layer of traditional assets, you have more room in pricing and economic models to offer users lower costs and a better experience.

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

This is quite interesting because once this structure achieves greater scale on existing underlying assets, will it completely change the existing brokerage business logic? For example, will the handling of transfers and connecting the entire ecosystem (those websites that don't even have double verification) be completely disrupted?

Vlad: My guess is that the end state might resemble the model of ADRs (American Depositary Receipts) or ETF custodians. In other words, traditional assets will still be held by a TradFi custodian, and trading will still occur there when better prices are available on traditional exchanges — this is the system design we demonstrated at the Robinhood Con event.

Meanwhile, 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 or holidays. Over time, this market will gradually expand.

Haseeb: So Vlad, going from trading hours of 9:30–16:00 every day to being able to trade 24/7 — stocks being bought and sold during weekends and off-hours makes complete sense to me. I think this is almost inevitable, especially considering Robinhood's long-standing product direction of making retail trading easier.

However, in comparison, what I find more interesting is what you mentioned about the private markets. From your previous answers, I infer that you believe this line of the private market, in the long run, is actually a bigger story than just making the public markets more efficient.

As someone who has also invested in private companies, I can relate: there has always been a tug-of-war between the private and public markets. Companies are staying private for longer. You mentioned earlier that perhaps someone might lose their job because of OpenAI, but at least they can buy some OpenAI stock.

However, the reality is that while private companies may want more relaxed listing rules and lower costs, they also clearly dislike some things, and they are much smarter than the Facebook era. For example, they are increasingly restricting secondary market transactions and disallowing share transfers between SPVs.

So there is a kind of adversarial game here: as long as there are enough SPVs in the market, Robinhood can find one of them, tokenize the shares it holds, and provide retail investors with access and liquidity. Where do you think this game will ultimately lead? After all, companies can easily say, "We don't like what you're doing, so get lost," and even remove you from the cap table.

Vlad: Yes, I think there are two points. First, the tokenization mechanism must be able to function smoothly without relying on the company's active "opt-in."

Haseeb: Wait, how is that even possible?

Vlad: We have actually already demonstrated this. Just as you said earlier, if you have indirect exposure through an SPV or some institution, you can pool these traditional assets and then tokenize them or make them accessible to retail investors through other tools.

For example, in the public market, if every company had to approve every shareholder change or every transaction, the entire market would be unable to function. Similarly, if in the private market, tokenization still required individual company approvals, it simply wouldn't work.

So I believe the mechanism must be independent of direct company participation. Not only because companies may be unwilling, but also because they most likely don't want to take on additional workload and processes.

Haseeb: I think a lot of the time, companies really don't want this. They truly do not want a floating price to be set every day. You should be able to understand this: Robinhood, before and after listing, you must have deeply experienced the pressures of the public market—the stock price fluctuates every day because of your tweets, your words, and your actions.

On the other hand, the private market likes the lack of liquidity and the "upward" valuation. They enjoy this opaqueness, where no one can say, "Oh, it looks like the company is worth less today than it was yesterday."

Vlad: Many people like to bring this up and say, "Back when you were still a private company, you probably wouldn't have wanted this kind of liquidity yourselves."

I think it depends on the company, as each private entity has different focuses. Speaking for myself, I could totally accept it — obviously, I'm not the best counterexample.

But there are also many companies willing to do this, not just those without other financing channels, but also some companies that clearly understand the value of retail investors.

The ideal situation is that we can collaborate with these companies, where they see the value in what we are doing and open up to retail investors at earlier and earlier stages. Ultimately, retail investors could even become part of the fabric of the company from its inception.

In other words, in the seed round phase, companies could onboard retail investors onto the cap table, allowing them to participate from the very early stages.

Haseeb: Sounds very much like the crypto world. Very reminiscent of an ICO.

Tom: But in this model, the companies are choosing to "opt-in," right? They are excited about this and see the inclusion of many retail investors on the cap table as a good thing, so they open up voluntarily.

This is very different from the passive, involuntary on-chain linking by Robinhood. Right? I understand it as opt-in rather than you guys "forcing it to happen."

Haseeb: But it sounds like some are indeed opt-in, while others are more like, "This is how it should be done. For example, OpenAI, such an important company, retail investors should have access."

Vlad: There's actually a subtle difference here depending on who the "client" issuing the stock is.

In the early stages, the so-called "capital as a service" client is the entrepreneur. When entrepreneurs raise funds, they are raising funds in the primary market, and this is a typical opt-in — they actively decide whether to open up. But as the company moves into later stages, the clients are no longer the entrepreneurs but rather senior management, employees, early investors seeking liquidity in the secondary market.

At this level, the debate over whether employees and early investors can freely sell their stock is controversial in itself. Different companies have different attitudes: some are very strict, while others are relatively lenient. In those lenient cases, investors can freely sell their shares without the company's approval — meaning, the company doesn't need to actively "opt-in." So, each case is different.

You can also understand this subtle difference. But if you ask me whether I think "all employees and early shareholders must obtain company approval when transferring shares," I wouldn't say that. That seems more like a company-level legal decision.

Haseeb: I'm actually not too concerned about where Robinhood's tokenized shares come from—whether it's employees or some early investor. I believe on the edge of the cap table, there's always someone that the founders don't care much about, whether they can cash out or not.

Tarun: But there will also be some shares that the founders care a lot about.

Haseeb: Right, some shares are indeed very important to the company. I don't think Robinhood is likely to have gotten that part.

I'm more interested in the question you just touched on—the story of Robinhood has always had a kind of "Prometheus" hue: bringing down the originally lofty fire, allowing retail investors to access any financial asset, any stock, any financial instrument they were not originally allowed to touch. Now they can.

I can understand this narrative, which also fits well with the spirit of the crypto world. But at the same time, it blurs the boundary between "private company" and "public company." After all, establishing this whole system is fundamentally about delineating the distinction between the two.

If a company is private, then regulation can be relatively relaxed, allowing them to operate more freely; but if a company is public, everything must be open and transparent, meeting all disclosure requirements facing retail investors.

So, when retail investors can simultaneously access publicly traded and privately offered stocks, even if it's only a fraction of attractive private companies, does this, from a societal perspective, weaken the meaning of the "public vs. private" system?

In the world you envision, how do you think this system should be reshaped?

Vlad: I don't think this will diminish the meaning of the system. I don't think anyone ever seriously designed a system where 80% of ordinary Americans are voluntarily unable to participate in these value appreciation opportunities. This seems more like a coincidental result in the course of history. Initially, it was indeed based on investor protection—making it easier for companies to operate and get started without too many disclosure requirements, which is reasonable.

But over the past few decades, things have changed. Going public has become increasingly difficult, with processes and requirements becoming more cumbersome; at the same time, it has become easier for companies to enter the private market, with more VC and PE providing funding.

These two factors combined have led to many companies being reluctant to go public, or by the time they do, they are already at an extremely high valuation. The ones who suffer are actually retail investors, as they are locked out of these appreciation opportunities. So, I believe it is entirely possible to address some regulatory concerns while allowing retail investors to participate in these excellent companies' early opportunities as well.

Tarun: In fact, the situation you described reminds me of an interesting phenomenon in the crypto world. In my view, this is like an inevitable tug-of-war between the private and public markets—trying to secure earlier shares.

In the crypto space, this situation recurs frequently. For example, during a bull market, many private rounds are partially opened to retail investors, and some platforms, such as Echo or Legion, emerge. These companies first complete a private funding round, then split a portion of the allocation into AngelList SPV form to sell to retail investors.

However, this model often expands faster than the company's actual growth, resulting in once the heat subsides, the project quickly reverses course, transitioning to full privatization, ceasing to be open to retail investors. The uniqueness of crypto lies in its rapid cycle speed, equivalent to seeing twenty cycles of public markets in one hour.

So, there is a key question: if this model crosses a threshold, will a reversal occur? Or, in the path you envision, is this actually a one-way street that, once opened, will not reverse?

Vlad: Yes, it is challenging to predict where it will ultimately lead. My view is that in the crypto space, the biggest issue is that we have never been allowed to truly connect crypto assets to companies, equity, or what I call something of "fundamental utility."

The result is that due to this lack of connection, market activity has flowed heavily towards meme coins. They are popular precisely because of the disconnection from real utility, yet this disconnection is precisely what is allowed.

At the same time, everyone keeps emphasizing "investor protection," saying we should prevent investors from making bad decisions and losing money. However, the reality is: you can freely buy meme coins, but OpenAI and SpaceX are considered too risky. This seems very absurd to me, and it might also be an unintended consequence.

Tarun: Since you mentioned restricted accessibility, I wanted to ask your opinion on "digital asset treasury companies."

They are somewhat like the hybrid you just mentioned: these entities themselves are not traditional companies, but they package some assets and then allow you to buy in the form of stocks. Additionally, private equity has also seen similar tools, such as closed-end funds, claiming to hold a bunch of Stripe stock. If you buy their ETF, it is equivalent to indirectly holding Stripe shares. These "wrapper" type products have seen rapid growth in the past year. How do you view these peculiar financial instruments?

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

If someone legitimately and compliantly lists and issues a stock, a certain financial instrument, or even a cryptocurrency, I believe that in principle, it should be open to retail investors. The beauty of the free market lies in letting the market decide for itself. If a product is truly appealing to consumers, over time, its fundamentals will show, and the market will naturally provide an answer. So, I won't go through a "bullish or bearish" analysis one by one, whether it is a Treasury company, a closed-end fund, or an open-end fund.

For me, our goal is to allow users to access all types of financial assets and transactions. We believe that Robinhood can be a platform that is both safe and compliant, with a good user experience, while also being cost-effective. So no matter what the asset is, we have the opportunity to bring them in.

Haseeb: It seems we still can't get you to talk directly about the "digital asset Treasury" topic, but that's okay.

But there is an interesting phenomenon here: Robinhood was basically a platform for trading U.S. stocks in the past. However, in recent years, more and more of your revenue and profits actually come from the crypto business. At the same time, one of your biggest competitors, Coinbase, which used to be purely a crypto business, is now talking about adding stock trading—almost a kind of "convergent evolution."

Does this suggest that as Millennials, Gen Z, and even the Alpha generation grow up, their future trading venues will increasingly resemble a fusion of crypto and traditional finance?

How do you see Robinhood's positioning in this transformation? I guess you didn't expect crypto to grow so fast in your business originally, right? As the proportion of this business grows, has your understanding and positioning of Robinhood changed?

Vlad: I think Robinhood's fundamental thesis hasn't changed. Our goal has always been to become a financial super app, helping users meet all their financial needs: custody of any asset, and engaging in any financial transaction.

Of course, as you mentioned, the proportion of crypto in our business is already significant. Last quarter, our revenue was close to $1 billion, with the crypto business accounting for about 20%–30%. As crypto technology becomes more like infrastructure and Robinhood's business gradually globalizes, I feel that the boundary between traditional finance and crypto will become increasingly blurred.

For example, if you complete an on-chain tokenized stock transaction or if we are dealing with custodied stock tokens or private sale tokens, should it be considered part of the crypto business or the TradFi business?

This classification actually encounters many boundary issues. Just like how the concept of the "Tech industry" is becoming increasingly irrelevant—almost no company today can say they are not a tech company because all companies rely on technology. Similarly, over time, the distinction between "crypto vs. TradFi" will also become less important.

As a Robinhood user, you might increasingly be using crypto technology, but it won't be the "explicit part" of the experience.

Of course, if you buy Bitcoin, it's clear that you are buying a crypto asset; but if you buy a tokenized asset, crypto here is more of an infrastructure and transmission mechanism, and in the end, you receive the financial instrument you truly wanted.

Tarun: Actually, this also relates to the previous question: Robinhood started with stocks and then added crypto, while Coinbase started with crypto and aims to expand to stocks. Another difference between the two companies is at the institutional/infrastructure level.

For example, in custody, staking, and infrastructure supporting institutional clients, Coinbase tends to lean towards "full-stack control." In the public markets, it's difficult to own the entire stack. But in the crypto space, somewhat oddly, a single entity can actually provide end-to-end full-stack services for end-users.

How do you view this? As Robinhood aims to simultaneously serve the crypto and non-crypto "full market," will you gradually take control of more infrastructure? Because I think this is a significant shift. For example, if the trading volume of tokenized stocks far surpasses your existing traditional stock trading, will Robinhood also need to become "full-stack"?

Vlad: I see Robinhood's development in three stages: short term, mid-term, and long term.

Short term: The goal is to become the first platform for all active traders, covering all asset classes we offer—cryptocurrency, stocks, options, futures, and more.

Mid-term: This is the stage we are currently building towards, becoming the No.1 financial super app for customers. All your wealth is on Robinhood, and all transactions are completed through Robinhood. The first two stages are essentially retail-centric, and we believe this part of the business does not need to be fully vertically integrated at the institutional level.

Long-Term: As we continue to build out these capabilities (such as 24/7 trading, ultra-low margin rates, asset tokenization), these functionalities themselves will be attractive to corporate and institutional clients. After all, institutional investors also want to trade 24/7, have exposure to both crypto and traditional assets in one place, and benefit from the lowest margin rates.

These functionalities will naturally give rise to opportunities in B2B and institutional business. Looking ahead 10 years, I believe Robinhood's international business scale could surpass that of the U.S., and the institutional business scale could also exceed retail business. This prospect excites me because we are only just getting started. I can see at least a few paths to grow Robinhood's business tenfold, and we can progress simultaneously on multiple fronts.

Haseeb: So, currently, Robinhood has a unique role:

On one hand, you are becoming a builder of the crypto ecosystem through products like Robinhood Chain; on the other hand, you are also considered an "external user," experiencing what the entire industry has already built through collaborations like Arbitrum.

I'm sure you must have some insights, such as, "This aspect in the industry is lacking and needs improvement." Our podcast audience includes many entrepreneurs, developers, and builders. I would love to hear Vlad's opinion: In which areas do you think the crypto industry falls short? Where should improvements be made? In what areas do you hope to see developers invest more?

Vlad: I don't really see myself as a "customer of the crypto industry." I believe Robinhood is a very active participant. In terms of market share, trading volume, and revenue, especially in the U.S., we are already one of the largest companies in the crypto space.

I think what has been lacking in the past is that crypto and the traditional financial system were almost two separate worlds with a lack of connection in between. Stablecoins are a few rare exceptions as they have started to act as bridges. My attitude is not to say, "You go fix it," but rather — we are working on improving it within the space, leveraging Robinhood's capabilities and strengths to ensure this connection point is well-established.

Robert: Of course, there is also a timing factor here. For example, you have now implemented Robinhood Chain as an L2 solution, but perhaps you wanted to do this years ago.

I believe there are certainly things that you would think, "I really wish we could do this now," but at that time, the technology was not mature enough, the product experience was poor, or there was insufficient liquidity. This includes your exploration of private market assets or some attempts in the prediction market. It feels like the timing is just now ripe. What are some things you wish to do but the time has not yet come?

Vlad: I feel there is currently a lot of discussion surrounding AI Agents: will these AIs in the future use cryptocurrency to pay each other, complete transactions?

But besides that, there are real-world AIs, such as robots, medical devices, and so on. So, in the future, will these real-world AI Agents also use cryptocurrency to pay each other? What would that look like? I believe we are just one step away from both of these scenarios, and taking one step further would mean cryptocurrency truly becoming a tool for Agentic Commerce.

Haseeb: Since you mentioned AI, let me ask: you are also involved with a company called Harmonic. If I understand correctly, you are building a foundational model using Lean and theorem proving to verify mathematics and the answers generated by the model. As the CEO of Robinhood, how do you find time to do this? To what extent are you involved in this company? Why did you choose to pursue this direction?

Vlad: I am the Chairman of Harmonic. This is a completely separate company from Robinhood, and I do not have a day-to-day operational role, but I am a founder and deeply care about it.

A few weeks ago, Harmonic announced that our model Aristotle achieved a gold medal level at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). As you may know, this is an extremely challenging math competition. Ready-made large models like GPT-5, Grok usually struggle to even solve a single complete question in this type of exam, performing very poorly.

There are two aspects to the problem. First, these questions require a "eureka" moment of creativity, without which they cannot be solved at all. Second, they often require logic reasoning of more than 10 steps, and if any one step is wrong, the entire proof is incorrect, and the result is also wrong.

So, one needs to have both creativity and logical rigor. Additionally, in such scenarios, the AI's "illusion" problem is compounded layer by layer. Therefore, this result is a great validation of our technology.

In fact, we did it formally. You mentioned the Lean theorem prover earlier, and indeed we use it to generate formal proofs. This means that the results do not need manual human verification; once input into the Lean kernel, the system systematically checks each proof step for correctness.

Next, you might ask: What are the applications? We call it "Mathematical Superintelligence".

Its significance lies in the fact that AI not only can generate answers but can also verify the correctness of the answers to a very high standard. Think about how AI is already generating a lot of code. The work of senior software engineers is transitioning from "writing code" to "verifying the code written by AI". If it's front-end UI, verification is relatively easy as you can visually confirm if it meets the design specifications. But if it's a backend system or a smart contract, especially in scenarios where failure could result in billions of dollars in losses, humans must rigorously verify.

This has created a market for formal verification. So, we are very excited about this. I believe its application is not limited to just mathematics but will expand to all software and even hardware.

Haseeb: So, you think this is a better path, a faster way to build a "software engineering agent" compared to the route taken by Anthropic. Do you think that theorem proving and mathematics are a necessary prerequisite to achieving true AGI?

Vlad: I believe this is not only a better path but also an inevitable one. In a world where AI generates a vast amount of content, the output is so extensive that humans cannot possibly review all of it. We need a new way to ensure that they are correct.

There are two points here: We must ensure that the results are correct, and they don't even need to be expressed in a language that humans can directly understand because humans no longer read line by line. Therefore, the entire underlying logic will change. The question becomes: How can we quickly verify if AI results are as expected without manually checking line by line.

Tarun: I have two related questions. The first one is a kind of aesthetic critique of formal verification.

When you dropped out of college years ago but deeply engaged in mathematical research, it was probably because you were attracted by the beauty of certain proofs. For me, it's the same — some proofs are elegantly concise and make one feel extremely wonderful. Mathematics has always had a tension: it's hard to reconcile formal computation and aesthetic intuition.

The proofs generated by Lean might be as laborious and unaesthetic as the computer proof of the "four-color theorem" — compared to indirect human proofs, which are more elegant. How do you view this situation? How can we preserve the beauty of mathematics?

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

Tarun: I've seen one or two, but I haven't seen the complete collection.

Vlad: Actually, I think they are beautiful. Moreover, converting Lean proofs into natural language is not difficult; it can be almost mechanized.

Since Lean's functions and definitions are descriptive, it is easy to transform from highly formalized details to a more descriptive English narrative. I think this is also the reason why Lean is easier to use compared to traditional formal languages, making it popular not only in the AI field but also among mathematicians.

On the other hand, the reverse is very difficult. Converting an informal proof into a formal proof is a very laborious task. Currently, at Imperial College London, Professor Kevin Buzzard is leading a large-scale project to completely formalize Fermat's Last Theorem. This is a massive undertaking that requires hundreds of mathematicians working for several years to complete manually. Through this comparison, you can see the difference in difficulty between the two.

Tarun: My final question is: Apart from the Millennium Prize Problems, what problem do you hope Aristotle or its successor model will solve?

The Millennium Prize Problems are too obvious, such as the Riemann Hypothesis, P=NP, and so on, which everyone is discussing. But do you have any "personal obsession problem"? If it is solved, would you feel like "this is my greatest achievement"?

Vlad: Well, let's not talk about the Riemann Hypothesis then.

Tarun: Yes, that's too obvious.

Vlad: But actually, I still quite like the Riemann Hypothesis (laughs). If we take another example, I think creating a "benign version of HAL 9000" would be cool. I really want to build a logical core and control center for a spacecraft, of course, provided that it won't take off on its own like in the movies.

Haseeb: Uh... Are you sure this is the example you want to share with everyone?

Vlad: (laughs) Yes, what I mean is to have a spacecraft control system that can be formally verified. A truly "benign AI." We do need a reliable control core. I think the initial goals were indeed separate, but now there is starting to be an overlap. For example, smart contract verification.

An smart contract is essentially a piece of relatively independent code that runs on languages such as Solidity or Rust. We must ensure some basic properties, such as the contract cannot halt and the absence of issues like "double payment." Because once an error occurs, it could lead to losses of hundreds of millions of dollars, as there have been painful cases in the past. Currently, smart contract companies can almost only rely on manual audits—spending tens of thousands or even millions of dollars to have external companies line-by-line check the code.

So in the crypto field, I think that once formal verification becomes feasible, it will be very powerful. There are many other scenarios as well, such as where complex mathematical calculations are needed—margin calculations, option pricing, and so on. These are all software where errors have extremely high costs. Therefore, I believe that the financial services industry, as well as industries like healthcare, automotive, aerospace, robotics, are actually very suitable for formal verification.

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