<\/p>\n
Two weeks after it began offering tokenized equities, <\/span>Robinhood Markets<\/span><\/a> is dealing with continued fallout.<\/span><\/p>\n A <\/span>report<\/span><\/a> Saturday (July 12) by Bloomberg <\/span>examines the brokerage\u2019s struggles in the wake of the new offering, which launched a $1 million giveaway of <\/span>SpaceX<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>OpenAI<\/span><\/a> tokens.<\/span><\/p>\n But as Bloomberg notes, OpenAI quickly issued a statement <\/span>warning traders<\/span><\/a> that these tokens did not represent equity in the artificial intelligence (AI) startup.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it,\u201d the company said in a post on social platform X. \u201cAny transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval \u2014 we did not approve any transfer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Days later, the <\/span>Bank of Lithuania<\/span><\/a>, Robinhood\u2019s chief regulator in the European Union, said it had written to the company seeking clarification on the structure of OpenAI and SpaceX tokens to \u201cassess the <\/span>legality and compliance<\/span><\/a> of these specific instruments.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n According to Bloomberg, Robinhood has \u2014 in offering tokenized equities to its qualifying 150,000 customers in Europe \u2014 \u201csupercharged\u201d the focus on the blockchain-based shares, which had until recently chiefly been much <\/span>smaller scale<\/span> efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n They are still part of a regulatory grey area in the U.S., with stateside brokerages still not making them available. But companies like Robinhood are eager to get into the space. However, the report added, critics argue the tokens dilute value for shareholders, particularly for companies such as OpenAI that haven\u2019t yet gone public.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe imperative to democratize private markets and give retail investors the same opportunities as institutional investors is real,\u201d said <\/span>Jonathan Shaffer<\/span><\/a>, CEO of <\/span>Fission Labs<\/span><\/a>, a decentralized finance platform that<\/span> offers access to liquid venture capital investments. \u201cBut we need to question whether derivatives wrapped as tokens solve the underlying access problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, companies such as JPMorgan and Kraken <\/span>made similar<\/span><\/a> tokenization-related announcements in the last few weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n