Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: $HOOD) CEO Vlad Tenev is calling on U.S. regulators to approve tokenized stocks.
In a social media post, Tenev argues that the U.S. is at risk of ceding the next generation of financial-market infrastructure to overseas competitors.
The Robinhood CEO also said that the global financial system is in the early stages of a "tokenization super cycle" that has the potential to reshape traditional finance.
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Robinhood has already made tokenized U.S. stocks available outside America in more than 120 countries. To date the online brokerage says it has tokenized more than 190 U.S. stocks.
Tokenized shares available from Robinhood are backed 1:1 by underlying stocks, but holders do not directly own those shares, a distinction that has given U.S. regulators pause.
Tokenization allows investors to gain exposure to real-world equities such as Apple (NASDAQ: $AAPL) using cryptocurrency infrastructure rather than a standard brokerage.
Advocates say that tokenized stocks can offer instant blockchain settlement, lower fees through fewer middlemen, and provide borderless access to equities.
Tenev argues that tokenization can also address two other longstanding issues in traditional markets: limited trading hours and slow asset transfers.
He writes that blockchain infrastructure could make around the clock trading widely available and speed up transfers between brokers, which currently take several days to finalize.
Tenev says that Robinhood has begun prioritizing tokenized stocks outside the U.S., but in America, regulation remains an obstacle.
HOOD stock has declined 15% over the past 12 months to trade at $91.53 U.S. per share.