On August 18, 2026, Vlad Tenev estimated that tokenization was entering a “supercycle” capable of transforming the entire financial system. Robinhood is already experimenting with this vision with its own blockchain and tokenized shares accessible 24 hours a day. A development that directly affects market hours, the settlement of transactions and the circulation of financial assets.
What Vlad Tenev calls a “supercycle”
Robinhood is an American brokerage platform that has gradually become a player in crypto and tokenized assets. At the end of June 2026, it had 28.4 million customers and $369 billion in assets.
With Robinhood Chain, the company is now developing a blockchain infrastructure dedicated to this activity.
Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, published an op-ed on X on August 18, 2026.
“We are in the early innings of a global tokenization supercycle,” he writes, estimating that tokenization is still in its early stages.
10 months earlier, at the Token2049 conference in Singapore, he already compared tokenization to an unstoppable train, capable, according to him, of transforming the entire financial system.
For Tenev, the interest in tokenization goes well beyond representing an action in token form. It can change the way assets are exchanged, settled and used.
In his column, Tenev mainly highlights 3 changes. The settlement of transactions, market times and the circulation of assets between platforms.
What Robinhood Chain is changing for the markets
Launched on July 1, 2026, Robinhood Chain is a second layer, or layer 2, blockchain, developed with Arbitrum technology and connected to Ethereum. Robinhood Chain produces a new block every 100 milliseconds.
Vlad Tenev also claims that it has become the fastest EVM chain to reach 100 million transactions.
Its ambition goes beyond network performance. Tenev advocates directly on-chain execution and settlement, which could reduce the time between the two. Since May 2024, settlement of transactions in American equities occurs in T+1, i.e. one business day after the transaction, compared to T+2 previously.
During the GameStop frenzy of 2021, collateral requirements linked to settlement time had increased pressure on brokers.
Tenev believes that direct on-chain settlement would reduce this delay and therefore the risk linked to the period between the transaction and its settlement.
Market times also change. A Stock Token may continue to trade on weekends or after traditional markets close. An important announcement published on Saturday can thus be taken into account immediately, without waiting for the reopening on Monday.
Portability is the third change. Investors can keep Robinhood Chain Stock Tokens in a wallet and transfer them to other applications. They can thus be used in DeFi.
These Stock Tokens provide economic exposure to the underlying stock and allow dividends to be received when scheduled.
However, they do not confer the rights attached to the share, such as the right to vote. These are tokenized debt securities issued by Robinhood Assets (Jersey) Limited.
When financial assets become usable on-chain
Robinhood Chain is a permissionless blockchain: any user can interact with the network. Stock Tokens, however, remain subject to the rules applicable to financial products in each jurisdiction.
Robinhood offers them to eligible investors in over 120 countries. Paradoxically, these assets circulate on a permissionless blockchain, while Robinhood cannot legally offer them to American investors.
It is precisely the American framework that Vlad Tenev wants to see evolve to allow Robinhood to offer these assets in the United States. The SEC is still working on an exemption for tokenized securities and has postponed its publication.
The global tokenized stock market reached $2.4 billion as of August 19, 2026, according to RWA.xyz, up 6.6% over 30 days. Robinhood now accounts for approximately $32.2 million of that value, with 191 assets listed.
For the boss of Robinhood, listed shares constitute a first use case before an extension to other asset classes, such as shares of private companies or certain real estate assets.
Once an asset can circulate directly on-chain, other financial applications can also integrate it. This logic already exists in DeFi, where stablecoins circulate between different protocols and are used in particular in yield strategies.
The “supercycle” mentioned by Vlad Tenev therefore goes far beyond just tokenized actions. Robinhood is already experimenting with this vision with its own infrastructure, while on-chain uses continue to expand to new assets. It remains to be seen how far this transformation can go.
