Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood Markets Inc. at the Token2049 Conference held in Singapore on Thursday, October 2, 2025.
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The tokenization of real-world assets, from stocks to real estate, spreads across financial markets around the world. Robin Hood Market CEO Vlad Tenev.
“Tokenization is like a freight train. It can’t be stopped. It will eventually eat the entire financial system,” Tef told the panel at a crypto conference held in Singapore on Wednesday.
“I think most major markets have some frameworks over the next five years,” he said, adding that it will take more than 10 years to reach 100%.
Tokenized assets are digital representations of real-world assets, such as stocks, bonds, or commodities, that can be recorded and traded on blockchain or distributed ledgers.
In June, Robinhood began offering over 200 European Union customers with more than 200 tokenized US stocks, giving them a new way to gain exposure to underlying assets. This movement caused a surge in stock, reaching record highs at the time.
“I think that will be the default way to be exposed to US stocks outside the US,” Tenev said.
He hopes that this practice will gain traction when greater licensing and regulatory clarity is available in more jurisdictions.
“I think it will start in Europe, but then expand to other parts of the world,” he said.
Meanwhile, TENEV hopes that the US will actually be one of the last economies to fully tokenize due to what is called the greater adhesion of financial infrastructure.
The crypto industry has long predicted that mass tokenization of assets on the blockchain is upon us.
And in addition to the launch of tokenized stocks by Robinhood, there were more indications this year that actual implementation was coming, as there is interest in the signaling of facility giants Morgan Stanley and BlackRock.
“In fact, I think cryptocurrency and traditional finance will live in two separate worlds for a while, but I’m going to blend perfectly,” Tenev said at the event.
He cited Stablecoins (a digital currency designed to not fluctuate violently) as an early example of tokenized real-world assets.
“I think cryptographic technology has many advantages over traditional methods that may become undistinguishable in the future,” Tenev said.
