Robinhood Shakes Up Europe: Tokenized Stocks & Perpetual Futures Go Live
Robinhood just dropped a bombshell on European traders—tokenized equities and 24/7 leveraged derivatives are now on the menu.
No more waiting for market hours or begging your broker for margin. The platform’s new crypto-adjacent offerings let you punt on Tesla or NVDA with the same reckless abandon as your favorite shitcoin.
Perps meet traditional assets
Suddenly that ‘investing revolution’ tagline doesn’t sound so ironic. The zero-commission pioneer now bridges CeFi and DeFi by wrapping blue-chip stocks as blockchain tokens—complete with all the volatility amplification Wall Street ‘professionals’ love to ban.
European regulators apparently slept through this launch. Either that, or they’ve finally accepted that retail will always find ways to YOLO their rent money.
One step closer to the dystopian future where every asset is a leveraged token—and every trader is a walking margin call.
Cutting out the middleman
Robinhood is trying to cut out middlemen who charge Europeans “exorbitant costs” when trying to access U.S.-listed assets, according to Robinhood Crypto Head of Product Seong Seog Lee. The feature borrows Robinhood’s zero-commission trading structure, only charging a 0.1% foreign-exchange fee, he told Decrypt.
Eventually, users will be able to self-custody tokenized stocks and ETFs through Robinhood’s digital wallet, Lee said. When trading the assets on Robinhood’s primary app, users don’t have to manage private keys either, an intentional simplification, he added.
Robinhood’s orders for perpetual futures, which do not have a settlement date, unlike traditional futures contracts, are routed through Bitstamp's exchange, the company said. Robinhood acquired the crypto exchange in June through a $200 million cash deal.
On Monday, Robinhood teased other features for crypto-natives, including a credit card that will let customers receive cash back in crypto this fall, a 1% boost on crypto deposits for a limited time, and “tax lots” for digital assets that let customers sell crypto more strategically.
“We think that a lot of advanced traders will be excited about that feature because you don't want to pay the IRS if you don't have to, right?” Kerbrat asked.
Although Robinhood’s crypto services were limited to Italy, Spain, Poland, and Lithuania, the company said it can now service 31-plus continues in the region after securing a Markets in Crypto Assets, or MiCA, license. Coinbase said it received one earlier this month, too.
Edited by James Rubin
