So you heard Josh in the lead up here, Vlad, rolling our discussing the importance of tokenized trading. Your stock is ripping higher here on this news. Why do you think this is so important and why did you have to get a first mover advantage getting this on the ground?

Thank you for having me and and by the way, I should correct one thing that Josh said, customers do get access to the dividends from these. So, uh, I know that that's an important thing for dividend investors in the EU. So you will have exposure to that. But, uh, I think there's many interesting things about this. One is that we see a world when crypto and traditional financial services fully merge and we'd like to demonstrate with real products in customers' hands, how that world could be better, more useful with global availability, 24/7 access to the markets, everything that blockchain has to offer. And really in the EU, what we're building is the seeds of what Robinhood looks like if it was built from the ground up on blockchain technology. So you have stock tokens, you have access to private company shares, you have perpetual futures, spot crypto. So really it's, it's becoming a comprehensive crypto system, a comprehensive financial services platform for European customers built from the ground up on crypto technology. I think that's very exciting.

Vlad, before this news, how big was your EU business? And this news today, you know, as you look forward, how big do you think your EU business can get over the next 12 months?

Yeah, well we had announced that, you know, the EU business has been live for a little bit over a year and together with the UK crossed north of 100,000 customers a few quarters ago. But that being said, we were only really live in four countries in the EU and you add the UK that becomes five. Now we're live in 31 countries, fully live under Mica and MIFID which are EU regulations. So, and and that was only Robinhood crypto. We're now changing the name of the product. It's going to be Robinhood and it's live in more countries and there's also a significant increase in the capabilities of what Robinhood does and offers.

I think a large part of the move in the stock Vlad reflects what you're working with on Layer 2 blockchain. Now you said this isn't development. Take us through this development and how does this change what you do at Robinhood?

So the goal here is I think for the crypto industry, it's time to move beyond Bitcoin and meme coins and deliver fundamental utility. And for us what that means is real world assets. We want to be the best platform to buy and sell and trade real world assets. And I don't think there's a blockchain that's been built from the ground up for that. So I think that can be our niche and for something so intricate where the security and the regulatory requirements are so high, we thought that a new blockchain was needed where we could build and design these things from the ground up. So right now, stock tokens are live on Arbitrum. We've been working very closely with that team to build them, but the Robinhood chain is coming and the team's been hard at work and I think, I think there'll be some things that you see there that uh that'll be really nice. So can't wait to to share that with you guys.

How do you see tokenized trading evolving from here, Vlad? You know, I think about BlackRock and Larry Fink has been very bullish on tokenized trading. They've dabbled in this arena as well. I think Franklin Templeton has dabbled in this as well. How does this change the dynamic for the retail investor?

Yeah, I mean, I think it will evolve in three phases. I outlined them in my talk earlier today on a nice chalkboard. So you guys should see that if you if you haven't. It's gone viral Vlad. I mean that whole presentation is gone viral so yeah. Yeah you don't see chalkboards in digital cryptocurrency presentations but I think it was very informative. So phase one, which we're in right now, every token is actually accompanied by a real share where we go to a regulated trad-fi broker which goes to a market. Stage two, we intend to integrate stock tokens into Bitstamp and that will unlock 24/7 trading and we believe we can get that done within the next few months. Stage three, also within the next few months, you get the full power of defi. So you'll be able to, once this happens, actually use all of the defi features and have these tokens living in your non-custodial wallets so that you can self custody them. And of course, as with all crypto technology, it's global by default, decentralized, permissionless and we think that as we continue to work with our regulatory partners and counterparts, we'd like to make these available to anyone with an internet connection worldwide, of course subject to local rules and regulations. But once the power of this technology to tokenize not just public shares, but private shares and make them tradable 24/7 with instant settlement is demonstrated to the world, I think I think everyone's going to want to have access to this.

Vlad, I want to make sure I heard you correct. You think we will have 24/7 trading on Robinhood in a few months?

That's that's the goal. I mean for our EU customers, at least, that's the goal. And you already have it with crypto assets. So these stock tokens powered by crypto technology will use the same underlying infrastructure. So once they're available on Bitstamp, uh yeah, that that we believe will unlock 24/7 trading. So you'll get the Saturdays and the holidays. And and I think that would be very compelling.

What do you think it will be? What do you think it will take for for US regulators to get on board with this? Um I mean this would be a big disruption to decades of how investing has been done.

Yeah, and I've I've talked about the need for 24/7 markets in the US for quite some time. Uh it would be a shame for the EU to get there first. But I think the US is keen. You know, the US wants to catch up. We've been having a lot of conversations with the regulators, the SEC round table on tokenization, had our crypto GM, Johann, actually as a participant. And I think there's interest, there's openness and excitement from the crypto task force there and we don't believe there needs to be additional legislation. We think actually the SEC has the ability to make this happen. So we're we're going to continue to collaborate with them to bring it to the US.

But are US regulators willing, Vlad, to let the EU get this new technology first, 24/7 trading? Are they willing to take a backseat to the EU?

Well, I I don't think that we should be happy with the Europeans having nice things before us. The analogy that I often give is it's sort of like high-speed rail, right? The Asian countries have faster trains than us. Um of course the US has fast enough trains, but I do think that it's not going to be the case for very long that, you know, the Europeans will have better access to markets. I think that there will be a lot of interest in in bringing this worldwide, to the US and and everywhere else.

Lastly, Vlad, of course, this news coming at a very interesting time for markets. Some people call it FOMO, fear of missing out, others call it a euphoric move, others call it a melt up. How do you explain what we're seeing in markets and and what's some of the activity you've seen on the platform in the past few weeks?

Yeah, I think what you're seeing is sort of the juxtaposition of two realities. One is that there's a lot of like geopolitical and economic tension. Um and and that tends to be negative. But on the on the flip side, these frontier technologies, including cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence are pushing ahead and accelerating tremendously. And that's a counterbalancing force. And I think what retail certainly believes is that the progress and the benefits by these frontier technologies will outweigh sort of like the near-term risks that sort of these macro economic and geopolitical headwinds are introducing. I think that the impact on society long term from AI and cryptocurrency, you know, there's there's optimism about that. And I think that's what you're seeing reflected in the markets.

Well, I know a lot of work goes into this type of technology and breakthrough type stuff. So Vlad, and also know it's very late over there in Cannes, France. So good to see you. Thanks for coming on with us, Robinhood co-founder and CEO, Vlad Tenev. Thanks for having me guys. Cheers.

Thanks for having me, guys. Cheers.