ROBINHOOD -TOKENS, which offers equity in Openai Technical, is not equity, Vlad Tenev confirmed in a recent CNBC interview, but is supported by “Robinhood’s ownership stake in a vehicle with special purpose.”
Openai warned earlier this month that the tokens offered by Robinhood do not represent the equity of the company and any transfer of equity would require Openai’s approval that they have not provided.
“In itself, I don’t think it’s completely relevant that it’s not technically an equity instrument,” Tenev said at CNBC. “What is important is that retail customers have an opportunity to get exposure to this asset.”
Robinhood is not the first platform to offer shares in Pre-IPO companies with this model.
Linqto, who offered exposure to retail investors via vehicles with special purposes that purchased shares in the secondary market, recently filed bankruptcy and raised questions about what exactly its customers, now creditors, owned.
Among the companies is ripple (Xrp)And its CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, has publicly distanced Ripple from Linqto.
“We stopped approving more Linqto purchases in secondary markets at the end of 2024 in the middle of growing skepticism,” Garlinghouse twitly twited earlier in July.
Read more: Openai warns that tokenized capital sales on Robinhood are unauthorized
