Key points

  • Vlad Tenev says issuers should control the rights attached to their shares but not every separate product that references those shares.
  • Robinhood describes its European stock tokens as derivatives that track securities without giving holders ownership or voting rights in the companies.
  • AMC CEO Adam Aron has demanded that Robinhood stop offering AMC-linked tokens and has raised concerns about investor confusion and capital formation.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has sharpened his defense of stock tokens in the brokerage's dispute with AMC Entertainment, arguing that a public company should not have an automatic veto over a separate financial product that tracks its shares. His September 11 statement moves the debate beyond one cinema chain and toward a broader question for tokenized markets: who controls products built around publicly traded equity?

Tenev draws a line around shareholder rights

Tenev's position is that issuers should control the rights and obligations attached to the shares they create, including the authoritative shareholder register. He argues that this control should not extend to every lawful instrument issued by a third party that references or holds freely transferable shares. He compared the concept with established products such as options, structured notes and unsponsored depositary receipts, which can provide exposure without making the product holder a direct shareholder of the underlying company.

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That distinction is central to Robinhood's model. The company's European support documentation describes its Classic Stock Tokens as derivatives recorded on a blockchain. Buyers receive economic exposure to the price of an underlying stock or exchange-traded fund, but they do not buy the actual security. Robinhood says the products are offered under MiFID II, while the underlying assets are held by a U.S.-licensed institution.

AMC says the structure can confuse ownership

AMC CEO Adam Aron has taken the opposite view. He has asked Robinhood to halt trading in tokens linked to AMC and said the company would raise the issue with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Aron argues that a parallel product using AMC's name and tracking its stock can confuse buyers about what they own, deprive them of normal shareholder rights and potentially interfere with the company's capital-raising efforts. Robinhood has said it stands behind the product.

Robinhood's own disclosures make several limits explicit. Token holders are not placed on the issuer's shareholder register and receive no rights against the public company. The products are contracts with Robinhood, and the company warns that customers could lose their full investment because of market conditions or Robinhood's insolvency. Its current European version can be traded through the brokerage but cannot be transferred to an external wallet or another platform.

The dispute exposes different tokenization models

The disagreement matters because the phrase stock token can cover materially different structures. One model creates a derivative or debt claim whose value follows a share. Another places conventionally issued shares with a custodian and represents an interest onchain. A third, issuer-supported model records actual shareholder rights directly on a blockchain. Those approaches can differ in voting, redemption, custody, insolvency exposure, market surveillance and the identity recorded as the legal owner.

Tenev said issuers should be involved if a product changes the rights attached to their shares, replaces the official stock ledger or imposes new duties on the issuer or transfer agent. His argument does not settle whether regulators or courts will accept Robinhood's dividing line, and AMC has not announced a completed legal challenge. For investors, the immediate issue is disclosure: a token that follows a stock's price may not carry the legal rights, protections or transfer options associated with owning the stock itself.

Sources

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