Welcome back to Market Movers.
The opening bell.
While Robin Hood expanding its footprint across Europe this summer and now offers tokenized US stocks, private company tokens, and also crypto trading in 31 EU and EEA countries.
Now European users can trade big names like Apple, Nvidia, SpaceX, and OpenAI all from one app, and Robin Hood holds the underlying.
Users own an on chain claim.
Well joining me this morning is Johan Kerra, who's senior VP and crypto GM at Robin Hood.
Johan, great to have you back on.
Thank you so much for joining me.
So first and foremost, we know that PEP features have been in the spotlight.
So how do you actually handle funding rate mechanisms and also liquidation protocols for PERP futures?
Yeah, so we just pull out pros features in the EU and it's starting to be available to all our customers there.
Um, little by little, but, uh, basically we have been creating this new UI and UX that is very um easy to use, and the goal was to be able to manage your risk and your profit very easily as a, as a customer.
So you will be able to get 1 to 3x leverage.
You will go, you will be able to cross the margin or isolate it to one specific position and on top of that, you have a very specific ladder.
That will allow you to set your take profit and stop loss very easily.
On the back end, we actually route the orders to Bit stamp, which is uh a cryptocurrency exchange we just acquired in June.
And Johan Robin Hood is certainly riding the wave of growing retail interests in crypto, expanding its platform to include 4 new outcoins.
So tell me about the recent additions and also what you're seeing in terms of investor demand.
Yeah, look, it's something that we have been focusing on making sure that all the assets our customers are wanting are available on the platform.
Uh, just on Tuesday, we listed a new layer one SW, um, which was also something that customers were asking for.
And so, you know, overall our goal is to, uh, support safely any asset that our customers are looking for.
Um, obviously there's a lot of, uh, process that goes into listing and assets.
We actually have a pretty long listing review and not every asset can be listed at the same time.
So, um, you know, sometimes it takes a bit of time for us to, to list assets compared to, to the competition, but at the end of the day what we're really focusing on is giving a very safe way to access, uh, this crypto at a very good price for our customer.
Yeah, and while I have you here, I want to ask you about staking.
So Robin Hood is ramping up its crypto features E and Salana staking now available for US customers.
So tell us a little bit about the rewards, the lockup periods, and how you handle slashing or network penalties on behalf of users.
Yeah, so, um, staking was one of the most requested features that that we had uh at Robin Hood.
Um, in the EU we actually launched it last year and we just started to roll it out, um, at the end of June this year for, for US customers in eligible states.
Um, it's something that, you know, we think it's really important because, uh, not only you get the rewards but you also participate in the network and I think a lot of our customers were asking to be able to contribute to the network that they care about and help it, uh, help secure the network basically on, uh, Robin Hood, you can, um.
Set the assets and you will get the same bonding and unbonding period than than the network.
So, you know, we are not doing anything very different there.
Uh, for slashing for, for now, we only offer Solana and I, um, to, to be staked, and for Solana, there's no really slashing at this point and for Ere with the latest upgrade, uh, the, the slashing penalties are, are extremely reduced.
So, you know, for most of the time, um, you know, what we're really focusing on is making sure people understand what staking means, you know, there is still a lot of confusion on the market between lending and staking.
Um, and so we want to give education to August and we also want to give them a safe way to access it.
And finally, Johan, before I let you go, I do want to ask you about tokenized stocks.
So for the layperson out there who may not be as familiar, how do tokenize stocks compare to, say, traditional equities when it comes to liquidity, regulation, and also investor protections?
Yeah, so we launched stock token in the, in the EU and at this point, um, any customer in the EU can access about 200 stock tokens that gives you exposure to, to the US stocks, um, behind it.
Um, it's not just US stocks, it's also ETF as well, and so that's something that we really wanted to focus on because it's not that easy to access ETF um as a, as a EU customer.
Um, for, for us, you know, at this point, what happens when someone, uh, purchase the stock token is that we actually purchase the, the stock also on the market.
So the customer gets the same, uh, benefits in terms of execution and, and quality of, you know, pricing, um, and our main focus at this point has been to make sure that.
Customer understand what they get with the stock token versus an actual underlying US stock, but also that they can get a very good price with it.
So in the, in the EU we do not charge any commission.
We do not charge any spread or rebate or anything on the, the US, the US stock tokens, but we actually get a FX fee of 10 basis points which is pretty competitive.
So, um, at this point, we are just starting to roll it out.
There's only 200 assets available, but we are starting to focus on expanding this offering to uh many type of assets.
Well, Yohan, we will have to leave it there, but thank you so much for joining us again on FinTech TV and as always, thank you so much for your insights as well as perspective.
It was great to be here.
Thank you.
