Quick overview

---

Robinhood (HOOD) has paved the way for 24-hour stock trading in the European Union. The trading platform announced at an event in Cannes, France, on Monday that it has introduced US stock and ETF tokens in the EU. More than 200 US stock and ETF tokens will be available to Robinhood’s European customers

Additionally, dividend payments will be made directly to stock token holders via the Robinhood app. Customers can now invest in stocks and ETFs through the company’s European app, which previously only offered cryptocurrency. Initially, stock tokens will be distributed via the blockchain platform Arbitrum.

Vlad Tenev, CEO and co-founder of Robinhood, said its layer-two blockchain will soon enable the tokenization of stocks. The company stated that the technology, which is currently under development, will support 24/7 trading.

“We think we can get that done [24/7 trading in the EU] within the next few months. That’s the goal, at least for our EU clients. With cryptocurrency assets, you already have it. So, the same underlying infrastructure will be used for these cryptocurrency-backed stock tokens. We believe they will enable 24/7 trading once they are available on Bitstamp.’

That means Saturdays and holidays will be trading days. And that would be appealing, in my opinion. Tokenization is the process of turning a physical asset into a digital representation using blockchain technology. It provides investors the option to diversify their holdings, like granting fractional ownership of stocks, artwork, or real estate.