Robinhood proposes SEC rules for tokenized real-world assets

Robinhood submitted a 42-page proposal to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), calling for a national framework to regulate tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

The brokerage is seeking to modernize financial infrastructure by making tokenized assets legally equivalent to their traditional counterparts and enabling compliant onchain settlement, Forbes reported on May 20.

In the proposal, Robinhood also revealed plans for creating the Real World Asset Exchange (RRE), a trading platform offering offchain trade matching and onchain settlement for efficiency and transparency.

Robinhood is advocating for uniform federal standards to replace the patchwork of state-level securities regulations that currently apply. The platform would also integrate Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) tools through partners like Jumio and Chainalysis to meet global compliance expectations.

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A key feature of the proposal is the push for token-asset equivalence. Under Robinhood’s plan, a token representing a US Treasury bond, for instance, would be treated as the bond itself, not a derivative or synthetic product.

That would allow institutions and broker-dealers to handle tokenized RWAs within the existing regulatory system, potentially streamlining custody, trading and settlement processes.

Technically, RRE would be built on a dual-chain architecture utilizing Solana and Base, according to an overview of the proposal by Franklin Elevator. The system is designed to combine high-frequency offchain trade matching with onchain settlement.

Franklin Elevator said Robinhood projects the platform will achieve sub-10 microsecond matching latency and throughput of up to 30,000 transactions per second.

This could compress the US capital markets’ standard settlement time from T+2 to T+0, cutting trading costs by an estimated 30% annually.

“RWA tokenization represents a new paradigm for institutional asset allocation. Robinhood is committed to leading this trend under a compliant framework,” Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said.

Cointelegraph reached out to Robinhood for comment, but they hadn’t responded by publication time.

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Robinhood’s proposal comes amid a renewed wave of interest in RWA tokenization, with major players from both traditional finance and crypto making headlines last week.

On April 30, BlackRock filed to create a blockchain-based share class for its $150 billion Treasury Trust Fund, allowing a digital ledger to mirror investor ownership. On the same day, Libre revealed plans to tokenize $500 million in Telegram debt via its new Telegram Bond Fund.

On May 1, MultiBank Group inked a $3 billion tokenization deal with UAE real estate firm MAG and blockchain provider Mavryk.

“The recent surge isn’t arbitrary. It’s happening because everything’s lining up,” Eric Piscini, CEO of Hashgraph, told Cointelegraph. “Rules are getting clearer in major markets. The tech is stronger, faster, and ready to scale. And big players are actually doing it,” he added.

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