Stock Token Summer?

1️⃣ Robinhood Tokenized Securities

Online stock brokerage Robinhood dove into the deep end of blockchain technology with what is perhaps the greatest real-world asset tokenization push to date at EthCC in Cannes on Monday.

Amid a keynote address packed with new feature launches, one defining development stood out from the bunch: the launch of tokenized securities and pre-IPO stocks through Robinhood Europe. These instruments will be initially issued on the Arbitrum L2, but similar to crypto-native exchanges like Coinbase, Robinhood intends on launching a proprietary L2. This chain will eventually serve as the home for Robinhood’s tokenized stock offerings.

HOOD shares surged over 20% on the week to establish new all-time highs north of $100, meanwhile, the attitude across the crypto industry was one of palpable excitement for the implications of Robinhood’s announcements.

In an X post on Wednesday, ChatGPT developer OpenAI (one of the companies Robinhood chose to offer pre-IPO tokenized stock for) stated it was neither involved in nor endorses OpenAI tokenized stock offerings through Robinhood, advising investors to “be careful.”

This week, Kraken also rolled out “xStocks” in partnership with Backed Finance, which offer access to over 60 tokenized stocks on the Solana network.

2️⃣ Bank Charter Bonanza

Multiple crypto-focused firms are now in the process of applying for U.S. banking charters to establish their own depository institutions.

Stablecoin issuer Circle kicked off the announcement cycle on Monday with a statement that it had formally submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish “First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A.” 

By Wednesday, Ripple (issuer of RLUSD) and Erebor (a crypto-focused bank backed by Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and Peter Thiel) had both announced their own applications with the OCC for national bank charters.

OCC license recipients could act as custodians for their own reserves, strengthening the quality of their stablecoins by mitigating the risk of a future depeg stemming from a bank run (as seen during the 2023 collapse of SVB).

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse also indicated that his firm had applied for a Federal Reserve Master Account, which would give it the ability to hold interest-bearing bank reserves directly with the Fed.

3️⃣ Big Beautiful Bill

The omnibus “Big Beautiful Bill” passed the U.S. Senate on Tuesday in a 51-50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance stepping in to cast the tiebreaker. The Senate’s amended version was then forwarded onto the House of Representatives, where it was narrowly approved following a record-breaking 8-hour and 45-minute filibuster speech from Representative Hakeem Jeffries.

This proposed budget reconciliation act comes laden with “pork,” slashes entitlement program spending, and cuts tax revenues by $4.46T over the next 10 years; all together, the BBB is expected to increase the U.S. national deficit by nearly $3T.

While Senator Cynthia Lummis sought to include crypto-related provisions that would exclude network rewards from taxation until sale, exempt “small” transactions from capital gains taxes, and provide greater flexibility for how companies report unrealized crypto asset gains, the clock allegedly ran out before her proposed amendments could be adopted.

Lummis, who remains intent on getting crypto tax changes across the finish line via a separate bill, lauded the BBB as “a major step in the right direction that further unlocks Wyoming energy and delivers significant wins for working families across Wyoming.”

President Donald Trump is now expected to sign the BBB into law.

4️⃣ Figma Files for IPO 

Less than two years after Adobe abandoned its $20B acquisition proposal of Figma over antitrust concerns, the design platform has filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “FIG.”

Figma financials unveiled in its S-1 initial registration filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission show the Company holds nearly $70M in spot BTC ETFs and has received board approval to purchase an additional $30M BTC via USDC at a future date.

While this market cycle has been marked by corporate duds rebranded as high-flying crypto treasury vehicles, Figma stands out as one of the first firms with a potentially viable business model beyond crypto to add BTC to its balance sheet.

5️⃣ Coinbase Acquires Liquifi

Coinbase has acquired Liquifi, a token-management platform utilized by top-tier cryptocurrency projects including Uniswap Foundation, OP Labs, Ethena, Zora, and 0x.

Liquifi’s automations helps token issuers with vesting, distribution, and compliance processes while reducing launch risk to help employees get user-friendly token compensation plans and enabling investors to manage token holdings with the same ease as equities.

Coinbase hopes that it can simplify the process of building a startup onchain by integrating Liquifi’s capabilities with Coinbase Prime. The terms of the deal remain undisclosed, but this acquisition is Coinbase's fourth of the year and follows its record-setting $2.9B Deribit purchase.