Robinhood has submitted a comprehensive 42-page proposal to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requesting regulatory approval to create a Real World Asset Exchange (RRE) on blockchain technology. The initiative seeks to establish a federal framework that legitimizes tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) such as U.S. Treasuries and equities under existing U.S. laws.
The proposal’s main goal is to unify fragmented state-level securities regulations by instituting a single national framework. This would simplify compliance for broker-dealers and asset managers, reduce regulatory uncertainty, and potentially unlock a $30 trillion market opportunity by integrating traditional financial assets with blockchain capabilities.
The RRE platform is designed with a dual-chain architecture utilizing Solana and Base blockchains to provide 24/7 trading with high performance, targeting up to 30,000 transactions per second and sub-10 microsecond latency. This setup will enable off-chain trade matching combined with on-chain settlement, reducing settlement times from the traditional T+2 cycle to real-time (T+0), thereby enhancing market efficiency and lowering operational risks.
Robinhood’s framework categorizes tokenized assets as direct representations of their traditional counterparts, enabling regulated brokers to handle them within familiar compliance systems instead of reclassifying them as derivatives or synthetics. The platform also integrates identity verification and transaction transparency solutions from Jumio and Chainalysis to meet Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements.
If approved, this initiative could pioneer a scalable, regulatory-aligned bridge between conventional finance and blockchain-based markets, prompting broader institutional participation in tokenized securities and potentially reshaping U.S. financial regulations around digital assets.
However, the proposal faces challenges including awaiting SEC approval and coordinating among overlapping regulatory bodies. Despite these obstacles, the potential to modernize and expand the financial market with compliant tokenized assets positions Robinhood at the forefront of the blockchain-finance integration movement.