Robinhood’s OpenAI & SpaceX Tokenization Faces Elon Musk Pushback

Hey FinTech Fanatic!

Earlier this week, I covered the “Kraken, Bybit, and Robinhood Race to Tokenize Wall Street Stocks.” That topic is back on the table, but not in the way you might expect.

While Kraken and Bybit focused on tokenizing public companies, Robinhood took it a step further by offering tokens tied to private firms, like OpenAI and SpaceX.

Now, Robinhood is facing backlash:

While Musk echoed OpenAI’s message, his words may have pointed to something deeper, possibly raising questions about OpenAI’s structure and transparency.

Responding to the criticism, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev acknowledged the tokens aren’t technically equity but argued that “they effectively give retail investors exposure to these private assets.” He added that this is “just the beginning,” signaling broader plans ahead.

Read more global FinTech industry updates below 👇 and I'll be back with more on Monday!

Cheers,

Marcel

ARTICLE OF THE DAY

➡️ Beyond Digital: Huawei’s Vision for an AI-Driven Finance Future. Digital transformation is evolving fast. At Huawei’s HiFS 2025, CEO Jason Cao unveiled the “Digital + AI Flywheel”, blending strong digital infrastructure with AI to reshape finance. Read the full piece here

FINTECH RUNNING CLUB

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FINTECH NEWS

🇺🇸 Linqto, a new firm that opened the private market to the little guy, is in big trouble. The CEO, William Sarris, was attempting to sell shares of Ripple to Linqto’s 11,000 users at a price at least 60% higher than Linqto originally paid. The SEC prohibits markups above 10% but Sarris pushed ahead, not disclosing the price hike to customers. 

🇳🇬 Nigerian open banking startup Okra quietly shut down in May 2025. The company shut down all operations, including Nebula, the cloud-services spin-off it recently launched. It had raised about $16 million from global investors. Read more

🇵🇱 Revolut is rolling out its mobile service in Poland as a pilot program, alongside the UK and Germany. Polish customers can sign up for the waitlist to get early access to full mobile plans. Users can transfer their old number or pick a new one, have a flexible offering, no fixed contract commitment, and a monthly fee starting from zł 25 per month.

🇺🇸 Robinhood CEO responds to comments on OpenAI and SpaceX tokenization. In response to criticism, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev explained that while the tokens do not represent direct equity, they offer retail investors exposure to private firms.

🇬🇧 Klarna’s strategic presence at Wimbledon. It will host partners and industry stakeholders throughout the tournament. While top tennis players compete on the court, Klarna will engage with retailers, brands, and business leaders to discuss the evolving landscape of retail, payments, and consumer experiences.

🇧🇷 Wise launches Rende+, for foreign currency investments for Brazilians. New solution allows returns on balances in foreign currency and marks the FinTech's advance in an increasingly competitive niche. Keep reading

🇺🇸 Darragh Buckley has acquired over 10% of Twin City Bank. Stripe’s first employee, founder, and CEO of FinTech startup Increase, Buckley, clarified that Twin City will remain a standalone community bank focused on local services. He emphasized that it’s not intended to become a sponsor bank for FinTechs.

PAYMENTS NEWS

🌍 Getnet Europe CEO Rubén Justel Participates in VII Foro Payments, organized by EXPANSIÓN and American Express, where he warned that banks risk falling behind if they fail to keep pace with technological changes and evolving user expectations, emphasizing the need for responsible and inclusive financial services.

🇹🇭 Worldpay launches domestic acquiring capabilities in Thailand. This move enables global merchants to serve local consumers with their preferred payment types, LINE Pay, TrueMoney, PromptPay, and online banking. Read more

🇩🇪 Stripe launches new products to accelerate growth for businesses in Germany. New products and features include: Access to growth capital through Stripe Capital, support for more than 25 new payment methods, including Wero, and a new pay-by-bank payment method based on Europe’s open banking system, and fraud detection and prevention on SEPA payments with Stripe Radar.

🇺🇸 Flutterwave’s send app relaunches in the US and expands remittance reach to Africa. Its total number of direct licenses to 34, allowing the company to operate across many US states and territories without partners or intermediaries. Users in the US can now send money to Nigeria, Ghana, and Egypt, unlocking new remittance corridors that were previously unavailable.

REGTECH NEWS

🇩🇪 Germany approves first regulated Euro stablecoin, EURAU. The EURAU stablecoin is designed to facilitate round-the-clock instant cross-border settlements and seamless integration for regulated financial institutions, FinTech companies, treasury operations, and enterprise clients throughout Europe and internationally.

🇸🇬 Bitstamp by Robinhood, Globally trusted & now licensed in Singapore. This is a key milestone in its long-standing commitment to providing secure, compliant, and institutional-grade access to crypto markets, and it marks the start of its expansion into the APAC region. 

DIGITAL BANKING NEWS

🇲🇽 Nu reached 12 million customers in Mexico. To showcase how its clients' financial lives have evolved and the transformations generated by its products, the company presented the third edition of the study “Impacto Nu: From Access to Well-being”. A key insight: nearly 60% of customers report using less cash than before and actively saving thanks to the Nu money boxes known as “Cajitas".

🇫🇷 French B2B FinTech Qonto reaches 600,000 customers and files for banking license. It currently operates with a payment institution license it obtained in 2018, which already enabled it to introduce a form of buy now, pay later. But a credit institution license would let it offer broader lending, savings, and investment options to its target customers.

BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS

🇺🇸 Palmer Luckey, backed by Palantir's Lonsdale, is to launch a crypto-focused bank. The proposed lender, called Erebor, has applied for a national bank charter and plans to serve technology businesses in areas such as artificial intelligence, crypto, defense, and manufacturing.

🇨🇦 Canadian FinTech Mogo’s $50M Bitcoin reserve plan ignites 140% share surge at market opening. Management expects to hold approximately $50 million in cash and investments at that point. It plans to convert the balance into Bitcoin in tranches, while maintaining sufficient working capital for its lending, wealth management, and payments arms.

🇨🇭 AMINA becomes the first bank globally to support Ripple USD as demand for stablecoins surges. AMINA will enable its client base of professional investors, institutions, and corporations to access Ripple’s stablecoin ecosystem with the security and governance that clients expect from a traditional banking partner.

PARTNERSHIPS

🇬🇧 Solidgate joins Endeavor’s global network. As a member of the Endeavor network, it is committed to collaborating with other high-impact entrepreneurs to drive innovation in the payments industry. With the backing of Endeavor, the company aims to support more businesses in transforming payments from a behind-the-scenes process into a powerful engine for growth.

🇬🇧 IDnow and Keyless forge strategic partnership to deliver continuous trust across the digital identity lifecycle. Organisations can now enrol customers with IDnow and authenticate them with Keyless, introducing the concept of ‘Continuous Trust.’

🇸🇬 HitPay integrates Flagright to ensure the security of payments. Through Flagright’s AI technology and user-friendly, no-code platform, HitPay is set to be able to implement comprehensive compliance and fraud prevention measures. Continue reading

🇧🇪 Belfius has launched a new partnership with Belgian platform Firsty.app to enhance global mobile banking access for its customers. Through this collaboration, users of the Belfius Mobile app can now manage their finances in over 160 countries and regions without incurring roaming charges.

🇨🇳 Boost users can now make QR payments overseas via UnionPay. The update enables Boost users to scan QR codes, including static ones, at retail stores in China through Weixin Pay, which is also known internationally as WeChat Pay. Read on

🇬🇧 Noah partnered with Opera to enable millions of Minipay users to receive and spend stablecoins through a combination of global financial rails and local payment systems. The collaboration aims to make stablecoin usage more practical for individuals in emerging markets, particularly freelancers, remote workers, and migrant communities.

🇵🇭 Mastercard and Paynamics bring Click to Pay to more businesses in the Philippines. Through this collaboration, Paynamics’ merchant partners can now integrate Click to Pay in their platforms, backed by Mastercard’s trusted security technology.

🌍 Curve Pay and Thales join forces to securely transform digital wallets on iPhone. This collaboration between Curve and Thales provides iOS users with greater control, flexibility, autonomy, and digital security for in-store contactless payments and digital wallets.

DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS

🇫🇷 Skarlett raises €8 million to develop financial services for France’s over-60s. With a team of 30, Skarlett intends to use the new funding to expand its portfolio of proprietary financial products and to enhance the personalisation of its services using AI-driven tools.

M&A

🇸🇪 Swedbank looks to expand mortgage operations with $36.8M Stabelo acquisition. "The acquisition of Stabelo gives us new opportunities to be able to meet more target groups of, among others, younger and more digital customers," comments Swedbank deputy CEO, Tomas Hedberg.

🇦🇺 Australian cryptocurrency exchange Swyftx to acquire Caleb & Brown to target the US’s wealthiest crypto investors. The deal is the largest crypto acquisition in ANZ history and gives Swyftx access to the world’s leading digital assets market at a time when the US has sought to position itself as the ‘crypto capital of the planet’. 

🌍 Broadridge to acquire Acolin. The acquisition will create a robust pan-European fund distribution network, facilitating broader, more efficient access to investors and distribution partners while supporting the ongoing transformation and efficiency of fund distribution for asset managers worldwide.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

🇬🇧 iProov appoints Alex Pearson as Chief Revenue Officer. In this role, Alex will be responsible for iProov’s global sales, account management, and customer success functions, and driving the company's revenue growth strategy. Keep reading

🇮🇱 eToro adds former SEC Commissioner Laura Unger and Wix CFO Lior Shemesh to its Board. As leaders in their respective fields, they give extensive knowledge and expertise to the Board. The company looks forward to benefiting from Laura’s experience across regulatory governance and risk management, as well as Lior’s financial and operational leadership.

🇺🇸 Jeeves taps Jordan Bulkoski as CRO amid global expansion and FinTech innovation drive. With over a decade of leadership in enterprise SaaS and FinTech, Bulkoski will oversee global sales, marketing, partnerships, and revenue operations as Jeeves accelerates its go-to-market strategy and scales internationally.

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