Daily News 19

Tag: Voting rights

  • Robinhood Says Shares, Voting Rights Coming for Stock Tokens

    Robinhood Says Shares, Voting Rights Coming for Stock Tokens

    Robinhood plans to allow holders of its Stock Tokens to redeem them for actual shares and exercise voting rights on those shares, according to the company’s crypto chief. Johann Kerbrat, senior vice president and general manager of international and crypto at Robinhood, outlined the roadmap in a post on X Monday morning.

    Roadmap Announced on Social Media

    Kerbrat posted at 11:17 a.m. ET, addressing the most requested features directly: “What about in-kind redemption and voting rights? Not yet, but they’re coming,” he wrote. “Step one is to scale adoption of Stock Tokens. We’re actively working on redemptions for shares 1:1 with voting for eligible Stock Token holders on the roadmap.”

    CEO Vlad Tenev amplified the message, reposting the thread at 1:12 p.m. ET with the line: “In-kind redemption and voting are coming for Robinhood Stock Tokens.” The two posts had attracted 244,000 and 294,700 views respectively by mid-afternoon. The company has not issued a formal press release on the planned changes.

    Current Structure: Cash-Settled Debt Securities

    Delivering either feature requires rewriting the offering documents that govern the product. Robinhood Stock Tokens are not shares; they are tokenized debt securities issued from Jersey under a prospectus that settles every redemption in cash. The shares backing the tokens can be lent to a borrower who retains the voting rights.

    The base prospectus, dated June 25 and approved by the Financial Market Authority Liechtenstein, answers the redemption question explicitly. Under the heading “Can I physically receive the Underlying at redemption?” it states: “No. Investors are not entitled to receive physical delivery of the relevant Underlying. At redemption, the Investors will be entitled to receive the Redemption Amount, payable in the Specified Currency as cash.”

    The same document reinforces the point in its terms and conditions: “Physical delivery of the Underlying and/or Collateral is excluded and Investors’ interests will be settled in the Specified Currency as cash in the event of a redemption or termination.”

    Robinhood’s consumer-facing Stock Tokens page notes that holders “can also redeem them directly with the Issuer, where there is no authorized participant,” subject to know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering checks. That redemption pays cash. The issuer’s product page sets the redemption fee at zero for the first 90 days after issuance and 0.05% thereafter.

    The insolvency disclosure on the same page describes the same cash-settlement mechanism. If the issuer fails, “an independent security agent will sell the underlying shares, and arrange for the cash proceeds to be paid to token holders.”

    No Shareholder Rights Under Current Terms

    On voting, the prospectus is equally explicit: “The Investors in a Product are not entitled to any rights or claims to the relevant Underlying aside from those described in the Terms and Conditions. In particular, the Investors do not have shareholder rights in respect of the relevant Underlying. Accordingly, Investors do not have voting rights, participation or attendance rights, pre-emption rights in offers for subscription of securities relating to the relevant Underlying, any right to share in the profits of an issuer of such Underlying.”

    That language became central to a public dispute this month when AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron criticized the AMC stock token. Chief Legal Officer Dan Gallagher responded by telling Aron to “send your lawyers and we’ll educate them,” sparking a broader sector debate over which tokenized stock model prevails. Competitors have taken different approaches: Ondo Global Markets has added proxy voting through Broadridge outside the U.S., while Dinari’s dShares can be burned for redemption at market value.

    Shares Are Lent Out, Complicating Vote Pass-Through

    The final terms for individual tokens add a second structural obstacle to passing votes through to token holders. The Apple series, Series 14, states that “the Underlying may be lent out to the Prime Borrower, who is permitted to further lend the Underlying to End Borrowers and is obliged to provide an equivalent amount of Collateral to the Issuer.”

    During a loan, the prospectus specifies that “the borrower retains all incidents of ownership of the Lent Underlyings,” and “the Issuer waives voting rights and any rights to consent or take action with respect to the Lent Underlyings during the loan term.”

    The final terms also qualify the backing claim. Kerbrat wrote that “all Robinhood Stock Tokens are backed 1:1 with real shares in secure custody.” However, the Apple final terms clarify that where shares have been lent, “the Products in respect of such Series will not, to a greater extent, be backed or secured by the relevant Underlying themselves. Instead, the Prime Borrower is required to provide equivalent cash or other Eligible Financial Instruments as Collateral, in an amount equal to at least 100% of the market value of the Lent Underlyings.”

    The prospectus says the issuer “will provide information regarding the amount of Lent Underlyings on a regular basis on the Issuer Website.” The issuer site includes sections for corporate actions, price deviations, an FAQ, product details, service providers, restricted jurisdictions, and disclosures. None currently publishes a lending figure.

    Custody and Service Providers Disclosed

    The custody partner left unnamed on Robinhood’s marketing page is identified in the service provider list: Alpaca Securities LLC of New York, which acts as both custodian and broker. Bitstamp Global Ltd, a British Virgin Islands entity in the group Robinhood finished acquiring on June 2, 2025, serves as the authorized participant. Security Agent Services AG of Zug is the security and verification agent, and JPMorgan Chase Bank’s London branch holds the paying account.

    Say by Robinhood Cited as Voting Mechanism

    Kerbrat pointed to an existing Robinhood asset as the potential mechanism for enabling voting. “We run a shareholder engagement platform, Say by Robinhood, which allows shareholders to participate in actions like voting,” he wrote. Robinhood acquired Say Technologies in August 2021. The platform’s page for companies offers to “reach shareholders with proxy materials, prospectuses, shareholder meeting information, company updates, livestream Q&A, and other regulated communications.”

    Stock Token holders hold a claim on the issuer rather than the share itself. They are identified to Robinhood only if they complete the issuer’s KYC checks, and the tokens are not sold to residents of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland.

    Volume Figures and Market Context

    Kerbrat opened his thread with two key metrics: “Stock Tokens TVL reaching over $170M and nearly $50B in DEX volume on the Robinhood Chain.”

    According to CoinGecko, the Robinhood Chain stocks ecosystem holds $168.47 million across its tokens, with $212.08 million in 24-hour volume. The largest tokens by value are tokenized SPY at $24.6 million, NVDA at $22.4 million, and SpaceX at $11.2 million.

    The $50 billion figure is chain-wide. DefiLlama data shows Robinhood Chain processed $12.25 billion of decentralized exchange volume over seven days and $32.74 billion over 30 days, with total value locked at $916.6 million. Uniswap handles approximately 84% of that volume. The Defiant reported in July that the chain had surpassed Solana in tokenized stock volume, driven by memecoin pairs, and noted this month that tokenized equities traded $1.01 billion over a weekend with U.S. exchanges closed.

    Robinhood lists more than 190 Stock Tokens. HOOD shares traded at $113.85 at 2:35 p.m. ET, up 1.1% on the day, per CNBC.

    Onchain figures via DefiLlama and CoinGecko as of 18:30 UTC on Sept. 14. Legal terms via the RHJ base prospectus dated June 25, 2026 and the final terms for Series 14 (ISIN JE00BX9H9M76).

  • Supreme Court Rejects Trump Plan to Limit Mail-In Voting in Midterm Elections

    Supreme Court Rejects Trump Plan to Limit Mail-In Voting in Midterm Elections

    The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s controversial plan to change how mail ballots are sent to voters nationwide, blocking a proposal that election officials warned would have caused catastrophic consequences for the 2026 midterms.

    In one of the most significant cases on the court’s emergency docket in years, a majority of justices halted a procedure that would have granted the U.S. Postal Service unprecedented authority to withhold potentially millions of mail ballots. Even some Republican election officials cautioned the proposal could trigger chaos and mass disenfranchisement.

    The court ruled the administration “is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge” but provided minimal reasoning in its three-sentence, unsigned order. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.

    Major Setback for Trump’s Mail Voting Crusade

    The decision marks a significant loss for the president, who has spent years attacking mail voting with false claims of widespread fraud while continuing to vote by mail himself. The administration framed its proposal as a “modest” regulatory tweak intended to protect against alleged fraud. Critics, however, labeled it an unconstitutional power grab the Postal Service was unprepared to execute.

    CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

    Kavanaugh Concurs on Timing, Leaves Door Open for Future

    Justice Brett Kavanaugh, part of the court’s conservative wing, wrote a concurrence stating he believed the proposal might fall within USPS authority, but that “state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.”

    His reasoning acknowledged a flood of briefs from election officials arguing there was simply not enough time to implement the order this late in the cycle. The concurrence also suggested Kavanaugh could side with Alito and Thomas to approve similar changes for a future election.

    Alito Dismisses Practical Concerns, Cites Postal Authority

    In dissent, Alito argued the practical implementation concerns raised by election officials were insufficient grounds for the plaintiff states and voting rights groups to prevail.

    “The government has a strong interest in enforcing the rule, and implementing it will also ‘en­hance the visibility of Federal Ballot Mail’ in order to better detect election fraud,” Alito wrote. “On the other side of the balance, the plaintiff States invoke the practical ef­fects of implementing the rule close to the midterm elec­tions. I take that problem very seriously, but it is not enough to convince me to deny the application.”

    “That Hail Mary pass is unlikely to be successfully completed here,” Alito wrote. “The Postal Service has broad authority to regulate the mail.”

    Bipartisan Coalition Warned of Last-Minute Chaos

    Beyond the Democratic-led states and voting rights groups that challenged the proposal, a bipartisan coalition of election administrators, former governors, and others warned the justices against last-minute changes to mail ballot procedures. The Postal Service rule required states to upload massive voter datasets to an online portal that was not yet operational. It also mandated changes to ballot envelopes that had already been purchased and, in many states, already mailed to voters.

    Officials Celebrate Ruling as Defense of Democracy

    The plaintiffs praised the court’s decision late Monday.

    “Trump’s attempt to sabotage the 2026 elections has failed,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat.

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta, also a Democrat, called the high court’s decision a “victory for our democracy and a powerful affirmation of the rule of law.”

    The administration argued the changes were necessary to secure ballots and ensure only eligible voters receive them. A coalition of two dozen Democratic-led states and voting groups countered the effort was a power grab by a president who has long falsely alleged widespread voter fraud in mail ballot systems.

    Court Prioritizes Voter Harm Over Administrative Burden

    In recent emergency docket rulings, the court has often found the Trump administration harmed when lower courts block controversial policies. In this case, however, the court determined that “equitable factors”—the potential harm to voters—outweighed those concerns.

    The emergency appeal, filed last week, was the third time the administration raced to the Supreme Court on this policy. In late August, the court allowed the president to proceed on technical grounds related to lawsuit timing. A lower federal court blocked the changes days later.

    Under the Constitution, states and Congress determine voting procedures—not the White House or the post office.

    Order Required Voter Lists, Barcodes, and Prosecution Threats

    The president’s order required states to submit eligible voter lists to the USPS. The agency would then be barred from delivering ballots to anyone not on those lists. It also mandated tracking barcodes on ballot envelopes and “prioritized” federal prosecution of state election officials who send or receive ballots to non-citizens or other ineligible voters.

    Whistleblower Warned of Mass Ballot Withholding

    While the Supreme Court deliberated, a Postal Service whistleblower issued stark warnings. The whistleblower’s report revealed that if a single ballot had a barcode issue, officials would decline to deliver the entire batch of mailings containing that envelope. The report also described a rushed effort to launch an online data-sharing system that could make the complex plan even more vulnerable to mass disenfranchisement.

    No Evidence of Widespread Fraud; Multiple Courts Rejected Plan

    Trump has long promoted conspiracy theories about mail voting to discredit the 2020 presidential election he lost. Improper voting remains exceedingly rare, and the administration has never produced evidence of widespread fraud capable of influencing the 2020 outcome or any other contest.

    Multiple federal courts rejected the proposal. Over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump nominee in Washington, D.C., became the latest to pause the USPS rule for the midterms.