Robinhood's trading volume in tokenized stocks is already large enough to collide with the volume caps set by the Securities and Exchange Commission's innovation exemption for tokenized U.S. equities, according to Johann Kerbrat, the firm's senior vice president and general manager of crypto and international.

Speaking to The Block at Korea Blockchain Week 2026, Kerbrat said Robinhood is still working through the SEC order, which he described as a lengthy document that imposed limits on trading volume and on which assets can be tokenized.

"We're still trying to understand all the parameters of it," Kerbrat said. "There are limitations on the volume, and what type of assets we can tokenize. If you look at our volume on our stock tokens, it's already pretty high and will hit some of its limits."

The SEC issued the five-year exemption on Sept. 17. It allows certain U.S. venues to trade tokenized versions of listed stocks without registering as exchanges, subject to caps on the number of symbols and on trading volume. The order also requires the tokens to carry the same rights as the underlying shares, and obliges venues to notify issuers, who retain the right to object.

Despite the operational constraints, Kerbrat framed the order as a constructive signal from the regulator. "Overall, I think what is really important from this signal with the exemption is that the SEC wants to work toward tokenization and understand the advantage of it," he said. "So we're really continuing to push toward more adoption of stock tokens and also a broader coverage of U.S. stocks and ETFs."

Stock tokens and the AMC dispute

Robinhood's Stock Tokens are issued as debt securities by a Jersey-based entity and distributed in more than 120 countries through Robinhood Wallet. They are not offered to U.S. users. The SEC order, by contrast, covers tokenized National Market System stocks that carry the same rights as the underlying shares — a structural distinction that shapes how Robinhood can bring the product onshore.

Kerbrat and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev both said earlier this month that the company will add in-kind redemption and voting rights to stock tokens. Kerbrat told The Block those features were planned before the public dispute with AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron, and that in-kind redemption had been discussed at a July 1 event in London.

"Some of the criticism from the AMC CEO, if you look at it, it's mostly a marketing stunt," Kerbrat said. "We stand behind the legal structure of our systems." Aron had publicly criticized Robinhood's stock tokens in September, calling them illegal offerings and saying AMC had not consented to them.

Perpetual futures go onshore

Separately, Robinhood is bringing crypto perpetual futures onshore. Announced on Sept. 29, the offering will let U.S. users trade perps on eight cryptocurrencies: BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, ADA, LINK and HYPE.

Kerbrat pointed to the clearing architecture as the product's main differentiator. "The way it works is that you have this waterfall clearing system that is global, that some of the venues that are launching, for example with Kalshi, did not really support. That's really the main aspect," he said. Robinhood also recalculates funding rates continuously on the exchange, whereas competing platforms recalculate them every 15 minutes, he added.

Leverage tiers were Robinhood's own decision, Kerbrat explained: 10x on bitcoin and ether, and 3x on the six other listed tokens. Raising U.S. leverage limits is "TBD," depending on how users trade and how liquidity develops.

He declined to outline a 2027 U.S. derivatives roadmap, though he noted that commodity and ETF perpetuals have drawn interest in Europe. Robinhood has no single-stock perpetual plans to announce, he said, pointing to the firm's existing options business as the venue where customers already build multi-leg strategies.

With the SEC's exemption window running five years from Sept. 17 and volume caps already in sight, Robinhood's stock-token expansion in the U.S. now depends on how the commission adjusts those limits as tokenized equity markets scale.