A very interesting argument is taking place between Wall Street and Crypto.

AMC CEO Adam Aron publicly demanded that Robinhood stop trading the so-called AMC stock tokens, and even said he was prepared to take the issue to the SEC.

Robinhood’s response was also very tough:

“We support Stock Tokens.”

On the surface, the two sides are arguing over one AMC stock.

What they are really fighting over behind the scenes is a question that could affect a future trillion-dollar market:

After stocks are moved onto the blockchain, what exactly are you buying?

First, let’s translate the complicated concept.

If you buy 1 share of AMC normally, you are a shareholder of AMC.

But Robinhood itself wrote very clearly in its official documents:

Some of its current Stock Tokens are classified as “tokenised debt securities” — tokenized debt securities.

These tokens can track the economic performance of a certain stock, but holders do not thereby obtain the legal or beneficial ownership of the underlying company.

In other words:

You can buy an on-chain asset whose price follows AMC,

But that does not mean your name enters AMC’s shareholder register, nor does it automatically give you the shareholder rights attached to traditional stock.

That is exactly what has angered AMC’s CEO.

He believes Robinhood, without AMC’s participation, created a parallel market linked to AMC’s stock price, which may affect the company’s financing and lead investors to believe they are buying the “real AMC stock.”

Robinhood, meanwhile, is betting on a very different future.

In July this year, Robinhood Chain officially launched, and its new generation of stock tokens is already available to qualified users in more than 120 countries.

These assets can:

24-hour trading,

enter a DEX,

Use them for lending,

and even as collateral in DeFi.

That’s what makes stock tokens truly attractive.

Traditional stocks:

You can’t trade on weekends,
settlement and cross-border transfer have barriers,
and it is also hard to enter DeFi directly.

Once stocks go on-chain:

Stocks may start to flow like crypto.

But this time AMC also exposed the biggest loophole:

“The price follows the stock” and “actually owning the stock” are two completely different things.

At present, stock tokens on the market exist in at least several structures:

Some are only price mirrors;

Some are backed by custody of real stocks;

There is also a type that aims to move actual equity registration directly on-chain.

CoinDesk data shows that the stock token market has already grown to about $3.6 billion. This dispute will not stop RWA from continuing to develop, but it is very likely to force regulators to answer one question:

What kind of product is qualified to be called a “Tokenized Stock”?

There are two scenarios ahead.

Scenario A: The Robinhood model is approved by regulators

24/7 stock trading, on-chain collateral, and DeFi combinations continue to expand.

Then the boundary between crypto exchanges and traditional brokerages will become increasingly blurred.

Scenario B: Regulators require stock tokens to correspond to real equity

then many products that currently only offer “price exposure” will have to be redesigned.

This may instead benefit RWA infrastructure that truly handles asset custody, equity registration, and on-chain settlement.

So this fight between AMC and Robinhood looks like two CEOs just lashing out at each other.

In fact, the real dispute is over:

When tens of trillions of dollars’ worth of stocks are moved on-chain, who defines what counts as a “stock”?#amc #Robinhood