OpenAI Warns That Tokenized Equity Sale on Robinhood Is Unauthorized

Tokenized fairness choices for OpenAI being provided to Robinhood customers in Europe usually are not formally approved by the corporate, the AI large stated in a social media submit.

“These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity. We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it,” OpenAI posted on X. “Any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval — we did not approve any transfer.”

Earlier this week, Robinhood introduced it was launching tokenized inventory buying and selling based mostly on the Arbitrum blockchain to its customers in Europe. As CoinDesk reported earlier, customers can have entry to 200 equities and ETFs, in addition to a secondary marketplace for fairness in scorching startups like OpenAI and SpaceX.

The concept of tokenized fairness in not-yet public corporations is nothing new.

In 2018, a blockchain startup known as Swarm stated it might quickly offer tokenized shares in startups — together with Robinhood.

CoinDesk reported on the time that lots of the corporations Swarm claimed it might offer fairness in pushed again and stated such a sale could be unauthorized however Swarm stated every little thing got here from “approved secondary market transactions.”

Looking at Robinhood’s present tokenized providing, it is unclear the place the supply of fairness is. There is a few hypothesis that the fairness represents curiosity in OpenAI shares which have been already acquired through approved channels, based mostly on feedback made by Robinhood’s CEO.

Others have warned that OpenAI — and different startups — could be effectively inside their rights to not honor the sale.

“I expect this natural tension to result in more private companies just cancelling equity sales altogether for those who violate their shareholders’ agreements,” Dragonfly General Partner Rob Hadick posted on X.

Robinhood didn’t reply to a request for remark from CoinDesk.