According to a statement shared by Robinhood chief executive Vlad Tenev on X on Tuesday, Robinhood Securities is now approved to serve as an underwriter, allowing the company to move beyond distributing IPO shares and into the group of firms that help bring companies public. Summary Robinhood Securities has received approval to serve as an IPO underwriter, expanding its role in public market offerings. A Talos and Coin Metrics report said onchain pre IPO futures are emerging as an additional signal of investor demand ahead of major listings. Tenev did not specify which regulator granted the approval. In the U.S., underwriting activities typically fall under oversight from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Robinhood Securities is now approved to serve as an underwriter. Since IPO Access launched in 2021, we’ve watched retail go from an afterthought to a key part of how companies plan an IPO. The question changed from “why allocate to retail at all?” to “how big can the allocation…— Vlad Tenev (@vladtenev) June 9, 2026 Describing the development as the next stage of Robinhood’s IPO strategy, Tenev said the conversation around retail participation in public offerings has changed considerably since the company launched IPO Access in 2021. The approval adds another business line to Robinhood’s expanding financial services operation and comes less than a week after the company completed its $180 million acquisition of WonderFi, bringing Canadian crypto exchanges Bitbuy and Coinsquare under its umbrella and giving it access to about 300,000 funded customer accounts in Canada. Crypto markets offer another route to private company exposure While Robinhood pushes for a larger role in traditional capital markets, crypto trading venues have been building products that offer investors exposure to private companies before they reach public exchanges. Several platforms now provide tokenized or blockchain-based alternatives tied to private market assets, including pre-IPO products from Bybit, Kraken and Coinbase. Those offerings have emerged alongside growing activity in onchain derivatives linked to private companies. A report released Tuesday by Talos and Coin Metrics said pre-IPO perpetual futures traded on blockchain networks are increasingly functioning as a source of price discovery ahead of public listings. The report stated that participation comes from a mix of retail traders, crypto-focused investment firms and professional market makers. SpaceX-related contracts on Hyperliquid have generated billions of dollars in trading volume and hundreds of millions of dollars in open interest, according to the report. Talos and Coin Metrics also pointed to Cerebras Systems as an example of how those markets have tracked investor expectations. The report said Hyperliquid’s pre-IPO futures traded within about 1% of the stock’s eventual opening price after listing, even though the IPO itself was priced considerably lower by underwriters.
