Robinhood’s OpenAI Tokens: Get Rich Quick!* (*Terms & Existential Doubts Apply)

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What the Discerning Speculator Must Know:

  • Robinhood’s tantalising “exposure” to OpenAI cleverly avoids anything so vulgar as actual ownership. Instead, one is granted the dubious pleasure of riding in a special purpose vehicle. BYO seatbelt. 🚗
  • OpenAI insists, with all the gravity of a widow guarding her late husband’s port, that any transfer of equity requires their most gracious approval. Do they approve? Absolutely not.
  • The refined precedents! Consider Linqto, whose own magical tokens vanished into bankruptcy, possibly pursued by bailiffs and unanswered emails. Investor protection? Only in spirit, one imagines. 👻

Tokens, tokens everywhere, but not a share to drink! Robinhood’s Vladimir Tenev, suavely perspiring beneath CNBC studio lights, assures us the tokens dangle not actual equity—but are “backed” in some mysterious sense by Robinhood’s position in that ever-fashionable special purpose vehicle.

OpenAI, meanwhile, recently dispatched a note reminding the starry-eyed that these tokens do not, in the eyes of law or common sense, convey actual OpenAI equity. And if you wish your tokens to become equity, do collect several letters of approval from OpenAI in triplicate—none will be forthcoming. 📑

“I don’t think it’s terribly relevant that it’s not technically equity,” Tenev explained, with all the breezy assurance of a man selling timeshares in the Azores to distracted aristocrats. “The important thing is that retail customers have a shot at exposure.” To what, precisely, remains deliciously unclear.

Should one feel nostalgic, Linqto’s fate offers a cautionary side dish: their SPVs, which once fluttered around pre-IPO companies, ended in a bankruptcy mess that left customers holding rather less than hoped—save for unanswered queries and perhaps a collectible bankruptcy notice.

Among Linqto’s erstwhile amusements was Ripple (XRP). Its estimable CEO Brad Garlinghouse, beating a hasty but public retreat, declared, “We stopped approving more Linqto purchases in late 2024 amid growing skepticism.” Ah, the modern twist on etiquette—airing one’s doubts on Twitter instead of at the club! 🥃

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2025-07-09 09:36