Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong calls for financial literacy test to replace accredited investor rules

The SEC granted temporary, conditional exemptive relief on September 17 allowing approved venues to trade tokenized exchange-listed stocks onchain, sending Robinhood Markets Inc. shares up just over 9% on September 18 after a 5% gain the previous session. The relief exempts qualifying venues from the Exchange Act's definitions of "exchange" and, for certain liquidity providers, "dealer," but it requires full shareholder rights including voting and dividends, meaning Robinhood's existing stock tokens, which are synthetic products offering economic exposure rather than actual ownership, do not qualify. The order also lets listed companies object to third-party tokenization within 30 days, a provision directly at odds with the public stance of CEO Vlad Tenev, and the relief remains temporary and subject to public comments, with Coinbase and the NYSE's planned 24/7 digital venue potentially entering the compliant space first. Robinhood traded roughly 31.7 million shares, about 1.37 times its one-month average, though the stock sits about 28% below its 52-week high, with a forward P/E of 45.46x against a sector median of 10.88x. Hedge fund holders rose from 84 at the end of the first quarter of 2026 to 87 at the end of the second quarter of 2026, and short interest stood at 4.54% of float as of August 31, 2026.

Coinbase has completed its integration of Deribit, the world's largest crypto options exchange, which it acquired for about $2.9 billion, creating Coinbase Global Exchange, the first and only crypto exchange with a unified global liquidity pool. Liz Martin, co-CEO of Coinbase Institutional, announced the completion of the integration at Token2049 in Singapore, saying the new exchange brings US and international customers into one place and combines the company's US retail base with its international base alongside an upgrade of its professional trading tools, Coinbase Advanced. Martin said Coinbase is launching spot margin and options for pro traders in a unified portfolio offering maximum buying power and lower fees, and that the company has "super ambitious" volume growth plans. She said Coinbase is diversifying revenue through an "everything exchange" that now includes equities, equity options, perpetual futures, pre-IPOs, commodities and prediction markets, and that the company announced last week a clearing platform for prediction markets in the US along with intentions to launch its own prediction markets. On tokenization, Martin said Coinbase recently launched tokenized equities for customers outside the US, giving holders the same shareholder rights as actual stock ownership, and cited a survey finding that about 60% of its institutional clients are excited about tokenization and investing in tokenized assets. She said Coinbase sees the APAC region as a major growth area, having opened a new headquarters in Singapore about two months ago and acquired licenses in Australia and India.

The Solana Foundation announced Solana DvP, a settlement platform for financial institutions, in New York on October 6. It aims to execute asset delivery and payment simultaneously on the Solana blockchain, completing securities trade settlement in seconds. J.P. Morgan advised on the practices and requirements of securities settlement at financial institutions. The Solana Foundation is offering it as an open-source settlement platform that companies can use in common. DvP stands for Delivery versus Payment, a settlement method that links the delivery of securities with payment of the purchase price. According to the Solana Foundation, institutional investor transactions on conventional blockchains have often relied on individually built smart contracts, but Solana DvP aims to standardize this settlement processing and will be released under the MIT license, allowing use and modification. The platform supports Solana's major token standards and also offers functions such as issuer control over transfers and the ability to pause them. It envisions banks, asset custody companies, exchanges and others acting as settlement agents. However, it is limited to transactions in which both the assets and the payment instrument are tokens on Solana. Technical documentation from the Solana Foundation explains that while simultaneous settlement removes principal risk between parties, the credit risk and redemption risk of token issuers remain. Efforts to link the delivery of digital securities with payment are also advancing in Japan. Nine companies including Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation announced on October 6 that they had completed the second phase of a proof-of-concept experiment for simultaneous settlement of digital securities using stablecoins. The Solana Foundation says Solana DvP has undergone an external security audit and is ready for use with real funds. Meanwhile, it is recruiting partner companies and initial participants ahead of the full release.

Strive purchased 2,000 bitcoin for approximately $169 million, nearly six times the 334 bitcoin that Strategy announced buying the previous day, bringing Strive's total holdings to 29,462 bitcoin at an average price of $84,422 per coin. CEO Matt Cole said SETA preferred stock sales accounted for 61.5% of the capital raised, with warrant exercises generating another $56.7 million, and Strive now carries roughly $1.29 billion of SETA preferred stock with about $168 million in annual dividend obligations. Separately, the SEC approved the CBOE's request to list the first US products delivering three times the daily returns of bitcoin and ether, to be operated by Volatility Shares using regulated bitcoin and ether futures rather than the tokens themselves, doubling the previous 2X cap on US crypto funds. The CFTC also floated a new federal framework for leveraged retail crypto trading, proposing a crypto asset market registration category with token listing standards, market surveillance and anti-manipulation rules, proof of reserves for pooled customer assets, capital requirements, segregation of customer assets, risk disclosures, and KYC and anti-money laundering controls, while stating it cannot require crypto to trade on its platforms without Congress. Treasury withdrew a 2020 self-hosted wallet rule and a 2023 crypto mixer reporting rule, citing concerns over a chilling effect on legitimate activity, and Rain filed an application with the OCC to establish Rain National Trust Bank, following similar moves by Modern Treasury as community banks sue the OCC over federal trust charters for crypto companies. Ondo Finance also launched Ondo private markets with tokenized pre-IPO AI exposure, beginning with an unnamed pre-IPO AI business, offering tokenized notes linked to the company's economic performance rather than actual shares.

South Korean IT giant LG CNS announced on October 6 that it has begun offering KITL, a blockchain platform for financial institutions. It is being provided as a common foundation for banks, securities firms, card companies and others to build services using stablecoins, security tokens, and real-world assets. KITL includes functions needed to custody digital assets, such as electronic wallets, transaction processing on the blockchain, and collection of transaction histories, and its electronic wallet uses technology employed in Project Hangang, the digital currency pilot led by the Bank of Korea. LG CNS has also formed business partnerships with five companies: Circle, the issuer of the US dollar-pegged stablecoin USDC; Securitize, which operates a digital securities platform; Canton Foundation; Chainalysis; and Chainlink. By combining these companies' technologies with KITL, it will support financial institutions in building digital asset services. South Korea is also moving forward with regulatory groundwork to allow stocks, bonds, funds and other assets to be issued and traded on the blockchain, with the relevant law scheduled to take effect on February 4, 2027, and LG CNS says it will prepare an environment in which financial institutions can launch services in step with the law's implementation.