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Lithuania’s central financial institution on Monday mentioned it has contacted Robinhood looking for clarifications over its tokenized equities after OpenAI raised considerations over the product final week.
“We’ve contacted Robinhood and are awaiting clarifications concerning the construction of OpenAI and SpaceX inventory tokens in addition to the associated shopper communication,” Financial institution of Lithuania spokesman Giedrius Šniukas advised CNBC by way of e mail.
“Solely after receiving and evaluating this info will we have the ability to assess the legality and compliance of those particular devices. The knowledge for buyers have to be supplied in clear, honest, and non-misleading language.”
The Financial institution of Lithuania is Robinhood’s lead regulator in the European Union after the corporate obtained a brokerage license and crypto asset service supplier license from the central financial institution. Robinhood was not instantly accessible for remark when contacted by CNBC.
It comes shortly after OpenAI distanced itself from Robinhood’s “Inventory Tokens” product. Launched on June 30, the product offers customers within the EU the flexibility to put money into shares within the type of blockchain-based tokens, in line with Robinhood — even for privately held corporations like OpenAI and SpaceX.
Following Robinhood’s announcement of the brand new token providing, OpenAI took to social media platform X to warn customers that “these ‘OpenAI tokens’ are usually not OpenAI fairness.”
“We didn’t associate with Robinhood, weren’t concerned on this, and don’t endorse it,” the corporate mentioned on the time, including “any switch of OpenAI fairness requires our approval — we didn’t approve any switch” and urging customers to strategy the product with warning.
In response to OpenAI’s warning final week, Robinhood had mentioned that its inventory tokens “give retail buyers oblique publicity to non-public markets, opening up entry, and are enabled by Robinhood’s possession stake in a particular function car.”
