Robinhood Markets Chief Executive Vlad Tenev on Wednesday publicly defended the trading platform’s stock token products after AMC Entertainment Holdings Chief Executive Adam Aron criticized tokens linked to AMC shares and called for an end to their trading.

Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Tenev delivered his first televised comments since the dispute intensified last week. He maintained that publicly traded companies cannot dictate every financial instrument built around their shares once those shares trade openly.

Tenev’s Core Argument on Issuer Authority

Tenev stated that issuers retain control over the rights and obligations of the stock they themselves issue. That authority, he said, does not extend to securities created by other entities that simply reference those shares.

He added that whether issuer consent is required depends on the specific structure of the product. In the case of Robinhood’s stock tokens, he argued, automatic consent from the referenced company should not be necessary.

How Robinhood Stock Tokens Are Structured

According to Tenev and company disclosures, each stock token functions as a debt security issued by Robinhood Assets (Jersey) Limited, a separate legal entity. The tokens are backed one-to-one by corresponding underlying shares held as collateral with U.S. custodian Alpaca Securities LLC.

Token holders receive economic exposure to price movements in the referenced stock and a mechanism that reinvests dividend distributions into additional underlying shares. They receive no voting rights and hold no legal ownership interest in the underlying company. Their claim sits solely against the token issuer.

Robinhood has confirmed the products are unavailable to U.S. persons and are offered only to eligible investors in select jurisdictions outside the United States. The company expanded its tokenized stock offering to cover AMC and more than 190 other companies.

When asked about voting the collateral shares, Tenev said Robinhood has not yet announced a policy on that matter.

AMC’s Strong Objection and Regulatory Threat

AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron first raised objections on the social platform X. He stated that AMC had no involvement in the creation of the tokens and did not approve of them. Aron described the practice in harsh terms and demanded that Robinhood cease trading the AMC-linked tokens.

Aron further argued that the tokens pretend to represent a form of stock ownership while disclosures confirm they do not, and that they deprive investors of associated rights. He said the structure decouples token ownership from a company’s ability to control its own capital-raising efforts. AMC’s securities counsel was directed to examine possible legal steps, and Aron indicated the company would raise the matter with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Robinhood Chief Legal Officer Dan Gallagher, a former SEC commissioner, responded publicly that the firm knows U.S. securities laws well and would not cease the offering.

Industry Perspectives on Tokenization

The dispute has drawn comments from other market participants. Archax Chief Executive Graham Rodford noted a material difference between placing an actual share on a blockchain and creating a separate security designed to track its value.

Securitize Chief Executive Carlos Domingo pointed to pricing risks, citing an AMC-linked token trading pair that reportedly changed hands at roughly 60 times the reference share price. He said thin token markets can diverge sharply from the value of the underlying stock.

No formal lawsuit or SEC enforcement action regarding the AMC tokens had been publicly identified as of the latest reports. The products remain available to eligible international users while the legal and regulatory questions surrounding issuer consent for tokenized equity products continue unresolved.