Robinhood announced DFSA authorization and a Dubai International Financial Centre headquarters on October 22, with a Middle East rollout planned for 2027. Regulatory permission precedes customer availability.
TL;DRRobinhood’s statement covers trading and custody. Those are separate functions, with different responsibilities for handling customer orders and safeguarding assets.
The regulator’s own crypto framework explains that financial-services activities involving crypto tokens in or from DIFC require appropriate authorization. It also distinguishes the use of a token from the regulated service performed with it. That distinction is relevant when a platform combines dealing, custody and access to several kinds of asset.
A regional headquarters is a base from which to build a business. It does not, by itself, establish that every product will be available to every resident of every nearby country. Customer eligibility depends on the permissions and terms governing the particular offering.
Those boundaries can be easy to miss in an app with a unified interface. Two products may sit next to each other on a screen while using different custodians, settlement processes or contractual protections.
Stock-linked perpetual contracts illustrate the importance of checking the instrument. Exposure to a share price does not necessarily mean owning the share or receiving the rights of its shareholder.
Authorization creates the possibility of service; the customer experience depends on execution. Deposits, currency conversion, withdrawals, support and account recovery all become part of whether a platform is practical for ordinary users.
A low headline trading commission, for example, cannot describe the complete cost of funding an account in one currency and buying an asset quoted in another. The exchange rate, transfer method and timing can change the amount that reaches the market.
For crypto, custody arrangements add another decision. A balance recorded by a platform and assets held in a personal wallet expose users to different operational responsibilities. NewsBTC’s examination of institutional key-control structures shows why custody needs more explanation than a generic security claim.
The DFSA’s implementation guidance also identifies token-suitability assessment and continuing monitoring as regulatory concerns. Permission to operate a business is not an assurance about the future price of every asset it offers.
As with the expansion of tokenized equities, the useful next evidence will be the actual product documentation and working service. Robinhood has supplied a timetable and an authorization milestone; the rollout will determine how those translate into access.
Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
Bitcoin Magazine
Robinhood Wins Dubai License to Bring Bitcoin and Stock Trading to the Middle East in 2027
Robinhood Markets has received authorization from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) to offer retail trading and custody across 10 asset classes, including bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, equities, ETFs and investment tokens, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
The platform is set to go live in the region in 2027 from a new hub in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), a special economic zone that will serve as the firm’s Middle East and North Africa headquarters.
Salah Kaddoura has been named senior executive officer and president of Robinhood MENA. The title is a DFSA-recognized role, which makes him the person regulators will call. He will build out the Dubai team ahead of launch.
“The DIFC is one of the world’s most important financial hubs, and our expansion there brings us closer to building a global platform that enables anyone, anywhere to own the highest quality financial assets,” said Vlad Tenev, Robinhood’s chairman and CEO, in the company statement.
JUST IN:
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) October 22, 2026Robinhood has been approved by the Dubai Financial Services Authority to launch Bitcoin and digital asset trading in the Middle East
pic.twitter.com/8jBNriCnP9
Dubai extends a run of expansion beyond the US, where the app made its name with young investors trading single stocks.
Robinhood entered the UK in 2024, opened full operations in the European Union last year, won in-principle approval for brokerage services in Singapore in April, and closed its purchase of Canadian crypto platform WonderFi in June.
At home, it added weekend trading and perpetual futures in September. The company says it counts more than one million customers outside the US.
Johann Kerbrat, who runs crypto and international for Robinhood, framed the Dubai move around a wave of new retail investors in the region. He is the same executive who disclosed on October 7 that Robinhood had put $25 million of bitcoin on its own balance sheet, the first time the firm held BTC as a corporate asset rather than on behalf of customers.
The DFSA has signed off on Robinhood holding client digital assets, not routing trades alone. For a firm that took years to enable bitcoin withdrawals in the United States, being cleared for custody from day one in a new jurisdiction says something about how far its crypto operation has matured.
Robinhood arrives in a financial center that keeps growing despite the war with Iran and tension across the region. The DIFC passed 10,000 active registered firms this year and continues to draw global names, Ken Griffin’s Citadel among them.
In March, it opened a cluster of new towers with 600,000 square feet of commercial space, with Deutsche Bank and Moody’s among the tenants, according to Bloomberg. Proprietary trading firm Maven said this week it will close its New York office as it shifts weight to Dubai.
Competition will not be thin. The DIFC listed 72 authorized brokerages as of March 31, and several crypto-native exchanges hold licenses from Dubai’s separate Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.
Robinhood has not said which countries will be served at launch, what pricing will look like, or how “eligible investors” will be defined, and that last point will decide the size of the addressable market.
This post Robinhood Wins Dubai License to Bring Bitcoin and Stock Trading to the Middle East in 2027 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
TL;DR: Uniswap generated approximately $14.81 million in protocol revenue during September, with Robinhood Chain contributing about 53% of the total. Tokenized-stock trading is changing where the exchange earns its fees.
Uniswap’s strongest reported revenue month has come from an unexpected direction: a relatively new network associated with a mainstream brokerage.
September protocol revenue reached approximately $14.81 million, according to figures discussed by Token Terminal and reported on October 17. Robinhood Chain, which launched in July, accounted for roughly 53% of that amount. That works out to nearly $7.9 million from one network alone.
For a decentralized exchange better known for swapping crypto tokens, the source of the growth matters as much as the total. Tokenized stocks and other on-chain representations of traditional assets have created an additional pool of transactions from which trading fees can be earned.
That does not mean traditional finance has simply moved onto Uniswap. Products differ in their legal rights, issuer structures and geographic restrictions, and some stock-linked tokens are not equivalent to holding the underlying shares directly. But revenue generated from these instruments is real economic activity for the trading protocol.
It also creates a concentration question. If more than half of one month’s revenue comes from a single network, changes in that network’s trading incentives, competition or activity could move Uniswap’s results sharply in either direction.
The September figures illustrate an important change in the business of decentralized exchanges. Crypto-to-crypto speculation is no longer the only activity capable of generating material protocol fees. Whether the new revenue mix lasts will depend on recurring trading demand, not one standout month.
Bitcoin Magazine
Robinhood Adds Bitcoin to Its Balance Sheet: A Strategic Signal from a $100B Fintech
Robinhood has taken a clear step into corporate Bitcoin ownership. On October 7, 2026, Johann Kerbrat, the company’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Crypto and International, disclosed that Robinhood has added $25 million worth of Bitcoin to its own corporate balance sheet—its first proprietary BTC holding.
Kerbrat framed the purchase as more than a financial allocation. Speaking in an interview at the Digital Asset Summit Asia, he described it as a deliberate signal of commitment: “We care deeply about bitcoin and the ecosystem around it. For us, it’s more aligning our company and our vision with the crypto community.” He was equally clear about scale, noting that Robinhood’s market capitalization sits around $100 billion and that “the $25 million worth of bitcoin is not going to change a lot of the current trajectory of the company.”
The company did not disclose an exact coin count. Using this week’s average price near $84,960, the outlay equates to approximately 294 BTC. Other estimates based on prices around $84,000 place it near 300 BTC. The precise figure is expected to appear in Robinhood’s next public filing.
For Bitcoin For Corporations, the absolute size is less important than the decision itself. Robinhood is a publicly traded fintech platform with massive retail reach. Moving from solely facilitating customer crypto trading to holding Bitcoin as a corporate treasury asset represents a meaningful shift in posture. It is the difference between offering the product and putting principal capital behind the thesis.
This is distinct from the much larger pool of digital assets Robinhood already holds in custody for customers—roughly 185,000 BTC (approximately $15.5 billion) plus other cryptocurrencies, totaling around $25 billion across multiple chains according to on-chain analysis. Those assets belong to users. The new $25 million position belongs to the company.
Kerbrat’s comments make clear this is an initial step rather than the launch of a large-scale treasury program akin to Strategy’s. The amount is modest relative to Robinhood’s cash position and market value—roughly half a percent of reported cash holdings in some analyses and a rounding error against a $100 billion valuation. Yet first allocations of this kind often serve as internal and external catalysts: they align incentives, educate boards and investors, and create optionality for future expansion.
In the broader corporate landscape, the purchase lands alongside continued accumulation by established Bitcoin treasury companies. Strategy, for example, acquired 334 BTC for approximately $28.7 million in early October at an average price near $85,839, bringing its total holdings higher. Robinhood’s outlay sits in a similar dollar neighborhood but marks an entry point rather than an addition to an already dominant position.
Corporate Bitcoin adoption continues to mature from niche experiment to recognized strategic tool. Companies are increasingly evaluating Bitcoin as a reserve asset, a hedge against monetary debasement, a long-duration store of value, and a market signal that can differentiate them with investors and stakeholders. Robinhood’s move fits this pattern: a high-profile operating company in the financial sector publicly affirming Bitcoin’s role on the balance sheet.
For other public and pre-IPO companies watching, the lesson is practical. Allocations do not need to be transformative on day one to be strategically valuable. Clear messaging, disciplined sizing relative to overall capital structure, and alignment with the firm’s broader vision can turn a modest purchase into a credible signal. The next questions for Robinhood—and for peers considering similar steps—will center on governance frameworks, custody arrangements, accounting treatment, investor relations positioning, and whether this initial holding evolves into a more systematic treasury strategy.
Robinhood’s decision adds another data point to the growing list of public companies treating Bitcoin as a corporate asset. At Bitcoin For Corporations, we view every such step—large or small—as progress toward normalizing Bitcoin on balance sheets with clarity, confidence, and capital efficiency.
Disclaimer: This content was prepared on behalf of Bitcoin For Corporations for informational purposes only. It reflects the author’s own analysis and opinion and should not be relied upon as investment advice. Nothing in this article constitutes an offer, invitation, or solicitation to purchase, sell, or subscribe for any security or financial product.
This post Robinhood Adds Bitcoin to Its Balance Sheet: A Strategic Signal from a $100B Fintech first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Nick Ward.
Bitcoin Magazine
Bitcoin’s Institutional Era Has Arrived | Robinhood VP of Crypto Institutions Nicola White
Robinhood is bringing crypto perpetual futures to US customers, with up to 10x leverage on Bitcoin and Ether. Nicola White, Robinhood’s vice president of institutional crypto, explains how the CFTC no-action letter, the Bitstamp exchange, and Robinhood Derivatives made it happen, and why the company wants markets to be always on.
Chapters:
0:00 Robinhood’s Hood Summit: 24/7 Stock Trading and US Crypto Perps
0:40 Why Robinhood Wants Markets That Never Close
1:32 Bitstamp Perps and the CFTC No-Action Letter
2:19 Tokenized Stocks, the Basis Trade, and the Path for US Perps
3:20 Bitstamp’s Volume and the Retail–Institutional Merger
4:54 What Institutions Want to Do With Bitcoin
6:00 Institutional Bitcoin Depth and Large Block Trades
6:49 AI Trading Agents and Robinhood’s Sub-Account Controls
8:29 Lessons From the 2022 Meltdown and US Leverage Limits
10:12 How Bitcoin Changes Finance in 10 Years and What’s Next for Tokenized Stocks
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.
This post Bitcoin’s Institutional Era Has Arrived | Robinhood VP of Crypto Institutions Nicola White first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.
KuCoin is expanding further into tokenized equities, adding four new xStocks to its spot market.
The exchange opened trading for tokenized versions of Apple, Robinhood, Strategy and SpaceX on September 23, giving eligible users another route into equity-linked assets without using a traditional brokerage account.
The new assets trade under AAPLX, HOODX, MSTRX and SPCXX.
KuCoin says the tokens are issued on Solana and each xStock is fully collateralized on a 1:1 basis by the corresponding underlying asset held with a regulated custodian.
That structure is important.
These are not simply crypto tokens whose prices happen to track stocks through an oracle.
The model is designed around securities being held against the token supply, giving each token an underlying asset relationship.
Apple and SpaceX trading opened at 14:30 UTC on September 23, with Robinhood and Strategy following at 15:00 UTC.
KuCoin also enabled the new pairs across several automated trading products, including Spot Grid, DCA and Smart Rebalance.
The biggest limitation is access.
KuCoin excludes users from a long list of jurisdictions from trading xStocks, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, much of the European Union, Singapore and Japan.
That reflects the awkward regulatory position tokenized equities still occupy.
Putting a stock on a blockchain may improve settlement and make fractional ownership easier, but it does not make securities law disappear.
SpaceX adds another wrinkle because the company remains privately held.
Its tokenized representation should therefore not be confused with buying shares directly from SpaceX or participating in an official company offering.
The broader direction, though, is becoming difficult to miss.
Crypto exchanges increasingly want to offer more than crypto.
Tokenized stocks give them a way to bring traditional financial exposure into the same 24/7 infrastructure used for stablecoins and digital assets.
KuCoin’s four new listings are another step toward that combined market — even if regulators still determine who can actually use it.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
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