HOOD's EU Expansion with Tokenized Stocks
Industry 101 - EU vs US retail brokerage
EU has a smaller investor base (113M vs 166M in the US) and lower penetration (27% vs 62%).
EU brokerage is structurally more fragmented:
Trade Republic, the largest neo-broker, holds ~7% share; no single player exceeds 10%.
In the US: Schwab ≈37.4M accounts; Fidelity similar. HOOD has 26M funded accounts / 15M MAUs—~10% of US adults, ~⅔ Schwab’s base.
HOOD controls ~20–25% of “self-directed” retail and a bigger chunk of mobile-first flow.
Europe is still 1.5–2 € more expensive per equity trade than the US. Options pricing is comparable (€0.75 ≈ $0.80).
PFOF (used to fund zero-fee trading) will be banned in the EU after mid-2026.
Why via Tokenized - Tokenized model vs. traditional brokerage
Speed: Tokenization fast-tracks EU rollout—runs under the lighter CASP regime, skipping legacy post-trade plumbing.
A traditional pan-EU broker takes 18–30 months and millions to build. Trade Republic needed 5 years to get a full banking license.
HOOD got a Lithuanian crypto license, launched stock tokens <6 months later—no CCPs, no CSDs, no multi-country filings.
Cost: Gas + custody beats T2S + DTCC. Still zero-commission, but monetizes float + spread.
UX: 24×5 trading, fractional pennies, crypto-style instant settlement—stuff that Trade Republic, DeGiro, IBKR can’t easily support.
Strategic upside: Tokens plug into DeFi + RH’s own L2—enabling lending, staking, structured tokens, etc.
Hours: Traditional brokers go dark ~56 hrs/week + 8 hrs/night. HOOD’s tokens are live 24×5 (aiming for 24×7).
HOOD 0.00%↑ ’s Operations in EU
Dec ‘23: launched EU crypto app w/ 50+ coins
<1M funded accts so far. Bitstamp now holds full MiCA CASP license, passported EU-wide.
Jun 30 ‘25: launched tokenized US stocks + ETFs (200+) in 30 EEA countries
ERC-20 tokens on Arbitrum, w/ dividend passthrough, 24×5 trading, zero commissions
(Quick n Dirty) Quantifying the Upside
HOOD ARPU: $150 (on # of funded accounts) –$250 (on MAU)
Assuming 5M EU accounts × $200 ARPU = $1B revenue (vs. $930M in 1Q25 or $3.6B annualized)
No PFOF in EU—HOOD would need to monetizes via spread, float (ECB ≈ 4%), Gold subs, staking yield, and 10bps FX margin per stock-token roundtrip