Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said Wednesday that his firm is taking a stance for customers and that it was "not acceptable" for crypto not to be accessible to Americans. During the same interview, Tenev also noted that his firm met 16 times with the Securities and Exchange Commission before receiving a Wells Notice from the regulator.
Speaking with CNBC, Tenev responded to questions about the firm's quarterly performance, which saw its crypto trading increase 224% in the first financial quarter of the year.
He then said that Robinhood met with the SEC 16 times before talks fizzled out — and the firm learned it would face future enforcement from the SEC.
“We tried to create what’s called a special purpose broker-dealer for the purpose of transacting in crypto assets. And we actually came in good faith to meet with the SEC. I think we met with them 16 times. And unfortunately, that was not reciprocated, and it was clear that there didn’t seem to be a path, and so here we are," Tenev said in the interview.
The Block reported on May 6 that the SEC issued Robinhood a Wells Notice, an indication of forthcoming legal action, for alleged securities violations.
“It’s hard to impute the reasoning behind that, but they told us they didn’t want to keep meeting about it, and they didn’t see a path toward it," Tenev continued.
Tenev framed his firm's clash with the regulator in a larger context of how it regulates crypto and what it means for retail investors.
“The SEC has the ability to change the rules to allow for brokers to accommodate crypto assets, and they don’t seem intent on doing that. And rather, they’re proceeding with regulation by enforcement. And that’s disappointing," the CEO added. "I didn’t want to have to get into this situation, but we have to defend ourselves and advocate for our customers. We do believe that crypto assets are becoming more and more important, and it would not be acceptable to us to not have Americans have access to them.”
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