Cryptocurrency Startup Swarm Is Selling Tokens Backed by Robinhood Shares
Cryptocurrency startup Swarm has an ambitious plan to democratize venture capital, and it has today taken a major step toward that goal by listing tokens that allow investors to purchase fractional shares in privately-owned fintech darling Robinhood. No, Robinhood, a wildly-popular commission-free stock trading app that recently earned a $5.6 billion valuation, isn’t holding a security token offering (STO), nor has it even announced plans to make its shares available to the general public through a traditional public listing. Those hurdles, however, did not prevent Swarm from finding a way to bring Robinhood shares to the public anyway. Here’s how it works. Through partnerships with brokers and syndicate managers, Swarm has sourced equity from former Robinhood employees looking to cash out before the firm’s eventual IPO. That equity is held by what is essentially a shell company, whose shares are then listed on the Swarm platform as SRC-20 tokens. All of this, Swarm says, can be accomplished without Robinhood’s permission — much less its willing participation.
