AMC Stock Rallies Nearly 20% Premarket As CEO Adam Aron Blasts Robinhood Over ‘Disgusting’ Stock Tokens

The CEO of AMC Entertainment blasted Robinhood on X for issuing the company's stock tokens, hinting the process was illegal.

• Stock tokens are digital representations on a blockchain that track the price and provide economic exposure to real-world assets like company stocks. 
• Aron pointed out that Robinhood’s stock tokens are unregistered securities that cannot be offered or sold in the U.S., and are also restricted in certain other jurisdictions, including Canada, the U.K. and Switzerland. 
• He also accused the “quasi-fake market” of stoking public distrust of financial markets.

AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) CEO Adam Aron raised serious concerns over Robinhood Markets Inc.’s (HOOD) efforts to issue tokenized real-world assets, particularly tokens of AMC stock, and warned the fintech firm’s CEO that he would not hesitate to start a legal battle.

“I find this practice to be contemptible, outrageous, disgusting, detestable, inexcusable, vile. How can it possibly be legal? We have no connection to this at all, and do not condone it in any way,” he said in a post on X.

Shares of AMC rocketed nearly 20% in early premarket trading on Friday while Robinhood was down over 1%, following the online exchange. 

What Are Stock Tokens?

Stock tokens are digital representations on a blockchain that track the price and provide economic exposure to real-world assets like company stocks.  Robinhood Stock Tokens are like debt securities issued on the Robinhood Chain that give global users exposure to U.S. stocks and exchange-traded funds round the clock.

The company initially launched its stock tokens in the European Union in June 2025, starting with private company shares like OpenAI and SpaceX and later expanded it globally to over 120 countries alongside the public mainnet launch of its Layer 2 network, the Robinhood Chain, on July 1, 2026. 

Robinhood CEO Tenev has called tokenization “the best path to modernizing the American financial system”, and said it would help expand the market to tens of trillions of dollars.

Aron’s Concerns With AMC Tokens Issued By Robinhood

When Tenev asked Aron what his concerns might be with AMC stock tokens, Aron responded in a separate X post, saying, “The list of concerns is almost existential.”

First, Aron pointed out that Robinhood’s stock tokens are unregistered securities that cannot be offered or sold in the U.S. and are also restricted in certain other jurisdictions, including Canada, the U.K., and Switzerland. 

The assets, which are issued by Robinhood Assets (Jersey) Limited, an offshore company, set the market up for a “fictitious” synthetic equity market that decouples stock token ownership from a company’s ability to control its own capital-raising efforts, he said, and hinted that the move was not in compliance with U.S. securities law. 

Aron also noted that AMC’s past equity issuances strengthened its balance sheet and were “vital” to its success, but HOOD’s stock tokens “pretend to be some form of stock ownership, but disclosures to the contrary notwithstanding, they are not ownership and they deprive investors of their rights.” 

He also accused the “quasi-fake market” of stoking distrust amongst the public about financial markets. “I hereby call on you and Robinhood to voluntarily CEASE AND DESIST the trading of AMC stock tokens. If you don’t, our high-priced securities counsel has been asked to see whether we can force you to stop,” he added. 

Other Market Participants Weigh In 

Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, a compliance platform that digitizes financial services and brings them to the blockchain, responded to the exchange on X, siding with Aron that it was a fair point and needed to be fixed. 

“This was bound to happen if I were the CEO of a publicly traded company (oh wait!) I would also not want people creating offshore derivatives of our stock that trade all over the place. This is why we tokenized our own stock natively and in the US, in a fully compliant way. Apparently AMC "tokenized stock" was trading at 60X the actual AMC stock price,” he said. 

“Tokenization was meant to improve markets, not make them worse,” he added. 

Co-Founder and CEO of fintech company LitXchange, Marcel Kalinovic, also weighed in, saying, “Vlad stole from tens of millions and their families when Robinhood removed retail's ability to buy shares, while allowing SHORT SELLERS to buy — thus manipulating 50+ stock prices downward and he continues to operate in legal grey areas to this very day with AMC tokens.”

HOOD, AMC Stocks: Retail Stance

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around HOOD stock was ‘bullish’ at the time of writing amid ‘extremely high’ message volumes. Meanwhile, sentiment on AMC stock was ‘neutral’ amid ‘normal’ message volumes. 

One user said, “Adam Aron’s rant about $HOOD  $AMC token is hilarious. Retail investors buying AMC equity created the demand and valuation that allowed the company to issue shares, raise billions and escape bankruptcy. Now he’s furious that some traders may choose AMC price exposure through a token, where AMC cannot as easily monetize their enthusiasm through another round of dilution. There is a legitimate disclosure issue because the token is a derivative, not actual equity, but the corporate subtext is hard to miss: if speculative demand migrates away from the shares, AMC may finally have to generate cash the old-fashioned way, by running a profitable movie-theatre business.”

However, another user said, “$AMC AMC CEO is finally waking up,” urging Aron to take action against Robinhood. “Talking is easy. Fighting for shareholders is different. If AMC believes these stock tokens are a serious threat, then stop posting about it and do something about it,” they said. 

HOOD stock is up more than 8% in 2026, while AMC stock is up nearly 56% in the same time. 

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