00:00The Trump Accounts app, of course, it was built in partnership with the Bank of New York and with Robinhood.
00:05The actual app has been available for download since about late May or so, ahead of that July 4th launch.
00:13Talk to us about, you know, the uptake you've seen in terms of interests and downloads, etc., heading into the
00:19launch and now a few days post.
00:22Yeah, thank you for having me, Katie.
00:24And, I mean, the uptake has been tremendous.
00:28The aspiration from the beginning was to make this the best product that the government has ever been associated with.
00:35And we had six million kids sign up pre-launch and express interest.
00:40Millions of accounts have already been invested.
00:44And the app has basically been living at or near the top of the App Store chart.
00:49So it's continuing to accelerate.
00:52More and more people are downloading it, setting up accounts for their families.
00:56This weekend, the first investment started rolling in and the money started flowing in.
01:03And every newborn born after January 1st, 2025, gets an initial $1,000 for free seeded from the U.S.
01:12Treasury.
01:13So this is a no-brainer for new parents, but also amazing for anyone under the age of 18.
01:20And there's 70 million individuals that we believe this could be the best mechanism for them to get ownership from
01:29a young age in the U.S. equity markets,
01:32which, as you guys know, have been the greatest engine of wealth creation in human history.
01:36So we're proud to serve as initial broker and trustee in partnership with BNY as the financial agent powering this
01:43great transformative program.
01:45And last week, we heard from the Treasury announcing the funds that will be involved.
01:51A State Street ETF, the ticker SPY-M, is going to be the default fund.
01:54But in announcing the fund lineup, Treasury said in a statement that in the coming months, Treasury expects to make
02:01available functionality that will allow parents or guardians to choose how to allocate funds across the additional investment options.
02:09But until that functionality is available, all of those contributions will remain invested in the default fund, which, again, is
02:16SPY-M.
02:16I was wondering if you could shed light on what functionality means in this context, what, you know, sort of
02:23the wiring and the back end of setting this all up has looked like.
02:27Yeah, I mean, the balance that we have to reach is between enabling personal choice and individual choice and balancing
02:38that with the need to make sure that these children benefit from the power of compound interest.
02:46Compound interest, which Albert Einstein described as the eighth wonder of the world.
02:51So compound interest is incredibly powerful.
02:53If you take that initial $1,000 and add $100 a month to the account, assuming a fairly conservative 7
03:03% annual rate of return, that turns into millions of dollars by retirement age.
03:08And so it actually makes a huge difference the earlier you start.
03:13So starting at age zero is, like, much, much better than starting even at age 18 or most people, you
03:21know, in their 30s.
03:22So we want to make sure that the children benefit from the compounding as early as possible.
03:28I am curious, Vlad.
03:30So then I am curious just about how long term this potentially benefits Robinhood.
03:34Obviously, for a lot of kids, their first sort of contact with, you know, the investment world to a certain
03:39extent is going to be through Robinhood or at least their parents and then eventually the kids themselves.
03:45Is the idea here not so much just, OK, whatever the compounding effect of the thousand, but also an educational
03:51component about how to manage money and invest in other ways as they grow and get to adulthood and can
03:59do so on their own?
04:01Well, Romain, so Robinhood has always been about ownership.
04:07We want to make everyone an owner.
04:09We believe that a future that's owned by the few is inherently fragile.
04:14And so broad ownership is essential to have a stable and prosperous and free society.
04:20And right now, the U.S. sits at about 62 percent of individuals own equities with Trump accounts.
04:27We think that can get up to 95 percent.
04:31And I think we spend a lot of time talking about the benefits to the individuals.
04:36You know, they could make more money.
04:38They could they could secure their own financial future.
04:41But I think what's underreported is the societal benefits.
04:44So if you own something and you're not just a consumer or renter, you care about it.
04:50You become a staunch defender.
04:53And I think we've seen our free market system come under increasing attack in recent years.
04:59And I think the best antidote to that is to make everyone an owner and everyone have skin in the
05:05game in the most powerful and impactful companies that are that are local to this country.
05:12When we start to talk about sort of the I guess the partnership that you have, particularly with regards to
05:18the National Design Studio, how much of that tech stack that was used to create the app was that?
05:24Did some of that come from Robin Hood or was that just sort of independent and then you guys just
05:29kind of pair it up later?
05:30Yeah. Yeah. So it's really a partnership between between us and BNY Mellon, which serves as the financial agent for
05:40the accounts.
05:40We're doing the brokerage services and the mobile development.
05:45We work with National Design Studio on the designs and to make sure this product has a consistent look and
05:53feel.
05:53And, you know, the craftsmanship that we've all been enjoying from from from from other government websites and properties that
06:02that Joe Jebbio over there has been has been really refining.
06:05And, of course, U.S. Treasury and the administration.
06:10You know, we we think there's a great example of the private and public sectors working together and leveraging our
06:17respective strengths to deliver an amazing product to the American people.
06:22I think this might be remembered as one of the best things that that that we've done in a very
06:28long time.
06:29And it's just an honor to be associated with it as Robin Hood.
06:33Well, Vlad, while we have you, I do want to ask you about perpetual futures, because Robin Hood, you just
06:39rolled out perpetual futures, which have no expiry date on commodities, ETFs, currencies in Europe.
06:47Ben, bringing it back to the U.S., I mean, when do you think that we might see something similar
06:51beyond Bitcoin perps come to the U.S.?
06:55Yeah, I mean, certainly the technology to do this exists.
07:00We have it live in Europe, both to retail consumers and institutional through our Bitstamp exchange offering.
07:11I think in the U.S. it's coming to the administration has signaled a willingness to innovate.
07:18And, you know, these products, these perpetual futures products have benefits like they are a very capital efficient way to
07:26get leveraged exposure to commodities, crypto, to all kinds of different assets without worrying about the complexities of managing expiration
07:36or rolling.
07:38So I think it's going to happen. And you should expect that, you know, we make all of our global
07:46products available in the U.S. and in all other jurisdictions where where they're permissible.
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