Robinhood, one of America’s leading fintech and stock trading apps, has announced a major buyback of the majority of its confiscated stake in Sam Bankman-Fried’s HOOD token from the United States Marshals Service (USMS). The company plans to purchase back the seized 81,823,618 HOOD tokens and related tokens for a total of $600 million.
The HOOD token offers access to a suite of DeFi trading products such as automated hedging, margin, and liquidity mining. It has been used as an integral part of the DEX trading experience in the Ethereum blockchain within the FTX and Como platforms.
According to Robinhood, the buyback of the seized HOOD tokens appears to be the largest ever completed by a U.S. company and “will help restore FTX’s liquidity and provide a more balanced token economy to the global DeFi trading infrastructure.”
In addition to purchasing the seized tokens, Robinhood is also committed to empowering FTX traders to confidently fair-value their HOOD positions by posting specific rules and procedures on its website that confirms an accurate conversion rate should the need arise in the future.
The tokens purchased will be returned to the USMS in the form of a distribution process managed by Robinhood, which will be facilitated in accordance with the relevant USMS and token provider program directives.
The move marks a key moment for Robinhood, who is continuing its mission to bring modern finance to everyone regardless of their financial background. With the buyback of the seized HOOD tokens, Robinhood is aiming to help restore trust in the crypto markets and increase the liquidity of the DeFi trading platform as the company continues to make technological and financial inclusion a priority.
