Robinhood explores a token tied to a fund from $1.9 trillion manager T. Rowe Price, as its chain weighs letting traders pay to go first

Robinhood is trying to bring a $1.9 trillion fund manager onto its blockchain. Robinhood Crypto said in a post on X on Thursday that it is exploring a Stock Token tied to an actively managed exchange-traded fund from T. Rowe Price, to run on Robinhood Chain, Unchained reported. T. Rowe Price reported $1.90 trillion in client assets at the end of August.

"Institutions are here, and our rails are ready," the post said. It named no fund, launch date or countries. Robinhood said the talks are preliminary and that a product would need legal due diligence, board approval and regulatory authorization where required, according to crypto.news. T. Rowe Price has not commented publicly.

Robinhood describes its Stock Tokens as tokenized debt securities that give holders economic exposure to a stock or fund without legal rights in it. Its site lists more than 190 of them, and they are not offered to US persons, Unchained said.

Separately, CoinDesk reported on Friday, citing a person familiar with the matter, that Robinhood Chain is evaluating a system developed by Arbitrum that lets traders pay higher fees to have their transactions processed ahead of others. The chain, which launched in July, currently handles transactions first come, first served. Robinhood declined to comment to CoinDesk.

What to watch: which fund is chosen, whether regulators sign off, and whether the chain adopts paid priority.