AMC Entertainment shares demonstrated an impressive jump of more than 15% in premarket trading on Friday, reaching the $2.92 mark. The reason was a public conflict between the company's CEO Adam Aron and Robinhood chief Vlad Tenev. At the center of the dispute are tokenized versions of shares, which, according to Aron, copy AMC's value but do not provide holders with real ownership or voting rights.
Context and dynamics: a surge amid a weekly decline
Friday's gain amounted to 38.5 cents, with an intraday high reaching $3.03. Nevertheless, this surge failed to offset the weekly decline: over five trading days, shares lost 5.93%, fluctuating in the $2.50–2.72 range. At the current price, AMC's market capitalization is estimated at approximately $2.6 billion with 893 million shares outstanding, while on Thursday's close the company was worth $2.27 billion.
My analysis shows that Friday's momentum is more of a reaction to a news event than a sustainable trend. Investors should be cautious: such movements often prove short-lived, especially when the company's fundamental indicators remain under pressure.
The essence of the claims and the positions of the parties
Aron publicly demanded that Robinhood cease issuing tokens tracking the share prices of AMC and more than 190 other companies. He called the practice "unacceptable," emphasizing that the tokens are not registered in accordance with U.S. securities laws. In response, Tenev laconically asked: "What's the problem?"
Aron countered by pointing to legal costs: AMC spends millions annually on regulatory compliance, while Robinhood issues these products from the island of Jersey, located approximately 5,000 km from the U.S. The AMC CEO threatened to involve the legal team and approach the SEC to determine the possibility of enforcement measures.
The scale of the token market: a drop in the ocean
Aron's criticism has merit, especially when looking at the numbers. According to GeckoTerminal, the largest liquidity pool for the AMC token is approximately $382,600, with market capitalization approaching $2.8 million. Holders number about 2,000 addresses. For comparison: this is less than 0.1% of the company's own capitalization.
Robinhood Chain, launched on July 1 to service tokenized assets, has already become an arena for meme coins, which accounted for the bulk of turnover. Previously, OpenAI made similar claims, stating that its tokens on the platform do not represent equity stakes.
So far, the cease-and-desist letter has not been published, and the SEC is refraining from comments. However, the very fact that a $2.8 million token market can move the capitalization of a public company worth $2.6 billion is an alarming signal. This raises questions about the manipulative potential of such instruments.
My verdict: The key test is whether Friday's gain can hold after the market opens. If it does, this will confirm the hypothesis about the influence of tokenized assets on real quotes, which would require closer attention from regulators. If not, we are dealing with yet another piece of informational noise that the market will quickly forget.