Robinhood Gains a New Batch of Stock Investors, the Oldest is 1 Year Old, the Youngest is -3 Years Old

marsbitPublished on 2026-04-08Last updated on 2026-04-08

Abstract

On April 6, the U.S. Treasury announced that Robinhood, in collaboration with BNY Mellon, has been selected as the broker and initial custodian for the "Trump Accounts" (also known as 530A accounts). Established under the "Big and Beautiful" Act authorized by former President Trump in June 2025, the program aims to create tax-advantaged investment accounts for children born between January 1, 2025, and January 1, 2029. Each account will receive an initial $1,000 from the federal government. Private donations, such as Michael Dell’s $6.25 billion contribution, will add $250 for eligible lower-income families. Families can also deposit up to $5,000 annually per child. Funds are restricted to low-cost index funds or ETFs tracking broad market indices like the S&P 500 and cannot be withdrawn until the child turns 18. With an estimated 14.4 million children eligible, the program could inject over $14.4 billion in government funds alone, growing significantly with private and family contributions. This creates a long-term, passively managed pool of capital potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Robinhood stands to benefit significantly by gaining millions of young users who will be tied to the platform from birth, with their accounts converting to IRA-like structures upon adulthood. This provides Robinhood with a long-term client base, stable custodial assets, and entry into government-backed financial infrastructure, diversifying its business beyond its traditional ...

Author: Azuma, The Block

On April 6 local time, the U.S. Department of the Treasury officially announced the latest developments regarding 'Trump Accounts' — The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) has been selected as the designated financial agent of the U.S. government, responsible for managing the initial accounts; Robinhood will cooperate with BNY, serving as the broker and initial custodian for the 'Trump Accounts'.

All parties will work together to support the Treasury's goal of ensuring that every eligible newborn American citizen can quickly and conveniently obtain a 'Trump Account'.

What is a 'Trump Account'?

The so-called 'Trump Account', also known as a 530A account, is a tax-advantaged investment account plan established on June 9, 2025, under the authorization of the 'Big and Beautiful' Act by then-President Donald Trump. It aims to set up government-funded savings accounts for children of U.S. citizens born between January 1, 2025, and January 1, 2029.

The initial funding for 'Trump Accounts' primarily comes from government appropriations, private donations, and family deposits. The federal government will provide $1,000 in initial funding for each account; Dell founder Michael Dell and his wife announced a donation of $6.25 billion in December last year, which will open accounts for 25 million children from families with a regional median income below $150,000, injecting $250 into each account; parents, friends, and other designated individuals can also deposit funds into specified accounts, but a maximum of $5,000 can be deposited per child per year.

Odaily Note: Michael Dell couple, who donated $6.25 billion. Trump called this 'one of the most generous acts in American history'.

In terms of investment, 'Trump Accounts' will be limited to investing in low-cost investment funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track broad stock indices such as the 'S&P 500' index, and cannot be used to invest in specific industry or sector indices. The usage of funds is also restricted. Before the child turns 18 and becomes a legal adult on January 1 of that year, funds in the account cannot be withdrawn for any reason (unless the child passes away or the funds are transferred to another similar restricted account). After the child turns 18, the account will receive the same treatment as a traditional Individual Retirement Account (IRA).

According to the current plan, 'Trump Accounts' are tentatively scheduled to begin accepting initial deposits on July 4, 2026 (the 250th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence). This timing coincides with the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections and is expected to be a major policy 'trump card' for the Republican Party to win voters.

What is the Potential Scale?

According to statistics from Statista, since 2020, the annual number of births in the United States has fluctuated around 3.6 million.

Using this data as a benchmark, the planned coverage period from January 1, 2025, to January 1, 2029, is expected to include approximately 14.4 million newborn American children. If the federal government opens a $1,000 'Trump Account' for each child, this implies a massive fund of $14.4 billion; with potential private donations and family deposits, this number will continue to grow to hundreds of billions of dollars; if the plan continues to be promoted as a long-term initiative after 2029, its potential scale will be even more staggering.

Due to its operational characteristics of long-term lock-up, passive investment, and continuous new inflows, the 'Trump Account' will essentially become a long-term passive fund pool with a potential scale of hundreds of billions of dollars. Compared to a simple child welfare attribute, this更像是 establishing a long-term capital transmission channel between fiscal policy and the capital market, directly integrating the future generation into the stock market system.

The Biggest Beneficiary: Robinhood?

After the 'Trump Account' plan was announced, financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase, Charles Schwab, and Robinhood began fierce competition for related services. With the U.S. Treasury Department officially designating Robinhood as the broker and initial custodian yesterday, Robinhood, which has obtained the 'entry ticket', is poised to become one of the most direct beneficiaries of this plan.

The most直观 benefit lies on the user side. According to the current policy coverage calculation, 'Trump Accounts' will correspond to tens of millions of newborn accounts, and the interaction portal for these accounts will be completed through a unified application — in other words, Robinhood will acquire a batch of potential users bound to the platform from birth. The oldest of these users is only 1 year old, and the youngest hasn't even been born yet... More importantly, these users are not one-time traffic but potential clients with an extremely long lifecycle. After the children turn 18, the accounts will convert into long-term investment accounts similar to IRAs, which means Robinhood has the opportunity to directly承接 these users into their adult investment behaviors and further extend into more business scenarios such as ETFs, options, and even crypto assets. From a lifecycle perspective, this is almost the longest possible user path a broker can obtain.

The benefits on the asset side are equally significant. The funds in 'Trump Accounts' have obvious long-term lock-up characteristics, hardly flowing out before the child reaches adulthood, while the investment scope is limited to index funds. This type of fund is extremely high-quality custody asset for brokers — low volatility, long retention, predictable scale. Furthermore, Robinhood's core label in the past has been a 'retail trading platform', with growth highly dependent on market conditions and trading activity. The 'Trump Account' introduces low-frequency, long-term, passive investment funds, which are closer to the capital attributes of traditional wealth management businesses. As the proportion of such funds increases, it will also enrich Robinhood's business diversity to a certain extent,补齐相对短板.

At the same time, the endorsement at the policy level also has symbolic significance. Participating in an account plan led by the Treasury Department brings Robinhood into the U.S. government's financial infrastructure system for the first time. This not only enhances its institutional credibility but also provides new narrative space for its future expansion into retirement accounts, long-term investment, and wealth management businesses.

From a political perspective, the 'Trump Account' is an important policy chip for the Republican Party facing the midterm elections; from a capital market perspective, this plan introduces an institutionalized long-term source of funds into the U.S. stock market. Robinhood happens to be at the intersection of both — as millions of newborns who have not yet entered society are 'automatically opening accounts', this policy design围绕选票 has also quietly laid a growth curve for Robinhood that could last for more than a decade.

The Impossible Trilemma Is Basically a Pseudo-Problem

The article argues that the core limitation of blockchain technology is not the scalability trilemma, but its fundamental lack of privacy, which acts as a barrier to institutional capital. It defines blockchain as a slow, expensive, shared computer whose primary value is "permissionlessness" (no administrator) and verifiable trust. While this is ideal for native financial assets like stable币, which now process trillions, two critical flaws remain for mainstream adoption: regulatory legitimacy and a default transparency that leaks all financial activity. The author contends that transparency is not a feature but a tax, quantified through MEV extraction, making the public ledger unusable for serious institutions. However, modern cryptography, specifically zero-knowledge proofs, now offers a solution: "provable privacy." This allows users to prove compliance (e.g., solvency, KYC) without revealing underlying data. This fusion of privacy and auditability resolves the transparency-compliant privacy-compliance dichotomy, enabling a purely upgraded system where transactions are verified but not broadcasted. Closing these flaws is presented as the essential bridge to onboard the next wave of trillions in capital.

marsbit1h ago

The Impossible Trilemma Is Basically a Pseudo-Problem

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The "Impossible Triad" Is Fundamentally a Pseudo-Problem

The article argues that blockchain's fundamental limitation is not the scalability trilemma (decentralization, scalability, security), which has been largely solved, but the lack of **privacy** and, until recently, clear **legitimacy**. Blockchain is described as a slow, expensive, globally shared computer whose core value is censorship resistance and verifiability. While ideal for native digital assets like money (e.g., stablecoins), its default transparency acts as a **tax**, exposing all transactions and enabling MEV extraction, which deters serious institutional capital. Simultaneously, its permissionless nature created regulatory ambiguity. The piece contends that **privacy** is the missing critical feature. It rejects the false choice between total transparency and complete anonymity. Modern cryptography (like zero-knowledge proofs) enables **compliant privacy**: users can prove facts (solvency, KYC status, compliance) without revealing the underlying sensitive data (specific holdings, identities). This preserves auditability for regulators and eliminates the leak of financial information. With recent regulatory progress (e.g., the GENIUS Act) addressing legitimacy, adding default, provably compliant privacy becomes a pure upgrade. It transforms blockchain from a costly, public ledger into a confidential settlement layer, finally bridging the gap to mainstream institutional and individual adoption of on-chain finance.

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The "Impossible Triad" Is Fundamentally a Pseudo-Problem

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Optical Chips: Collective Capacity Expansion

The global optical chip industry is experiencing a massive wave of expansion driven by surging AI data center demand. Major players across the US, Japan, Europe, and China are aggressively investing to ramp up production capacity. In the US, Coherent is expanding its 6-inch Indium Phosphide (InP) semiconductor fab in Texas, supported by CHIPS Act funding and a $2 billion strategic investment from NVIDIA. Lumentum is building a new factory for InP optical devices, and Nokia is scaling its advanced photonic chip packaging and testing capabilities. NVIDIA's investments aim to secure future supply of critical lasers and optical interconnect products for AI infrastructure. Japan's JX Advanced Metals, a leading InP substrate supplier, plans a multi-billion yen investment to increase its capacity 7-10 times, strengthening its grip on the crucial upstream materials market. In Europe, IQE and Tower Semiconductor settled a patent dispute and signed a multi-year InP epitaxial wafer supply agreement, highlighting that next-generation silicon photonics platforms will integrate high-performance InP components. STMicroelectronics and Sivers Semiconductors are also expanding silicon photonics production and partnerships. China is rapidly building out its domestic supply chain. Dongshan Precision's subsidiary, Source Photonics, announced a $12 billion project to expand optical chip and module production. Companies like Sanan Optoelectronics and Yunnan Germanium are scaling up InP chip manufacturing and substrate production, moving towards vertical integration from materials to modules. While debate continues around the exact future architecture—whether CPO (Co-Packaged Optics), NPO, or pluggables will dominate—analysts like Morgan Stanley argue the underlying driver is unchangeable: the explosive growth in bandwidth demand. This will inevitably increase the volume of optical engines, lasers, and related content per GPU, regardless of the final technical path. The competition for "more light" in the AI era has intensified into a global, full-chain capacity race.

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Optical Chips: Collective Capacity Expansion

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Stablecoins Finally Find Real Yield: An In-Depth Look at On-Chain Reinsurance Re | A Conversation with Re Founder Karan Saroya

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Stablecoins Finally Find Real Yield: An In-Depth Look at On-Chain Reinsurance Re | A Conversation with Re Founder Karan Saroya

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1996 or 1999? Walsh's First Test is 'How to View AI'

"1996 or 1999? Wall's First Big Test Is 'How to View AI'" Federal Reserve Chairman Wall's initial challenge is not whether to raise or cut rates, but a more fundamental judgment: what kind of boom is the current AI boom? This will determine the Fed's policy path and define his legacy. Economics is split between two opposing views, according to reporter Nick Timiraos. One sees imminent productivity gains that will increase supply and cool inflation, allowing the Fed to hold steady. The other argues that while productivity benefits are distant, demand shocks are here now, and waiting for data confirmation risks missing the intervention window, forcing sharper rate hikes later. Wall has signaled a leaning toward the first view, echoing 1996-era Alan Greenspan, who embraced strong, productivity-driven growth without fear of inflation. However, Wall faces a different macro environment than Greenspan did, with tariff pressures, expanding fiscal deficits, and diminishing globalization benefits, which could force more significant inflation pressures even if AI benefits materialize. Wall's logic, expressed before taking office, is that AI-driven productivity gains won't show in official data for years. If the Fed waits for confirmation, it might mistakenly tighten policy and choke off the very growth that could suppress inflation. This argues for using forward-looking narratives over lagging data. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee presents a key counter-argument. He distinguishes between expected and unexpected productivity booms. A widely anticipated boom, like the current AI wave, can cause people to spend future wealth gains in advance, overheating the economy before productivity actually rises, thus requiring preemptive rate hikes. He cites rising costs for AI data centers as evidence of such overheating. Fed Governor Christopher Waller offers a rebuttal to Goolsbee, noting the "expected spending" mechanism only works if people can borrow against future income, which many households cannot do due to borrowing constraints. Wall also faces a paradox related to his desire to reduce the Fed's use of "forward guidance" (pre-announcing policy moves). This practice was established in 1999 when Greenspan began signaling hikes to avoid market shocks. If the economy follows a less optimistic path, Wall may be forced to choose between using the guidance he wants to abolish or risking market volatility by staying silent. The ultimate question defining Wall's first major test remains: Is this 1996 or 1999?

marsbit6h ago

1996 or 1999? Walsh's First Test is 'How to View AI'