BitGo CEO Mike Belshe: AMC Should Reach Global Investors Through Tokenization
BitGo CEO Mike Belshe publicly suggested that AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron reassess the upside potential of tokenized equity, stating that the traditional market has "abused" AMC over the past five years, and offshore trading of U.S. stocks is not new, with Robinhood expanding its scale through tokenization.
Belshe's logic is that tokenization can allow AMC to reach previously inaccessible global investors, thereby reversing its stock price; BitGo, as a licensed digital asset custodian in multiple locations, can assist in connecting these shareholders. The company is set to go public on the NYSE in January 2026 under the ticker BTGO, focusing on custody and settlement infrastructure.
The backdrop of the conflict is Aron’s two-day tirade against the AMC stock tokens launched by Robinhood: the company did not participate or endorse them, calling them despicable and outrageous, and demanded a halt to trading and an external securities lawyer's review by the SEC. He described the Jersey structure as a "pseudo-market," stating that tokens have no voting rights and do not enter the shareholder register, which could separate buying power from the company's financing ability.
Robinhood's documents describe the stock tokens as debt securities issued by its Jersey subsidiary, providing price exposure rather than company ownership, and are not sold to U.S. persons; the platform claims the tokens are backed one-to-one by the underlying stock held in U.S. custody. Similar products have already covered hundreds of U.S. stocks and ETFs last year. The token pool's scale is relatively small compared to AMC's multi-billion dollar market cap, and AMC's stock price surged by about 10-20% overnight due to this dispute.
During the meme stock frenzy in 2021, both individuals were once pushed to the forefront by retail narratives: Aron relied on retail shareholders to sustain theaters, while Robinhood faced criticism for restricting trading. Now, the controversy has shifted from "can you buy" to "is what you buy actually stock."
In market mechanics, buyers are crypto brokerage clients seeking 24-hour trading and offshore channels, while sellers are publicly listed companies unwilling to let synthetic orders divert demand for the underlying stock. This is a pricing split driven by product structure: funds can buy and sell under the AMC name on-chain without becoming AMC shareholders. The beneficiaries are tokenization platforms that can collect trading and custody fees, while the pressured parties are issuing companies that need to maintain capital registration, voting rights, and refinancing discipline.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Belshe is not advising theaters to make better movies, but rather selling custody access. BitGo has evolved from multi-signature cold storage since 2013 to listing on the NYSE, with a business model that allows institutions to securely hold on-chain assets. If AMC were to "on-chain" its shareholder relationships, custodians would step into the equity infrastructure; the global investors he refers to are primarily non-U.S. clients already captured by Robinhood's Jersey structure.
The capital path splits into two tracks. The underlying stock track: registered in New York, with voting, issuance, and debt terms. The token track: offshore debt certificates tracking prices, where buying does not need to enter the company's books. Aron fears that if the second track grows larger, the company will lose control over capital formation; Belshe is selling the idea of incorporating the second track into licensed custody, allowing issuers to at least see who holds shadow positions. Money flows from retail sentiment into synthetic orders, then decides whether to return to the underlying stock.
The analogy is not the 2021 GameStop short squeeze, but rather pre-registered securities and contracts for difference: the names are the same, but the rights differ. OpenAI has also denied that Robinhood tokens equate to its equity. The industry position has shifted from "moving stocks on-chain" to "who has the right to price using the company name"—issuers want a registration system, while brokers want global distribution.
Structural changes represent a transfer of pricing power. The pricing power of equity begins to split from the exchange order book, creating a shadow market without governance rights. The mechanism is: when a brand can be traded independently of the shareholder register, the company's financing discount is determined by the underlying stock, while speculative premiums are determined by tokens; if the two remain split long-term, public companies will become spectators of their own stocks.
ABAB News · Law of Cognition
- Trading a company's name does not equal owning the company.
- When the shadow market grows, the underlying stock will lose pricing power.
- Custodians close to the shareholder register can approach new fee rights.