Trump’s SEC will buoy ‘aggressive innovation,’ Webull president says: ‘Boundaries are going to be tested’

Not all commentary from Washington has been favorable to the Robinhood rival, which went public in early April, as the company’s ties to China continue to invite scrutiny. In a recent interview with Fortune, though, Denier expressed confidence about the platform’s relationship with regulators, particularly amid a stark change in attitudes and priorities at the SEC.

“This is setting us up in an environment where you’re going to start seeing aggressive innovation,” said Denier, who has led Webull’s U.S. brokerage since 2017.

“You start to see a bit more of asking for forgiveness rather than asking for permission,” he added.

While he didn’t mention competitors by name, Denier cited rival investment platforms moving into “sports gambling.” That’s presumably a reference to Robinhood’s recent partnership with prediction market Kalshi, which lets users speculate on the outcome of the NBA Finals, U.S. Open, and other major events. 

It’s the type of bold move that never would have been possible under the Biden administration, Denier said. Webull also recently partnered with Kalshi, but Denier has said Webull doesn’t plan on offering sports-related contracts. 

“I think a lot of boundaries are going to be tested,” he said.  

Nowhere is the SEC’s change in approach more stark than with crypto. The agency’s leader under Biden, Gary Gensler, became public enemy No. 1 in the world of digital assets after publicly feuding with the industry and pursuing a divisive regulatory crackdown.

Critics argue Gensler’s SEC embraced “regulation by enforcement,” or relying on litigation and penalties against firms to set policy in the absence of a clear, rule-based framework. This uncertainty, Denier said, caused Webull to sell its digital-asset business and remove crypto offerings from its platform in 2023 as the company prepared to go public.

With crypto advocate Paul Atkins now leading the SEC, however, Webull is planning to reintroduce crypto trading for U.S. customers in the second half of the year.

“It’s going to be with the undertone that crypto investing is still investing at its core,” Denier said, “even though it is an unregistered and unsecuritized product.”

As a revenue source, supporting crypto trading can be feast or famine, with investor interest often surging during a bull run for Bitcoin and other digital assets but then falling away when prices swing in the opposite direction.

Robinhood has responded by making a push into banking and wealth management, mimicking the likes of Fidelity, Charles Schwab, and E*Trade. Webull is making a similar push into the retirement space as its young, tech-savvy customer base—which the company says totals more than 24 million users worldwide—looks to the future. A new partnership with BlackRock gives users access to model portfolios based on various risk appetites and objectives, elevating an advisory product that Denier acknowledged was previously “bare-bones.”

“As we start getting more mature, and as our customers start getting more mature with us, their needs are changing,” Denier said, “and we are adapting to meet their needs.”

China ties get Washington’s attention

Webull completed another step in its evolution in early April, going public through a $7.3 billion merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. A retail frenzy sent shares soaring 500% on the second day of trading, briefly giving Webull a market cap of almost $30 billion.

The stock quickly shed those gains, however, particularly after Fox Business reported lawmakers like Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) had called on the SEC to investigate and possibly delist Webull because of the company’s ties to China. Shares closed just short of the $11 mark Tuesday, down from a high of $79.56 two months ago.

Chinese citizen Anquan Wang, a former manager at e-commerce titan Alibaba and tech conglomerate Xiaomi, founded Webull in 2016. He remains chairman and CEO, controlling more than 80% of the company’s voting power, according to regulatory filings.

Webull sets up as a locally regulated broker-dealer or licensed financial services firm in each country where it operates. That means Americans’ customer information must stay within the U.S., Denier said, and can only be accessed by employees of the U.S. broker-dealer based in the country.

Webull’s research and development team is based in China, he said. According to prospectus filings, it accounts for roughly 60% of the company’s employees.

“That is not dissimilar from most fintech companies, by the way,” Denier said. “However, unlike most fintech companies, we are a regulated entity and always have been a regulated entity.”

The SEC, he said, does not see Webull as a Chinese company.

“They did not require us to put any Chinese disclosures on our prospectus,” he said.

Both the company’s F-1 and F-4 prospectus filings, however, reference the risk of government investigations into Webull’s China connections.  

“I think, over time, especially being a public company, the idea that we have Chinese investors will fade away as the cap table starts changing,” Denier said, referencing the document that shows equity ownership of a company.

And for now, the relationship with regulators seems sunny.