CEO Vlad Tenev says Robinhood's critics aren't just targeting the massively popular trading app - they also want to limit the power of its users

• Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said regulating commission-free trading apps could limit access to markets.
• Respoding to the app's critics, Tenev said trading shouldn't be "grim and difficult to understand."
• The Robinhood chief executive published the commentary in the Wall Street Journal Monday.

Robinhood CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev said in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this week that overly regulating commission-free trading could harm retail investors who were previously "shut out" of investing.

The popular trading app has come under scrutiny in the past for "gamifying" investing, and now regulators have said they're considering a ban on the payment-for-order-flow model at the hear of Robinhood's business. Restricting that practice, Tenev said, would "re-erect barriers" that have long kept retail investors out of the markets.

"One wonders whether the push to ban payment for order flow and overregulate modern design is about investor protection or really about control," Tenev wrote in the article. Robinhood did not immediately respond to Insider's request for further comment.

In August, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said a ban on the model was "on the table," citing conflicts of interest.

The practice of payment-for-order-flow involves brokers such as Robinhood routing customers' trades through market makers who then execute the trades and often collect on the difference between the bid and ask price.

In the Journal, Tenev said the money Robinhood receives from market makers allows the app to offer commission-free, no-minimum investment trading, which has helped launch the "new generation of retail investors."

"Making it more difficult to invest would hurt those who were shut out of the financial system for decades," Tenev wrote in the article. "Many Americans face suffocating debt and financial challenges, and more regulation would make it harder to build wealth."

Robinhood went public in July and had a volatile first day of trading. The company, listed under the ticker HOOD, is now valued at about $37.4 billion.

The app came under scrutiny earlier this year when it paused trading of GameStop shares amid the meme-stock's epic rally. Critics have said the app gamifies investing. To which Tenev said in the article that, "Investing isn't a game, but must it be grim and difficult to understand?"

According to its latest numbers, the app has 21.3 million active monthly users. Retail investors have begun trading in droves thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic and government stimulus checks.