Original title: (WOO X Research: Can RWA Become the Next Wave of Wealth Growth?)
Original source: WOO X Research
Narrative:
RWA (Real World Assets) literally translates to real-world assets. Its value lies in bridging traditional assets and the Web 3 world, enabling the digital representation of real assets, effectively utilizing or mobilizing real assets (such as real estate, artworks, etc.) and enhancing the liquidity of those assets. With the combination of RWA and blockchain technology, RWA can transcend geographical limitations, allowing users to conveniently complete transactions or other asset utilizations regardless of geographical location, currency systems, or other influencing factors. When RWA is mentioned, it often brings to mind real estate, stocks, and so on. Moreover, from the basic characteristics of RWA tokenization, stablecoins also belong to the RWA track's products. It seems that RWA is becoming closer to us. This is another layer of narrative about RWA, namely "inclusiveness," allowing investors without sufficient capital to enter high-value markets to indirectly invest in corresponding high-value RWA tokenized products.
How is the future?
Over the past year, the overall TVL of RWA has shown a fluctuating upward trend. In this cycle, RWA, AI, MEME, etc., are all relatively popular tracks. RWA has always been one of the more focused tracks.
Image source: https://defillama.com/protocols/RWA
In the future, it is highly likely that RWA will continue the trend. The combination of RWA and the DeFi track may attract more and more investors' attention. In fact, high-value assets like real estate and commodities face difficulties in settlement during transactions, and the relevant laws and regulations differ across countries. Therefore, projects related to such high-value assets are likely to be constrained in development by implementation and regulatory aspects. Hence, if such projects in the RWA track want to achieve better development, there must be significant progress in PayFi or cross-border settlement regulation and RWA asset certification beforehand, rather than relying on third parties in various places to help with settlement or certification, as is the case with most currently.
In addition, RWA projects related to stablecoins are relatively stable. Essentially, the mainstream market may still be dominated by the US dollar, with the euro and others following. However, in the future, such projects may exhibit geographic differentiation, meaning "investors in a certain country/region may predominantly adopt a specific stablecoin." In such cases, stablecoins that obtain local regulatory licenses can take the lead in the market. The last trend that should emerge is that stablecoins may see more products and projects anchored to bonds, securities, stocks, or funds as their value objects in the future. The reason for this is that, as mentioned earlier, the settlement and regulatory aspects have significant advantages over real estate and other assets. However, for such projects to achieve substantial economic benefits in the near future, it is likely that only institutions with a certain degree of influence in traditional finance (like BlackRock) will participate in relevant projects. After that, projects with greater community cultural characteristics may emerge involving Web 3 influential institutions/organizations.
Project
Here is an overview of recently funded projects, presented from an objective standpoint for discussion.
OpenTrade
OpenTrade was established at the end of 2022 and is headquartered in London, UK. Its investors include a16z CSX, Circle, Draper Dragon, CMCC Global, Ryze Labs, Polygon, and Kronos Ventures. The total financing has reached $8.7 million.
Currently, four products are offered:
1. US Treasury Bond Vaults: Fixed-term, fixed-rate USDC returns guaranteed by US Treasury bonds;
2. USDC Vault: Demand; variable yield USDC, guaranteed by short-term US Treasury bonds, money market funds, and other cash equivalents;
3. EURC Vault: Demand; variable yield EURC, guaranteed by euros and short-term euro bonds, money market funds, and other cash equivalents;
4. Rate + Vault: Fixed term; guaranteed by investment-grade corporate bonds, commercial paper, emerging market bonds, etc.
Using Vault tokens as indicators in accounting and other operations.
USUAL - Government Bonds
Currently, it has raised a total of $8.5 million and is a Binance Launchpool project.
Overall, it revolves around three types of tokens:
1. USD0: This is a permissionless and fully compliant stablecoin backed 1:1 by real-world assets (RWA), aggregating various tokenized US Treasury bonds.
2. USD0++: An enhanced Treasury bond that uses USD0 to lock in principal as collateral, with USUAL as an incentive.
3. USUAL is its governance token.
Tokenomics: Total supply of 4 billion, with an initial circulation ratio of 12.37%.
Image source: https://docs.usual.money/usual-products/usual-governance-token/usual-tokenomics/distribution-model
Token distribution is as follows:
Huma Finance
Currently, it has raised a total of $46.3 million, with a co-founder of Chinese descent. Overall, it is a PayFi lending project. The recent round of financing includes $10 million in equity investment and $28 million in Huma platform real asset investment. Distributed Global led the investment, with participation from Hashkey Capital, Folius Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation, and others. Merging with Arf on April 17, 2024, focusing on the tokenization of real-world assets related to PayFi.
Using Huma Points to track contributors to the protocol. Currently providing cross-border payment financing and credit cards supported by digital assets. Achieving this through various funding pools, such as the Arf - cross-border payment financing pool (based on USDC instant settlement, simplifying cross-border payments); Rain Receivables Pool (helping DAOs and other entities manage expenses through payroll cards); Jia Pioneer Fund Pool (providing decentralized financing for small businesses, rewarding borrowers who repay with ownership. i.e., "small business credit") and other funding pools to facilitate cross-border payment financing.
This article is from a submission and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.
