The recent rise of USUAL, ONDO, and OM has brought attention back to the RWA sector. I think this is a good thing; over the next four years, during the golden window of friendly policies, RWA will also be one of the main areas affected, alongside stablecoins and payments.
In simple terms, RWA is about tokenizing real assets on the chain, which can ultimately be traded freely on the chain. Currently, there are a few cases that are doing quite well and have gained recognition from the market and exchanges.
For example, the gold-backed token PAX Gold stores physical gold in regulated vaults and issues tokens equivalent to this gold. Some DeFi protocols convert traditional assets such as accounts receivable and debt into on-chain tokens, allowing people to purchase them on-chain to earn stable returns.
However, unlike these individual projects, the objects of speculation in this wave are mainly RWA public chains and platform tokens, as the market prices them as infrastructure in the RWA sector, somewhat similar to the large infrastructure of DeFi in the past.
Market recognition.
The core reason why the prices of ONDO and OM have surged like crazy in this wave is the underlying assets. For instance, ONDO is the first company to tokenize exposure to U.S. Treasury bonds while providing institutional-level services, allowing large enterprises to participate.
Ultimately, they offer a suite of products backed by U.S. Treasuries, such as USDY and OUSG, the former primarily targeting retail investors and the latter primarily targeting institutional investors.
These revenues and governance will impact ONDO. The market also tends to price it similarly to bank stocks in the securities market.
As for OM, mentioned earlier, as a public chain based on RWA, it has partnered with MAG, a local real estate giant in the UAE, to tokenize $500 million worth of real estate, which is considered a significant collaboration in the current RWA field. The positive news related to this has reflected in the recent token prices.
Currently, OM itself is a public chain specifically for enterprises to issue and manage assets. If you want to create, manage, and transfer tokens on the platform, you will need the white list permissions granted by the official, ensuring that the parties involved in the transactions are certified enterprises.
What opportunities are there?
Recently, the entire RWA, as well as the DeFi and NFT sectors of Ethereum, are in a general upward trend. Among them, the individual leading coins mentioned earlier have performed very vigorously in this wave.
Therefore, the focus can be placed on the same sector and projects that have not yet issued tokens, with the latter mainly observing a few recently, such as the Plume Network themed around RWAFi.
Because RWA projects generally require enterprises and individuals to participate in on-chain pledging of real assets to earn income, RWAFi can be understood as buying a house in reality but not living in it; instead, it is rented out, ultimately gaining the value of the house itself + income-generating assets.
Plume is currently one of the most optimistic in the market data among the tokens that have not yet been issued, and the team has also revealed plans to issue tokens in this market wave.
Its lead investor is the well-known North American financial asset management institution Galaxy Digital, which is primarily engaged in asset management, mining, and trading, with investments being only a small part of its business. Currently, they hold large positions in UNI, ETH, and AVAX.
Another important investor is Haun Ventures, founded by former a16z partner Katie, who was previously a board member of Coinbase, served as a federal prosecutor, and is a well-connected individual in North America.
For players considering asset allocation and wanting to participate in airdrops, aside from the recently concluded RWAFi pre-deposit feature, the testnet is currently open, with four tasks available for everyone to complete on the website.
The official side has also hinted that Plume's pre-deposit may open several more phases to allow everyone to experience the combined benefits of RWA and the DeFi strategies in the market.
Currently, the secondary sectors being tracked include MKR, COMP, RIO, ONDO, MPL, USUAL, and OM. If you have more suggestions, feel free to recommend.
I hope the above content is helpful to you, thank you for reading.
December 16, 2024
AB KUAI DONG