On March 26, data from CoinGecko indicated a significant surge in the Real-World Asset (RWA) sector. The native token of Ondo Finance, ONDO, emerged as a frontrunner in this trend, skyrocketing over 110% within a week. This remarkable growth has influenced other tokens in the RWA protocol, with several projects reaching all-time highs. Notable increases include POLYX (Polymesh) rising by 197.4%, TOKEN (TokenFi) surging by 210.5%, NXRA (AllianceBlock Nexera) climbing 129%, GFI (Goldfinch) jumping 97.3% in just 24 hours, and RIO (Realio Network) gaining 141.7% over the same week.
Market Speculation on RWA Assets
The excitement surrounding the RWA sector appears to be partly fueled by BlackRock’s recent activities. On March 21, BlackRock unveiled its tokenized fund, BUIDL, which allows qualified investors to earn returns in U.S. dollars. This fund, managed through Securitize Markets, LLC, provides daily dividends directly to investors’ wallets while investing entirely in cash, U.S. Treasuries, and repurchase agreements. This development has contributed to the remarkable rise in ONDO’s price, effectively doubling its value in a week.
DeFi Yields Still Lagging Behind
Currently, the ongoing bullish trend in the RWA sector has not yet extended to decentralized finance (DeFi). According to data from DeFi Llama, the median return in DeFi has increased from a low of 2% at the beginning of 2022 to 3.24% as of July 2023. However, this yield remains below that of U.S. Treasury bonds, which are currently yielding 4.22%. The Federal Reserve is also anticipated to maintain interest rates between 5.25% and 5.50% in May, suggesting that institutional investors view DeFi yields as insufficient against the associated risks.
Emerging Meme Coin Tied to RWA
As interest in the RWA concept has surged, a meme coin dubbed ElonRWA has emerged, intertwining the RWA narrative with the popular appeal of memes. This coin, inspired by a hand-drawn image of Elon Musk, has benefited from the billionaire’s influence, resulting in an impressive 24-hour price increase of 80.51%.
Key RWA Protocols to Watch
Realio Network was established in 2018 and initially focused on digital asset issuance and peer-to-peer trading in real estate private equity investments. Headquartered in New York, Realio has developed its own Layer 1 blockchain based on the Cosmos SDK, launching its mainnet in April 2022. The platform employs blockchain technology for services such as tokenization and asset issuance, extending its applications beyond real estate to securities. Notably, Realio features a distributed key management system, enhancing staking security for validators. The dual-token proof-of-stake model includes RIO and RST, with RST being an equity token created in collaboration with Algorand.
Propchain offers a blockchain-based marketplace for real estate token investments, enabling users to invest in global real estate. The platform addresses common challenges faced by traditional real estate investors by providing a continuous supply of investment opportunities while ensuring property safety. With a minimum investment threshold of €1,000, Propchain manages the properties, allowing investors to simply collect rent. Currently, the price of PROPC is $4.84, reflecting an 83.4% weekly increase.
AllianceBlock Nexera serves as an infrastructure provider for decentralized tokenized markets, facilitating liquidity for businesses to issue and manage tokenized digital assets. Its NFT protocol, Nexera, creates composite NFTs called MetaNFTs, which can evolve over time and automate loan agreements between parties. The Nexera token, NXRA, has a maximum supply of 850 million and is currently priced at $0.28, marking a 139.7% increase over the week.
Plume Network is a modular Layer 2 blockchain designed for RWA, integrating asset tokenization and compliance directly into its framework. The goal of Plume is to streamline the deployment of risk-weighted asset projects while enhancing investor access to quality buyers for increased liquidity. Although Plume has not yet issued a token, it is currently operational on the Ethereum Sepolia test network, where users can engage with the platform and potentially qualify for airdrops.
Polymesh is a permissioned blockchain tailored for RWA tokenization, emphasizing aspects such as governance and compliance. All participants must undergo decentralized Know Your Customer (KYC) verification. The POLYX token serves as a utility token under Swiss law, and its recent upward trajectory follows Binance’s announcement last year to act as a node operator for Polymesh. Currently, POLYX is trading at $0.64, with a notable weekly increase of 219.1%.
Mineral introduces a unique DeFi model powered by Bitcoin mining, leveraging the BRC-420 standard. Unlike many unsustainable DeFi projects, Mineral generates revenue through mining, creating a sustainable income model. The project’s native token, MNER, is designed to consolidate value and foster cross-project collaboration, supported by the project’s treasury that continues to accumulate interest-bearing RWA assets.
Galileo Protocol aims to revolutionize the certification and ownership of luxury goods and RWAs by utilizing pNFTs (physical NFTs). This protocol focuses on providing a secure and traceable method for trading physical assets, offering a mobile application to verify luxury items and manage associated pNFTs. The platform will issue 150 million LEOX tokens, with the initial circulating supply set at 28.9 million, currently priced at $1.34, reflecting a 120.7% weekly increase.
MANTRA Chain is an L1 blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK, designed to foster collaboration among enterprises. It aims to support a wide range of applications, including NFTs, games, and compliant decentralized exchanges (DEX). The first decentralized application on MANTRA Chain, MANTRA Finance, seeks to bridge traditional finance with DeFi by enabling the issuance and trading of RWA tokens. Recently, MANTRA secured $11 million in funding, which will be allocated towards building compliant infrastructure and expanding RWA tokenization projects.
