RWA Concept Surges, Highlighting 8 Protocols Worth Attention
On March 26th, according to CoinGecko data, the RWA (Real World Assets) concept experienced widespread gains. The leading protocol, Ondo Finance, with its native token ONDO, saw a weekly surge of over 110%, leading the entire RWA protocol sector as multiple project tokens reached new all-time highs.
Notably, POLYX (Polymesh) had a weekly gain of 197.4%; TOKEN (TokenFi) rose by 210.5%; NXRA (AllianceBlock Nexera) increased by 129%; GFI (Goldfinch) saw a 24-hour surge of 97.3%; and RIO (Realio Network) rose by 141.7% over the week.
What is RWA?
RWA (Real World Assets) cryptocurrency refers to a financial instrument that combines real-world assets with blockchain technology. This type of cryptocurrency enables physical assets such as real estate, stocks, bonds, artworks, and even intellectual property to be represented, divided, traded, and managed on the blockchain. RWA cryptocurrency offers a way to bring traditional financial world assets into the decentralized finance (DeFi) sphere, allowing these assets to benefit from the transparency, security, efficiency, and global accessibility offered by blockchain technology.
Implementing RWA cryptocurrency typically involves creating tokenized assets that exist on the blockchain as tokens, representing ownership or partial ownership of real-world assets. These tokens can be bought, sold, exchanged, or used as collateral just like any other cryptocurrency. Through tokenization, RWAs can improve liquidity, lower entry barriers, and provide new investment opportunities for investors.
ONDO Doubles in a Week, BlackRock’s Entry Reignites the RWA Track
Moreover, the bull market phase seems not to have shifted towards DeFi. According to DeFi Llama data, from early 2022 to July 2023, the median yield in DeFi has risen from last year’s low of 2% to currently 3.24%. However, this yield is still lower compared to the yield on government bonds, with the current 10-year US Treasury yield at 4.22%. Additionally, CME FedWatch data suggests that the Federal Reserve is likely to maintain interest rates in the range of 5.25%-5.50% in May.
In the prevailing risk-averse environment of last year, institutions considered the median returns offered by DeFi yields too low for the associated risks. When major investors couldn’t generate sufficient returns on-chain, bringing real-world yields into DeFi emerged as a viable solution.
Following the general surge in the RWA concept, even an RWA concept meme, ElonRWA, emerged amid the meme hype. ElonRWA, the first Elon meme coin related to the RWA narrative, originates from a hand-drawn portrait of Musk. With the “wealth effect” associated with Musk, ElonRWA has seen significant gains, with a 24-hour surge of 80.51%.
Realio Network
Founded in 2018, Realio Network, originally a platform specializing in real estate private equity investment and P2P trading, is headquartered in New York. Realio has established its L1 blockchain network, developed based on the Cosmos SDK, with the mainnet launching in April last year.
Realio’s platform leverages blockchain technology to offer a range of services including tokenization, digital asset issuance, and secondary market trading, with applications such as realioVerse and the upcoming Freehold wallet. In the future, Realio plans to expand beyond real estate into securities. One of Realio’s unique features is its distributed key management system, ensuring secure staking validators and delegators.
Realio adopts a native dual-token proof-of-stake model, RIO and RST, supporting network staking, governance, and key management. Additionally, Realio has launched a tokenized fund, LMX, specializing in low-cost Bitcoin production.
RST, an equity token launched in 2020 in collaboration with Algorand, sold as an Algorand Standard Asset (ASA) and features interoperability with other supported blockchains and platforms (such as RealioX). RST holders enjoy platform revenue distribution and can stake RST on the Realio Network to earn validator rewards. With a maximum supply of 50 million, RST is sold through presales and Security Token Offering products on the realio.fund platform.
RIO, the native gas and utility token of the Realio Network, has a maximum supply of 75 million, issued across multiple chains including Ethereum, Algorand, and Stellar, with no pre-mine. Inflation is through validator block rewards and liquidity mining. As of writing, RIO’s price is $2.04, with a weekly surge of 140.9%.
Propchain
Propchain is a blockchain-based real estate token investment marketplace that offers users the opportunity to invest in the global real estate market, providing tools of various nature, size, and valuation. Propchain addresses many challenges faced by real estate investors in traditional markets, continually acquiring new properties and listing tokens post-due diligence to ensure a never-ending selection of investment options, thus guaranteeing the security and sustainability of properties.
Propchain allows investors to start with a minimum investment of 1000 euros. All properties are managed by Propchain’s property management team, enabling investors to simply collect rent from the properties. As of writing, the price of PROPC is $4.84, with a weekly gain reaching 83.4%.
AllianceBlock Nexera
AllianceBlock is an infrastructure provider for the decentralized tokenized market. It offers liquidity to enterprises and enables them to issue, manage, and trade tokenized digital assets, including RWAs, in compliance. AllianceBlock’s tokenization technology allows institutions and businesses to develop solutions that are both compliant and efficient.
AllianceBlock has introduced the NFT protocol Nexera, built on current NFT standards, capable of creating mutable and composable NFTs known as MetaNFT.
MetaNFT represents the third generation of NFTs, capable of holding both mutable data and metadata to expand their functionalities, allowing them to dynamically evolve with new attributes and limitations over time. This makes MetaNFT a mutable storage entity on the blockchain, capable of interacting with both on-chain and off-chain data. MetaNFT supports existing and emerging NFT standards, enabling developers to quickly adapt and integrate future standards.
MetaNFT can also automate the terms of loans between borrowers and lenders. Furthermore, MetaNFT can power asset-backed lending platforms through the fragmentation of NFTs. That is, MetaNFT can use existing NFTs as collateral and split them into smaller NFT portions, which can be sold or auctioned directly or through NFT marketplace platforms.
The native token of Nexera, NXRA, has a maximum supply of 850 million and currently supports operations on Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Avalanche, Polygon, and EnergyWeb Chain. As of writing, the price of NXRA is $0.28, with a weekly gain of 139.7%.
Plume Network
Plume is a modular L2 blockchain dedicated to RWAs, integrating asset tokenization and compliance providers directly into the chain. Plume aims to simplify the complex process of deploying risk-weighted asset projects and provides investors with a blockchain ecosystem. Through its DeFi applications, Plume seeks to achieve composability for RWA-specific assets and offers connections with premium buyers to increase liquidity for all tokenized RWAs.
The Plume network team comprises members from major companies including Coinbase, Robinhood, Layerzero, Binance, Galaxy Digital, Scale Venture Partners, dYdX, and more. Currently, the Plume network has not issued any tokens but has a rewards program. Plume is deployed as an L2 on Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet; participating in Plume’s testnet, completing tasks like bridging, provides an opportunity to receive an airdrop.
Mineral
Mineral is the world’s first inscription of BRC-420 supported by bitcoin mining RWAs. Unlike many unsustainable DeFi 1.0 projects reliant on subsidies and liquidity locking, Mineral introduces positive externalities from mining, creating a sustainable yield-generating DeFi model.
By staking Mineral on L2 to receive bitcoin, one can also obtain the native token MNER, with the treasury continuously acquiring new RWA yielding assets as the project progresses. Besides, Mineral will collaborate with other projects within the BRC-420 environment, achieving multi-mining through staking Mineral inscriptions on L2.
Through its native token MNER, designed to consolidate value with RWAs and offer high composability, it opens broad possibilities for cross-project collaboration, realizing a multi-flywheel design for DeFi. MNER acts as the Mineral L2 Treasury token, supported by RWAs, specifically bitcoin mining power. Over time, the Treasury benefits from continuous net proceeds from BTC mining and other RWAs, cross-project collaboration gains, and enhanced net proceeds from newly acquired RWAs.
Galileo Protocol
The Galileo Protocol is a tokenization platform designed to transform the certification and ownership of luxury goods and Real World Assets (RWA). Focusing on utilizing pNFTs as proof of ownership and authenticity, the Galileo Protocol aims to benefit luxury brands, businesses, personal collectors, and metaverse users.
pNFTs offer the traceability, immutability, and security benefits of NFTs while abstracting much of the complexity involved in transacting physical assets. This allows for all changes within a product’s lifecycle to be recorded on the pNFT. The protocol includes a mobile application for iOS and Android devices, enabling users to authenticate luxury goods and manage their associated pNFTs. The app utilizes computer vision algorithms to analyze the physical features of luxury items and compare them with the metadata stored in their corresponding pNFTs.
Additionally, the Galileo Protocol provides a B2B tokenization platform for luxury brands and businesses to authenticate their products and track them through their supply chains. This platform allows businesses to quickly and easily create and manage pNFTs for their products, ensuring the authenticity of each item is accurately recorded on the blockchain.
The Galileo Protocol will issue 150 million LEOX tokens, with an initial circulating supply of 28.9 million. As of writing, the price of LEOX is $1.34, with a weekly gain of 120.7%.
MANTRA
MANTRA Chain is an L1 blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK, designed to foster a network of collaboration between businesses, attracting enterprises and developers to build anything from NFTs, games, metaverse applications to compliant DEXs. The first dApp on MANTRA Chain is MANTRA Finance, aiming to become a globally regulated DeFi platform that brings the speed and transparency of DeFi to Traditional Finance (TradFi), enabling users to issue and trade RWA tokens.
On March 19th, MANTRA announced it had completed a $11 million funding round, led by Shorooq Partners, with participation from Three Point Capital, Forte Securities, Caladan, Virtuzone, Hex Trust, Token Bay Capital, GameFi Ventures, Mapleblock, Fuse Capital, 280 Capital, among others.
The new funds will be used to help MANTRA achieve three key objectives: building compliant infrastructure, providing support for developers, and expanding the scope of RWA tokenization projects. As of writing, the price of OM is $0.72, with a 24-hour gain of 26.7%.