Ben Strack

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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M&amp;A hasn’t slowed as Congress mulls crypto legislation and efforts to get more real-world assets onchain continue.



I chatted with Ondo Finance CEO Nathan Allman last month about the RWA space ahead of the company’s tokenization platform launch slated for this summer (Ondo doesn’t yet have a go-live date).&nbsp;



Saying the vast majority of regulated financial assets will ultimately settle on blockchain rails is “not a crazy prediction” anymore,<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoins-iceberg-rwas-mature-ondo"> Allman told me</a>. Others agree,<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-fink-bitcoin-dollar"> including Larry Fink</a> (the man leading the world’s largest asset manager) and Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul (check out<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/franklin-templeton-products-onchain-exec-says"> my Q&amp;A with her</a> here).&nbsp;



Fast forward to Monday and Ondo said it acquired Strangelove, which focuses on designing and deploying open-source infrastructure across multiple blockchains. This deal was done “strategically” ahead of the aforementioned tokenization platform launch, said Ondo chief strategy officer Ian De Bode.&nbsp;



Called Ondo Global Markets, it’ll initially offer access to 100+ stocks and ETFs — starting on Ethereum and expanding to BNB Chain and Solana.



Strangelove CEO Jack Zampolin said his company’s work on cross-chain communication protocols, permissioned/unpermissioned validator frameworks and modular consensus architecture (that’s a lot of big words) will help Ondo’s platform evolve from a centralized one to a distributed network where institutions can participate in tokenized asset ops.&nbsp;



All told: What stablecoins did for dollars, Ondo is looking to do for securities, De Bode added. At least for the most liquid ones, to start. Others, like Apollo Global Management, are focusing on tokenization<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-rwa-segments-will-boom-next"> </a>within <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-rwa-segments-will-boom-next">less liquid segments</a> like private credit.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeOpUiGvz1SYg-1VMWoUAw0-fWdRG2UsaDtz5Zazoy_xhyH3_-d2GzkTf6jCFRhKJyrEa7ZbrAnwA96VLnEJuqe8AtncdzNSMjZvbCcfqvz0PdKGn3zmi4Jqic0G_IfPBnC_BINyQ?key=4yS2jUSrAEbpfqLBgJNLuA" alt=""/></figure>



It’s worth noting that Ondo earlier this month said it would buy Oasis Pro, gaining access to its SEC-registered broker-dealer, alternative trading system and transfer agent. We know how coveted US digital asset licenses are.&nbsp;



Speaking of which, Nasdaq-listed BSGM this week detailed plans to acquire a FINRA- and SEC-registered broker-dealer to one day offer gold-backed tokenized assets for US investors.&nbsp;



It’s not hard to see why companies want in on this space given some of the projections thrown around (like from that April Ripple/BCG report above).&nbsp;



There’ll be plenty of competition here from both crypto-native and TradFi giants, so grab your proverbial popcorn. Better yet, throw an actual bag in the microwave.



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RWA-related M&A picks up as companies hunt for US licenses

Katherine Ross

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Real-world asset tokenization has been quietly growing, topping $25 billion just last week, so let’s check in with Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo, shall we?



Since inking its deal with BlackRock last year, Securitize has managed to really grow its presence in this sector. It started out this year, in January, with $1.1 billion, but that’s grown over 250% to $3.94 billion, per both rwa.xyz and Securitize’s own data.



Then you look at subparts of the RWA market, like tokenized treasuries, which have also seen huge growth this year alone. At the beginning of this year, it sat at $4 billion, but it’s now at $7.5 billion — an increase of 87%.



“Every single asset manager and bank in the US…is now looking at tokenizing something,” Domingo said.&nbsp;



“The concerns in the past [were] about, is this legal or not? Does it have product-market fit? Is there investor demand that has completely disappeared? So now the question is more about, when and what do I tokenize, as opposed to, why should I tokenize? Or is this legal?”&nbsp;



The problem for institutions at this point is that they don’t necessarily understand where the demand is, Domingo said.&nbsp;



“They will come to us and they will ask us, what do you think are good products to do it? There is still a bit of a perception that you should be tokenizing illiquid assets like real estate and private equity. I personally think that&#8217;s a bad place to start, because the fact that you tokenize them is not going to make them liquid,” he noted.



Instead, he’s seeing more of a pickup in tokenizing yield-bearing liquid assets.&nbsp;



Domingo said that one of the biggest unlocks he’s seen has been the integration with DeFi, which not only gives institutions the ability to explore DeFi, but it also has a huge benefit for projects in the space as well.&nbsp;



“All the DeFi companies know that they need to bring institutions into DeFi, for DeFi to continue to grow. So all these companies that didn&#8217;t want to touch institutions now realize that without institutions participating in DeFi, and without high-quality assets to be able to process collateral, etc, [then] DeFi is not going to grow back to where it was [during DeFi summer in 2021],” he explained.&nbsp;



Specifically, we’re going to see a pickup in lending and automated market making as institutions and DeFi projects team up in this space, though Domingo also thinks that there’s very healthy demand for tokenized stocks, which make for a “good combination” with DeFi.



As for outlooks, Domingo told <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/rwa-defi-integration-tokenized-treasurys">Empire back in January</a> that he could see the market growing to $50 billion over the next year. However, he’s pulling back on that slightly. He could see the sector adding another $5 to $10 billion to the current overall figure of $25 billion by year-end. 



As for when we could see the RWA market cap hit $50 billion? That’s going to come when the institutions feel secure and ready to enter, which could take some time. But players like BlackRock and Apollo have helped pave the way.



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RWAs could top $35B by year-end: Securitize

Jack Kubinec

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Standing outside the Clase Azul loft in downtown Brooklyn, I called my mother to inform her I had just spent $2,000 on a bottle of tequila.



“Are you drunk?” came her stunned reply.



Reader: I was not drunk. I was investing. Two and a half weeks later, I had sold the bottle for $3,000 — courtesy of the blockchain.



In early June, BAXUS co-founder Tzvi Wiesel invited me to join him at a Clase Azul private tasting and bottle launch. At the event, the tequila brand’s head distiller led a tasting, pointing out notes of apple and a blue and orange bottle meant to evoke the New York skyline. Then, the gathered faithful were given the option to buy one or two bottles of “The Loft Brooklyn Collection” — available exclusively in New York.&nbsp;



For much of the event, the salespeople didn’t pay much mind to me, a schlubby crypto journalist, compared to the older, richer-looking clientele. But a few minutes later, I found myself in a cool back room, my hand shaken by an eager-looking employee clad in black. After taking a picture with my $2,000 booze, I sent the bottle home with Wiesel, who then scanned and uploaded it to BAXUS’ Solana-powered spirits marketplace.



BAXUS stores liquor in physical vaults on behalf of spirits collectors. Each bottle is 3-D scanned and paired with an NFT that can be bought or sold on BAXUS. Transactions are settled in USDC, and users can on- or off-ramp from fiat with Coinflow. BAXUS takes a 10% sellers’ fee. Collectors can make multiple swaps without physically possessing a bottle, and if they want to actually drink their liquor, BAXUS will ship it for a $25 fee.&nbsp;



I unsuccessfully listed my bottle for $3,500, but then I got a bite at $3,000, which set me up with a $700 profit after fees. (That’s a 35% return in a couple weeks. Why am I sending this newsletter out for free?)



The whole process was made possible by blockchain tech.&nbsp;



“Blockchain enabled the seamless payment via crypto, the instant settlement in your account, the owner to keep the bottle in the vault while still being able to show verifiable proof of ownership,” Wiesel said in a text. “Think about how the original process required you to go to Brooklyn, pay with a credit card, etc. [If] you wanted to resell it you would have had to go and find a buyer online (illegally) and then [try] to establish trust that you actually have the bottle and will send it to them. This eliminated all of the friction.”



It’s frequently said that crypto needs to solve real problems. In this case, crypto solved my problem of having acquired a limited edition tequila bottle for less than its market value. I hope to face this problem again sometime soon.



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I made a profit flipping tequila on the blockchain

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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A day after the SEC’s tokenization-focused roundtable, an asset manager launched its first tokenized fund. We just saw stablecoin-related M&amp;A, too.



First, SEC Chair Paul Atkins reiterated Monday that SEC policymaking “will no longer result from ad hoc enforcement actions.” (Yes, the agency italicized “ad hoc” in the transcript.)



On tokenization, he likened securities moving onchain to the transition of audio recordings from vinyl records to cassette tapes to digital software.



“Blockchain technology holds the promise to allow for a broad swath of novel use cases for securities, fostering new kinds of market activities that many of the commission’s legacy rules and regulations do not contemplate today,” Atkins said.&nbsp;



But SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw — <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/industry-opinions-on-sec-commissioner-crenshaw">not exactly known</a> for her crypto support — essentially told everyone to proceed with caution.&nbsp;



She questioned how great instant settlement actually is, noting the delay between trade execution and settlement provides for “core market functionalities and protection mechanisms.”



Crenshaw also asked why the SEC — a “tech-neutral regulator” — would focus on blockchain over other types of distributed ledger technologies?&nbsp;



“And we seem to be doing so before the technology has even been demonstrated as fit for purpose,” she added.



On that point, Crenshaw’s colleague Hester Peirce last week <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/peirce-iismgd-050825#_ftn2">noted</a> the SEC crypto task force is considering an exemptive order to let firms issue, trade and settle eligible tokenized securities. So-called sandboxes “can help regulators think about how existing rules could be adapted to accommodate trading tokenized securities at scale,” Peirce explained.



Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul urged “practical sandboxes” that don’t just test what the tech can do (we know that already) — but that inform legislation/regulations. She stressed too that “consumer opportunity” is as important as consumer protection.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Kaul joined execs from BlackRock, Nasdaq, Fidelity and others. A second panel included some smaller, DeFi-centric players.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXde_hrGBxwBD8jvc5FHvXSdcIoWgejLCCzj4fNr6sH8Pih9yuvY3sTrPWC6mpF-DvPPiSSAoj92eZBiwhC6NsFI21vRWcRGVG78mXk0xvKQ06xMB0Ke3p8kG1wf9tolu0B-s1phhQ?key=hmUspgZPRMV_GCM1SWKGJg" alt=""/></figure>



Philipp Pieper, co-founder of RWA protocol Swarm, said in an email that while the SEC’s engagement with TradFi titans validates this segment’s potential, DeFi founders must advocate for permissionless protocols and programmable assets to ensure regulations don’t sideline startups.



“We must prove RWAs’ value with tangible use cases, such as fractional ownership and liquid supply chain assets, to win over regulators and users,” Pieper said. “The sector must build compelling RWA platforms which demonstrate clear cost savings and liquidity solutions.”&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Anchorage, VanEck making moves</h2>



Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley (after the news his company would buy Mountain Protocol) said: “Stablecoins are becoming the backbone of the digital economy.”



If stablecoins (with a $230 billion market cap) are like checking accounts (as Tokenized Asset Coalition executive director Johnny Reinsch put it during the roundtable), yield-bearing tokenized money market funds are like savings accounts.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc4ABPKNgKoX2Bnw_m7cAjoT1Krl7mrGdjkanwv0VRCdWea1fApd7wcYpd2r5IPx-gpdUu5ucBHb0KsMpWf5TigLP93Jl-MANglTEURuSjBXi8QfC0qKOZ-cHg_mNg1ozunwGtu?key=hmUspgZPRMV_GCM1SWKGJg" alt=""/></figure>



Speaking of which, VanEck is the latest to offer onchain access to US Treasury-backed assets via its new VBILL fund. Available across the Avalanche, BNB Chain, Ethereum, and Solana blockchains, VBILL facilitates atomic liquidity via Agora’s USD stablecoin (AUSD).



BlackRock’s BUIDL is perhaps the best known tokenized yield fund now. Its assets under management (as you see above) make up roughly 40% of the nearly $7 billion tokenized Treasury space, <a href="http://rwa.xyz">rwa.xyz</a> data shows.&nbsp;



Then there’s the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-rwa-segments-will-boom-next">opportunity to tokenize</a> public stocks, as well as private equities and credit.



Though stablecoin bill progress has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/legislative-speed-bumps-genius-act-sec">hit a snag</a> in the US, these ongoing SEC talks — even if not Earth-shattering — signal the industry is getting closer to clarity.&nbsp;



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Crypto players eye more tokenization tests after latest SEC talk

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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If the first version of real-world assets was akin to NFTs, the second version’s more like memecoins (just because of liquidity), Gauntlet’s Tarun Chitra explained on this morning’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/46930c4e-2d11-11f0-84b2-8f724b6699b4">Empire podcast.&nbsp;</a>



 ”It&#8217;s a lot easier to deal with composability-wise, and you don&#8217;t have to build a whole separate stack. NFTs had to build their own total separate stack, and then once people stopped using them, that stack also kind of fell. And so I think being able to have this kind of liquidity aspect to RWAs was just not there,” Chitra said.&nbsp;



The episode focuses — as you might be able to tell from the above quote and the recent <a href="https://securitize.io/learn/press/securitize-and-gauntlet-launch-levered-rwa-strategy-on-apollo-diversified-credit-securitize-fund">announcements</a> from these three — on the tokenization of private credit with Securitize’s Carlos Domingo and Apollo’s Christine Moy.



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0FsiR_qjtE0?si=AFCJv78JYps6zXWJ" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>







For Securitize and Apollo, this represents another step in a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/apollo-securitize-partnership-institutional-adoption">partnership</a> that began earlier this year. But to Chitra’s earlier point, RWAs have come a long way.&nbsp;



“ The fact that we are making traditional assets interoperable with open architecture is the key point,” Moy explained. In the earlier versions, Moy’s work was focused on “bespoke systems that were behind walled gardens.”



We all know that one of the downsides of the so-called traditional way of doing things at big financial institutions is that everything innovative takes time to develop. Part of it is just the process. The other, compliance.&nbsp;



But as Moy said,  ”the velocity of innovation in the crypto space is significant, because what you have is open source code, open architecture, that&#8217;s well understood. You have smart contract libraries that have already been audited, and are composable.”



In the late <a href="https://securitize.io/learn/press/securitize-and-gauntlet-launch-levered-rwa-strategy-on-apollo-diversified-credit-securitize-fund">April announcement</a>, Domingo said its RWA strategy is an example of “institutional-grade DeFi we’ve been working to build: making tokenized securities not only accessible, but compelling to crypto-native investors seeking strategies that objectively outpace their traditional counterparts.”



To put it simply, the door is now open for institutional investors to earn some “enhanced yields” that were previously off the table.&nbsp;



According to Domingo, the buyers right now are pretty crypto-native.&nbsp;



“I think for today, we&#8217;re focusing all the products. All the customers we have today for ACRED…for anything…are all crypto native people.” These native customers are accessing the “products as a better way, [a] safer way of generating returns, as opposed to some much higher-risk strategies that they can still do in crypto that involve dealing with other types of assets,” Domingo explained. 



It may not be wholly accurate to compare this market to memecoins. But, I think they do have something in common: They’re here to stay and could take even more market share as they mature (if memecoins even can mature).&nbsp;



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How RWAs have matured this cycle

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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At the TokenizeThis conference in New York this week, I had the pleasure of moderating a conversation with executives from Dinari and STOKR on the potential for tokenized stocks.&nbsp;



I also caught a panel on the retail adoption of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoins-tokenization-blackrock-galaxy-das">tokenized real-world assets</a> (RWAs) more broadly. The headwinds, tailwinds, what have you.



First things first: Stablecoins (primarily tokenized dollars, so to speak) are a nearly $230 billion market. Outside of that, onchain RWAs currently amount to $18.5 billion, RWA.xyz <a href="https://app.rwa.xyz">data</a> shows.&nbsp;&nbsp;



A recent report from Bitwise called Q1 “the best worst quarter in crypto’s history.” While asset prices fell, stablecoin market cap hit a new high and tokenized RWAs grew 37% quarter over quarter. Not to mention <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-actions-timeline">regulatory progress</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeXir0e-iHsrAEMugU0sgDEZRs2vC2kEYXV1ksIC6FqzK7pMWt_o3ri9GOnAQpMlkjAtzNDaORB5aHuBLaLi5Jr574Y0DI5y3CxvwrYLRoVr2PAzxf7dEqfTmems_AM5P9OXrRCpg?key=Twgt7dj90D-YE00D-_r3ls6g" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Bitwise</figcaption></figure>



You can see that big chunk in private credit, and the other substantial piece in the US Treasury debt category. Included in that is BlackRock’s tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, which recently hit the $2 billion Assets Under Management (AUM) mark.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoin-legislation-top-priority">Expected legislation</a> in the US that “allows on-ramps and off-ramps to proliferate” will be crucial, Neoclassic Capital managing partner Mike Bucella said on the TokenizeThis stage Wednesday. Stablecoins and tokenized Treasury products will thus be “the foundation” for more creative onchain offerings in the coming years.



“The boring stuff is an absolute necessity, because it exists in the offchain world,” he explained. “If you can’t do that in the onchain world, then you’re not going to sit there and wait for some interesting onchain yield product; you’re going to go offchain into the traditional markets.”



As for where we go from here, Dinari Chief Business Officer Anna Wroblewska argued that after stablecoins and money market funds, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/dinari-tokenization-rwas-base">publicly listed US stocks</a> offer another easy access point for investors looking to move onchain.



Galaxy Digital tokenization head Thomas Cowan, however, noted the already-solid user experience to invest in stocks on venues like Robinhood. Therefore, he asserted, the next wave of growth could come in “places where there’s a clear lack of transparency [and] settlement risk” — i.e. private credit.



Sitting beside Cowan, 21Shares US sales head Anton Kozlov added that he also sees demand for tokenized private equity — pointing to SpaceX and OpenAI. Blockworks Research analyst Carlos Gonzalez Campo expects shares of such private companies <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/private-company-shares-tokenization">to be tokenized</a> within the next four years.



Crypto custody firm Taurus, in a recent report, pegged the “market opportunity” of fund tokenization at $1 trillion by 2030. While money market funds unlock use cases in collateral management, the report notes, Taurus is also bullish on tokenization within illiquid segments.



“Currently, if an investor needs to sell their stake in a private equity fund with a lock-up period of several years, their bank or asset manager must find a matching buyer through a manual process that can take weeks and relies primarily on emails and paper-based transactions,” the Taurus report states.



So while it’s safe to expect <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-yield-funds-complement-stablecoins">stablecoins and tokenized yield funds</a> to continue growing, it remains to be seen which of these other onchain segments will next see big traction.



Meeting investors where they are, though, is a sentiment most agree on.“[Investors] want everything in a single window — kind of like a Robinhood experience — where you can access crypto, you can access stocks, down the road you can access tokenized private credit,” Kozlov said. “That’s the dream.”



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Which tokenized RWA segments will boom next?

Donovan Choy

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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In light of all the hype around real-world assets (RWAs) of late, I thought it’d be interesting to look at Ostium.



Ostium is a perps DEX on Arbitrum that lets you trade RWAs onchain. It’s not a new project: The team <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/funding-cryptography-nft-memberships-perpetual-exchangeshttps://blockworks.co/news/funding-cryptography-nft-memberships-perpetual-exchanges">raised</a> $3.5 million in a round led by General Catalyst and LocalGlobe in October 2023, and went live last year. 



What is new, however, is its recently-<a href="https://x.com/OstiumLabs/status/1906755528703066246">launched</a> points program, which has propelled TVL up tenfold from $5.5 million to $53.6 million.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeFfRjxTzVRCGjmRmx4U3mMu5d6IF4FSDgrtueHepbFXAe8RVJ8p-EsIRQxjdqSlmCW0QmPeF9-f2eqydBfrjtMLFfwKGVU54zq-pRjv_FgRPf40UlauIQE9sDICMeOHB8Ru2xUsQ?key=w7QRrfPqFdyJramqJs9xUnjv" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://defillama.com/protocol/ostium">DefiLlama</a></figcaption></figure>



What sets Ostium apart from competitor perps DEXs is its ability to long or short popular market indices (S&amp;P500, Nikkei 225, Dow), commodities (gold, silver, copper, crude oil) or forex (GBP, EUR, JYP) – with up to 100-200x leverage.



Unlike tokenized RWAs, tradable assets on Ostium are synthetic assets, so they’re not actually backed by actual collateral. Instead, asset prices are tracked by oracles. A custom-made pull-based oracle system was built for RWAs, and Chainlink Data Streams are used for crypto assets.



Despite its RWA niche, actively-traded assets on Ostium are generally varied. On its highest trading volume day (April 16), crypto assets formed the largest percentage of assets traded (53%), foreign exchange was 22%, commodities was 18%, and indices was 7%.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdaXeltHMEmZAsFDEfY8kSmOqAjx0vqvefd7BgyLghgmHToboIS9aEhpneLYRMy4SxvYwTZl0gfYn-t1M_YPrUJo3YoZuhXPHj3sTR4bOtf_ospEkxgdIXLif46gNujmCfTMdN_7Q?key=w7QRrfPqFdyJramqJs9xUnjv" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://dune.com/queries/4064767/6859929">Dune</a></figcaption></figure>



In the last seven days, Ostium has <a href="https://dune.com/ostium_app/stats">generated</a> $938 million in trading volume, which translates to about $411k in fees. For context, total trading volume on all Arbitrum DEXs was ~$3.6 billion in the last seven days, based on <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Arbitrum?volume=true&amp;groupBy=weekly&amp;tvl=false">DefiLlama</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Is Ostium the next Hyperliquid?</h2>



Both began as perps DEXs on Arbitrum. But here’s where they differ.



Ostium uses a two-tiered <a href="https://ostium-labs.gitbook.io/ostium-docs/shared-liquidity-layer/overview">liquidity layer structure</a> consisting of a “liquidity buffer” and a market making vault.



This market making vault works similar to Hyperliquid&#8217;s HLP vault, where the relationship between liquidity providers and the platform&#8217;s traders is of an adversarial nature, i.e. if traders win, LPs lose and vice versa.



(This is the same vault that Hyperliquid recently, controversially <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hyperliquid-decentralization-validator-put">bailed out</a> in the JELLYJELLY memecoin debacle.)



Ostium’s two-tiered design, however, is meant to thwart this zero-sum relationship. Its “liquidity buffer” allows LPs to benefit from growth in trading volume and open interest instead of only trader losses. This way, Ostium LPs and traders are in a win-win relationship (see <a href="https://ostium-labs.gitbook.io/ostium-docs/shared-liquidity-layer/overview">docs</a> for a fuller explanation).



Ostium’s OLP vault is currently offering an above average 28.69% APY on USDC deposits to compensate for the risk of LPs potentially having to act as a counterparty.



The second key difference in protocol design lies in Ostium’s rejection of a central limit orderbook (CLOB) design, popularized by perps DEXs like dYdX and Hyperliquid. This is probably due to the fact that Ostium does not exist on its own L1 protocol, but I may be wrong.



Instead, Ostium opts for a pool-based design. This design solves the obvious problem of liquidity fragmentation and mirrors the price of RWAs offchain using oracles.



Ostium is an exciting project, but it’s still early days for the DEX in terms of trading activity. I’ve heard it described as the next Hyperliquid poised to ride the tailwinds of the burgeoning RWA narrative. That’s a neat mental model, but whether or not crypto traders want to abandon traditional exchanges to trade commodities and forex onchain is a whole other story.



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The next Hyperliquid? A look at the RWA-based DEX Ostium

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Apollo is doubling down on its push into real-world assets.&nbsp;



And, yes, I know we’ve been talking about RWAs a lot, but there are different layers to what’s being built in this space right now. We have institutions jumping in and out of FOMO, but then there is a group that is arguably crypto native and using this more bullish period to expand their footprints in crypto. This is the latter.&nbsp;



You see, Apollo is betting on Plume, the RWA network.&nbsp;



Here’s what I can tell you: Apollo made a strategic investment of around seven figures (the team at Plume wouldn’t disclose the full amount). The investment follows Plume’s $20 million Series A that was announced at the end of last year.&nbsp;



And, perhaps most importantly, Plume co-founder Teddy Pornprinya told me that the mainnet launch is slated for this quarter. I pushed to get a better sense of the timing, but Pornprinya only affirmed that it was “imminent.”



The team and Apollo have been working closely on ACRED, which is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/apollo-securitize-partnership-institutional-adoption">Apollo’s offering with Securitize</a>, as well as “other initiatives.”



Apollo’s investment marks the first time it has made an investment into a specific RWA chain. Pornprinya called Plume an RWAfi, which piqued my curiosity.&nbsp;



While Plume’s generally known for its RWA work, Pornprinya said they have a core focus on the DeFi side of things, hence the “RWAfi” labeling.



There are “three core focus areas for us: One is on the infrastructure technology side, two is on distribution, and three is on composability — which is essentially leveraging our DeFi native team to build these different use cases,” he said.



To make RWAs more attractive to users onchain, you have to make them more crypto, Pornprinya told me. Hence the focus on developers and, of course, aiding builders on the go-to-market side of things — a notoriously challenging part of being in crypto. 



Pornprinya told me that, in his experience, Apollo is one of the more crypto-native institutions, especially with Christine Moy leading its charge into digital assets. Instead of evaluating where to go in crypto — like many institutions currently are — Apollo’s “pretty open” to getting involved on the “permissionless side of things” and innovating with RWAs.



“It&#8217;s no longer just holding a tokenized asset and just making passive yield from it. It&#8217;s taking that asset, throwing it into the DeFi ecosystem, and making more use of that asset and unlocking more liquidity for additional opportunities,” Pornprinya said.



By the numbers, Plume has roughly 200 projects currently working with them. They launched an eight-week testnet over the summer, which had roughly 18 million wallets, four million of which were unique. Mind you, that was eight months ago, but it makes me curious about the numbers we can expect out of the mainnet once it launches.



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<ul class="wp-block-list">
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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst. </li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Empire</a>: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forward-guidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop">The Drop</a>: Apps, games, memes and more.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supply-shock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
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