📊 Crypto Volatility: A Thing of the Past?

You know it’s getting bullish when the NY Fed puts out an article framing tokenization as a giant leap forward for securities. 🦘

Doubly so when House lawmakers are bickering about the role of DeFi in society – blockchain is past the point of being ignored. ⭐

🎯🔥 Rapid Fire Takeaways:

🪶 Plume debuts tokenized ‘Mineral Vault’ amid hunger for RWA yield, CEO says

🌱 Tether Acquires 10% Stake in Adecoagro SA to Grow in Agriculture

📜 Infineo Tokenizes $125 Million in Life Insurance Policies

📊 Citi: Fewer Institutions Want CBDCs 

❓ Financial services: The European mysterious gap

🐘 A Hunt for Yield: The Next Chapter in Crypto Portfolio Optimization

🐉 Digital RMB transaction volumes hit $56 billion for one month 

Regardless of DeFi’s inevitable use cases, tokenized assets could seriously decrease on-chain volatility, according to Ripple CTO David Schwartz. 🧘

What started as an experiment is quickly becoming a defining industry for financial technology… they grow up so fast. 🥲

🌄 Over the Horizon, Big Things Loom

We heard you like RWAs. 👀

Hop on WolfWeb3 on Thursday at 2 pm EDT, talk tokenization with us, and double up on Friday at 2 pm EDT for the RWA World Roundup! 💻

Plus, we’re very close to capacity for RWA Day on October 8 in Salt Lake City, Utah! Register now and mingle with the top names in tokenization. 🤝

🏎️ Drivers of Tokenization and Adoption

Tokenization is evolving faster than ever, with DeFi Llama calculating around $5.7 billion locked across RWA protocols. A bit less than our friends at Provenance have on their books – Infineo just tokenized another $125 million in life insurance policies, bringing the chain’s total assets under administration to around $14 billion. How you count these things really matters, and it’s still early days. 📅

Either way, growth is everywhere. Plume is entering the tokenized mineral race, and Tether secured a 10% stake in agriculture giant Adecoagro SA with tokenization in mind. For interoperability, Huma Finance secured $38 million to expand top Solana and Stellar, and Paxos integrated with Arbitrum. ⛓️

Off-chain entities are also in the game, with German state Saxony-Anhalt tokenizing  €50 million in commercial paper using Deutsche Börse’s ClearStream. Commercial paper is quickly becoming tradable on-chain, too – Barclays is collaborating with Versana to make corporate loans more accessible. And if you want exposure to the underlying tech, State Street has your back, collaborating with Galaxy Digital to kick off three digital asset ETFs. 📜 

💃 Regulations and Infrastructure Continue to Dance

Despite this adoption, a rift is emerging between state actors’ preferred digital asset configurations and what corporates demand. Citi reports that support for CBDCs for cash settlement has collapsed among major banks, falling from 52% last year to 15% in 2024. 👀

Perhaps a lack of speed and flexibility is to blame. Industry leaders have already formed the Decentralized Recovery (DeRec) Alliance, with IOHK becoming the latest founding member. Compliance focus is also growing, with Sky founder Rune Christensen responding to criticisms that the blockchain’s “freeze” function undermines decentralization, citing the balance between access and regulatory adherence. Working within legal frameworks certainly pays off – Olea Global Markets has secured its CMS license in Singapore, a big step forward. 👣

But don’t count CBDCs out yet – State actors don’t take change lying down. Brazil is in Phase 2 of its DLT pilot, and Banque de France is all-in on its wholesale CBDC trials. The latter specifically focuses on why the EU is lagging in financial services. It’s a puzzle, but not all negative, with British-based Ownera working with Adhara for digital cash and Irish-based Accenture investing in EMTECH for central bank operations. 🔍

🔍 Trends and Innovation In the Works 

Where we go next is anyone’s guess, but we have a pretty good one based on data. Yield has become the primary driver in on-chain portfolio optimization, according to Hashnote Private Wealth Head Jason Liebowitz. Those yield sources are growing more diverse, with BBVA incorporating USDC for its Swiss-based services and Blockstream issuing a new note to grow its Bitcoin mining hash rate. ⛏️ 

Nowhere is the trend towards tokenization more evident than in Asia. Recall Hong Kong’s Project Ensemble sandbox attracting big names like Ant Digital Technologies. On the mainland, China’s digital RMB is exploding in volume, hitting $56 billion in volume for May. Across the sea, Japan’s three largest banks, MUFG, SMBC, and Mizuho, are dabbling with stablecoins and Swift for cross-border payments… is Chainlink’s CCIP involved? ⛩️

📚 Another One In the Books!

The trend of growing tokenization isn’t showing signs of slowing or reversing.

It’s high time to have your finger on the pulse of what this means for the future of financial markets.

The best way to get in the loop? Join us in Salt Lake on October 8 for RWA Day.

Make sure to register while there’s still room!