💱 Trillions In Stables

RWA World Newsletter - May 9, 2025

Author

Ray Buckton
May 09, 2025

If you can believe it, it’s Friday, once again! Ray Buckton, Head of Research at RWA World, locked in and ready to cover the wave of tokenization happenings from the week. 🌊

The US Treasury thinks stablecoins could be a $2 trillion market by 2028 – that’s more bullish than most of crypto Twitter. 👀

That all depends on regulation – the GENIUS stablecoin bill, which was fast-tracked and might have been voted on by the time you’re reading this, is a bit more contentious than it was a month ago. ⚔️

🎯🔥 Rapid Fire Takeaways:

Is the GENIUS Act the bill we need to take stablecoins to the next level, or is it a Trojan horse for TradFi to eat the industry? 🍽️

Tune in on Tuesdays at 1 pm EDT and Thursdays at 2 pm EDT on Wolf Crypto to hear the live takes from industry leaders, issuers, and founders – you’ll be glad you did. 🐺

⛰️ Stablecoin Giants Rising

Tether is on a tear—they’ve launched on Kaia to bring USDT to Line’s 196 million users after declaring a smooth $1 billion in Q1 operating profit and $5.6 billion in excess reserves, on top of 7.7 tons of gold backing its XAUT token. They’re also eyeing US expansion while the CEO eschews MiCA registration, quietly finalizing a purchase of a 70% stake in Adecoago to expand its tokenization ambitions. 🚀

🏗️ Tokenization In The Works

Everything is being tokenized, now including student loans via Pencil Finance. According to BlockWorks, private credit is leading the race in tokenization. Great minds think alike—yours truly recently wrote about that, too. Apollo agrees, as their credit fund makes its DeFi debut with a levered yield strategy thanks to Securitize and Gauntlet. ✖️

Telegram is even more involved now, working with Libre on a $500 tokenized bond fund, which may be perfect timing. The US Treasury released a report on stablecoins exploring their potential to offer interest. Every new stablecoin issuance creates more demand for the dollar, meaning interests are aligned. 💵

🏛️ Institutional Adoption & Regulatory Developments

Unsurprisingly, big names are increasingly part of the equation. Citi and SDK will tokenize late-stage private shares by Q3 this year, while Goldman wants 24/7 tokenized Treasuries (they better call Superstate). Speaking of Treasuries, BlackRock is tokenizing another $150 billion via BNY Mellon to keep up with demand. 💸

The biggest surprise? Ultra-conservative KfW is now a crypto securities investor for the first time. They join the party as Deloitte opines how tokenzied networks will reshape global payments, and 70 organizations join the ECB's digital euro platform. Across the pond, Innovate Finance wants the UK to become the “Eurodollar market” for stablecoins – those are some big shoes to fill, but with HM Treasury publishing a cryptoasset draft, it might be closer than we think. 👑

Doing things right remains the biggest challenge for tokenization. Based on recent reporting, South Korea’s finance sector agrees, but Tether is working to ease the burden by partnering with Chainalysis for compliance monitoring. With Sony’s Soneium blockchain working on tokenized treasuries via Plume, the ubiquity of tokenization makes compliance more critical than ever. ⚖️

🌐 Alternative Assets, Global Markets

Expansion everywhere, with Dinari raising $12.7 million to expand tokenized stocks to non-US investors while stateside, Robinhood seeks more crypto diversification. Leaders have opinions about it all, with Mercuryo’s CEO saying crypto is growing but fiat is here to stay, and Solv’s CEO saying institutional Bitcoin demand is booming to new heights. 💥

⏱️ Token Time All The Time

Another week, another reason to be bullish on tokenization. 

Don’t forget you can catch live updates on Wolf Crypto on Tuesdays at 1 p.m. EDT and Thursdays at 2 p.m. EDT.

And until then, have a fantastic weekend and week ahead!