🌐 The UN officially has a DAO! Welcome to tokenized 2024

A Happy New Year to you! We hope it was filled with festivities and fireworks. 🎆

We’re back in action and wrangling all the RWA and tokenization news you’ll need to start 2024 in the know. 

From new collateral to new blockchains, RWAs certainly didn’t take a break for the holidays…

🎯🔥 Rapid Fire Takeaways:

🟣 Real-World Assets Build on Solana as Ondo Finance Expands Tokenized Treasury Offering

📜 Frax Votes To Move $20M Of Stablecoin Collateral Into Treasury Bills

💻 ERC3643 Token Standard Achieves ‘Final’ Status in Ethereum Improvement Proposal

🤝 DTCC Completes Acquisition of Securrency, Accelerating Digital Asset Initiatives

⛰️ Norway to extend CBDC research to wholesale. Decision in late 2025

🚀 UN digital governance body to establish a DAO

Folks have been busy! 🏃

Let’s take a tour. 👇

🏛️ New Year, New Collateral 

Collateral composition is one of the driving motivators behind the tokenization of real-world assets. Digitally-native access to traditionally physical asset classes is a significant boon in most cases, fostering broader access, deeper liquidity, and transactional efficiency. 

Frax, one of the leading issuers of decentralized stablecoins, has taken note of this trend and is now migrating $20 million into U.S. Treasury assets. Initially proposed by Centrifuge, an entity known for handling big-ticket RWA integrations for majors like MakerDAO and Arbitrum, this move highlights the growing scope and applicability of tokenized RWAs. With 99.99% of all votes on the proposal cast towards the affirmative, it’s safe to say this integration is mutually welcomed with open arms. 

The good news is that you don’t need $20 million and a technical partnership to access tokenized real-world assets. They’re now easier to get than ever, with tokenized Treasury giant Ondo Finance officially launching on Solana. Recently entering the top 5 blockchain assets by market cap, Solana's delegated proof of stake network has been making waves in recent months. With the network having a more retail-facing audience, tokenized real-world assets may receive a fresh injection of interest from a broader audience on the heels of this move. 

🚂 Railroads and Inroads

If you’ve taken an international train in the EU, you probably understand how different rail gauges can cause significant headaches. 

Standardization makes life easier – in rail and blockchain. 

The world’s largest smart contract network has noticed, and ERC3643, also called the T-REX,  is officially in the final stages of approval and implementation. Billed as the tokenization standard for real-world assets, this token type allows for specific permissions that make managing tokenized real-world assets much more straightforward. 

Features like compliance with international securities laws, KYC and AML frameworks, and other issuer and consumer safeguards are how ERC3643 is closing the gap between decentralized blockchains and the nuances of tokenized real-world assets. 

Centralized digital asset managers and custodians are on board with the proposal. Coinbase has clarified its position towards responsible DeFi development via its Base platform. Recall that Coinbase recently chose Abu Dhabi as the jurisdiction for their Project Diamond initiative.

These standards for tokenizing real-world assets will serve as the foundation for the next leg up in the world’s tokenization journey. 

🤝 Acquisitions and Cooperation

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, or DTCC, completed its acquisition of Securrency this week, a move heralded as accelerating the giant’s move into the digital asset space. DTCC earlier proposed that its deep expertise in global financial plumbing could aid interoperability among tokenizers, and this most recent acquisition demonstrates that this assertion was much more than a thought exercise.

Big names are making big moves and helping to write history.

The UK is helping them do it, signaling openness to cooperate with crypto industry leaders on digital securities legislation in the interest of a digital securities sandbox (DSS.) A recent draft shows the sandbox under the authority of the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority.

🗺️ Central Banks and Internationals 

This time, the New Year has a special significance in Norway, heralding the two-year countdown towards a wholesale CBDC. Norges Bank revealed they’re in the fourth stage of testing and exploring how tokenized deposits might interface with the system. 

A reminder that retail CBDCs encompass general use by the wider population, including payments at retail locations. Alternatively, wholesale CBDCs, like those explored in Norway, only involve the central and participating banks. 

There are many organizational concepts for digital assets beyond CBDCs, such as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs.) These organizations afford greater representation, direct ownership and management, and significant transparency for users, all underpinned by blockchain. 

The United Nations Internet Governance Forum is the latest big-name organization to take an interest in DAOs and has announced the launch of an experimental DAO initiative. Government ministry staff are scheduled to participate, and the results will likely serve as a template for future utilization of blockchain-based organizational structures by intra-governmental international bodies. 

…

Would you vote in a UN DAO if given the opportunity?

Let us know on Twitter or LinkedIn, and check out the RWA World Database – the 2023 Annual Report is live and chocked full of industry insights and data you won’t find anywhere else!