2024 has truly been a landmark year as institutional investors ventured deeper into the cryptocurrency space via exchange-traded funds (ETF) and real-world assets (RWAs). While the Bitcoin Spot ETF has finally allowed mainstream investors to invest in BTC in a seamless and regulatory-compliant manner, RWAs are being leveraged to bring efficiency, liquidity, and traceability to tangible assets outside the crypto realm.
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RWAs have been the leading narrative in this cycle, aiming to take crypto mainstream by bringing real estate, art, bonds, commodities, stocks, intellectual property, and more to the blockchain. By converting physical and traditional financial assets into digital tokens, they enable fractional ownership, accessibility, and democratization of conventional markets.
Given the vast market size available for tokenization to tap into, it represents one of the largest market opportunities valued at hundreds of trillions of dollars.
TradFi giant Franklin Templeton, which has $1.6 trillion in AUM, believes that blockchain technology is going to be “transformational,” with tokenization being a prominent application of it. Then there’s BlackRock, which also envisions the “tokenization of every financial asset.”
Currently, stablecoins are dominating the rise of RWAs in crypto, having a combined market capitalization of over $162bln. Commodity-backed tokens are also growing, with gold being the most popular option.
After fiat-backed stablecoins, tokenized treasuries are leading this trend at $1.53bln with an average yield to maturity of 4.96%, as per RWA.xyz. As yield in the DeFi world crashes, the capital tied up in these funds has risen 104% this year and a whopping 1,357% since the beginning of last year.
The market cap of RWA coins, meanwhile, is currently sitting around $8.8 bln, as per CoinGecko.
This trend is still early in its stages, with the necessary infrastructure still lacking. Not to mention, regulation and security are critical issues that need to be addressed to move the tokenization of RWA forward. Additionally, tokenization of RWAs has been limited to only a select few assets, and its use cases remain restricted. This is what Pundi X has been working on.
Pundi X to Drive Tokenization RWA Application
Pundi X is a crypto project that has been busy transforming physical retail businesses for the past many years. To make this happen, it has been deploying its blockchain-based point-of-sale (POS) solutions worldwide while forming partnerships with governments, payment companies, and retailers.
After ending 2023 on a high note, marked by registering as Money Services Business with FINTRA in Canada, having XPOS® APK compatible with SUNMI POS, launching the ‘Pay via Email’ service, and collaborating with Paxos to integrate PAXG in XPOS, the platform has been ramping up its efforts to achieve its bold vision of bridging the gap between the digital and physical worlds.
This year, Pundi X is focusing particularly on RWAs through new use cases for tokenized RWAs, increasing stablecoin offerings, and launching decentralized loyalty tokenization services for merchants.
Besides RWAs, the project is also adding new blockchain networks on XPOS®, such as BTC mainnet and Solana chain, piloting XPOS® tech with a licensed operator to empower remittance, and developing a prototype of the next-generation hardware wallet card with global semiconductor leader Infineon.
Co-founded by CEO Zac Cheah, who was named a Top Ten Fintech Leader by the Singapore Fintech Association, Pundi X has always aimed to eliminate the complexity and inefficiency of existing cryptocurrency payment systems. Cheah envisioned a solution that enables seamless and convenient crypto transactions for both merchants and consumers.
Working towards this goal, Pundi X has partnered with leading payments platform Ingenico Group to enable crypto transactions globally. Meanwhile, its XPOS module supports integration on X990 by US-based Verifone, one of the largest providers of traditional POS terminals in the world. XPOS has also integrated Binance Pay as a crypto payment channel in addition to Ethereum, BNB smart chain, TRON, Solana, Bitcoin, and BTC Lightning Networks while supporting Metamask, Trust, and f(x)Wallet.
Now, in its endeavor to make blockchain technology and crypto payments accessible for all and as easy as buying a bottle of water, its latest efforts will help tokenized RWAs integrate into the real world. This will allow Pundi X to tap into a trillion-dollar market, merchants will be able to offer more advanced and efficient services to their users, and consumers will be able to access and use a wide variety of assets.
