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DWF Ventures breaks down the two projects that plan to bridge TradFi and DeFi
The first week of February 2025 was marked by the hype about the Berachain (BERA) airdrop claim, started in the beginning of February, and the pain on memecoins and AI agents. It was easy to overlook a significant development in the realm of real-world assets (RWAs): Ondo Finance’s announcement of the Ondo Chain during their summit.
DWF Ventures explores how Ondo Chain, along with another emerging project, Plume Network, can shake up the entire RWA landscape, sending waves across the broader crypto market.
Ondo Chain and Its Impact on RWAs
Ondo Chain is a Layer 1 proof-of-stake blockchain, designed to build a bridge between traditional finance and decentralised finance (DeFi). By integrating the openness of public blockchains with the compliance and security features of permissioned networks, Ondo Chain aims to facilitate the large-scale tokenisation of RWAs, thereby accelerating the creation of institutional-grade financial markets on-chain.
Wall Street 2.0: A New Financial Paradigm
The concept of ‘Wall Street 2.0’ encapsulates Ondo’s vision of evolving financial markets through blockchain integration, differentiating itself by emphasising institutional-grade compliance, seamless interoperability with existing financial systems, and enhanced transparency in asset tokenisation.
This approach seeks to provide seamless access to a diverse range of assets, real-time settlement, and automated compliance, all while reducing reliance on intermediaries. The anticipated benefits include enhanced transparency, increased flexibility, and lowered barriers to entry for all participants.
Ondo Global Markets: Bridging Traditional and Decentralised Finance
A pivotal component of the ‘Wall Street 2.0’ vision is Ondo Global Markets, also unveiled during the crypto conference in the beginning of February 2025. It is a platform dedicated to the tokenisation of publicly traded securities such as stocks, bonds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
The platform is designed to offer features like global, round-the-clock access, instant minting and redemptions, margin trading, and high transferability of assets. By bringing these traditional financial instruments on-chain, Ondo aims to merge the deep liquidity and investor protections of traditional finance with the innovation and openness of DeFi.
Ondo Global Markets is structured to serve both institutional and retail investors, offering a regulated and transparent environment for RWA tokenisation. The platform provides access to yield-bearing assets, allowing participants to engage in automated DeFi activities while adhering to compliance standards. Additionally, Ondo’s partnerships with major financial institutions help ensure that tokenised assets are backed by robust legal frameworks.
Addressing Challenges in Integrating TradFi and DeFi
In developing Ondo Global Markets, the team identified key challenges in uniting traditional finance (TradFi) with decentralised finance:
- Inherent incompatibility with DeFi. Traditional financial instruments often struggle with smart contract accounting, making it difficult to handle corporate actions like stock splits and dividend payouts on-chain.
- Cross-chain liquidity fragmentation. The division of crypto liquidity across multiple blockchains creates a reliance on bridging solutions, which introduces security risks.
- Volatile transaction fees and security costs. In blockchain networks, transaction fees inevitably fluctuate due to market and other external conditions, while built-in network rewards for validators pose challenges for maintaining a stable ecosystem.
- Lack of institutional involvement. Regulatory uncertainty, compliance requirements, and risks such as malicious MEV deter institutions from fully engaging in DeFi.
These challenges highlighted the need for a new blockhain-based solution, leading to the creation of Ondo Chain.
Key Features of Ondo Chain
Ondo Chain blends the strengths of private, permissioned networks with public, permissionless blockchains. It is designed in collaboration with traditional financial institutions like Franklin Templeton Investments and consulting firms such as McKinsey & Company. Key features include:
- RWAs as staking collateral and gas tokens: In Ondo Chain, validators can stake any eligible asset as decided by governance, including RWAs. It opens up the possibility for more stable transaction fees and costs of network security. Institutions gain the ability to run nodes with assets on their balance sheet, generating yield without the need of acquiring crypto.
- Permissioned validator set: Ondo Chain ensures validators’ honest behaviour by upholding integrity and compliance with institutional requirements, mitigating any engagement in malicious Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) and front-running of consensus participants. As an incentive, the blockchain provides decreased latency for transactions of institutions that choose to operate their own nodes.
- Vote extensions for data security: Validators in Ondo Chain take part in publishing key off-chain data on-chain, ensuring trusted and real-time updates. The blockchain protocol automatically verifies reserves and collateral assets to reduce risks of undercollateralisation and misreporting.
These features enable Ondo Chain to offer faster transaction finality, lower latency, and a stronger bridge between traditional financial networks and DeFi ecosystems.
Plume Network: The Buy-Side of RWAs
Ondo Chain is not the only RWA-focused Layer 1 blockchain: Plume Network, already in its testnet phase, is another key player in the space of tokenising real-world assets. Instead of competing with one another, Ondo Chain and Plume Network have decided to establish a symbiotic relationship.
Whereas Ondo’s ‘Wall Street 2.0’ strategy focuses on bringing RWAs on-chain for institutional and retail investors, Plume Network positions itself as ‘Robinhood 2.0,’ emphasising a community-first platform that drives demand for these tokenised assets.
Following this approach, Plume Network aims to enhance retail participation in RWAs by offering a user-friendly interface, diversified asset access, and governance features that empower users in decision-making processes. By acting as the buy-side infrastructure, Plume complements Ondo’s essentially sell-side tokenisation model.
Future Outlook: Adoption and Innovation
Together, Ondo Chain and Plume Network create a well-defined ecosystem for the on-chain RWA sector to thrive. The combined efforts of these two platforms are expected to:
- Improve the liquidity and accessibility of RWAs for both retail and institutional investors.
- Foster the emergence of new yield-generating products within the DeFi landscape.
- Enhance user experience (UX) through better integration with wallets and financial applications, making the onboarding process seamless for new crypto entrants.
With increasing interest in RWA tokenisation and institutional participation in DeFi, the partnership between Ondo Chain and Plume Network signifies a transformative step in financial markets. As these networks evolve, they are set to play a crucial role in bridging traditional and digital finance, creating opportunity for a more inclusive and efficient financial ecosystem.
We eagerly at DWF Ventures await further development from both projects. If you are building a project within the RWA sector, reach out to us to discuss partnership opportunities.
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Two days before the inauguration of the 47th President of the United States, the unlikely mastermind behind what would send the crypto market into a frenzy was Donald Trump launching his own memecoin TRUMP. The ensuing mania was unlike anything we have seen before, with the token skyrocketing to over $70 billion in market capitalisation in just under 48 hours. DWF Ventures dives into the TRUMP phenomenon and its implications for the crypto market.
TRUMP Token Launch
The launch of the TRUMP memecoin was announced by Donald Trump himself, and became a liquidity-sucking event, drawing renewed attention back towards the crypto market from the general public. This was evidenced by Google search spikes and mainstream media coverage on this phenomenon. It seemed like everyone and their mothers wanted exposure to the token, marking the start of ripple effects across the crypto ecosystem.
First-Order Effects: Solana Takes Centre Stage
As Solana was the sole chain for transacting TRUMP in the early stages (before CEX listings), this drove massive inflows and activity across its ecosystem. The surge benefitted Solana DEXs like Jupiter, Meteora, Raydium and memecoin trading platforms like Moonshot, which saw exponential demand.
Looking at the record-breaking numbers:
- Total DEX trading volume on Solana hit over $12 billion on January 18, 2025, surpassing all records held by any other chains (according to DeFiLlama).
- DEX and CEX spot and perpetual trading volume hit all-time highs, rising to 20.3% and 10.5% respectively (as per The Block’s data).
- $SOL hit an all-time high of $293, soaring over 30% on the day.
- Wallet providers like Phantom saw a staggering 8 million requests per second.
- Stablecoin inflows on Solana increased by over $4 billion over the week as compared to usual volumes (Artemis data).
It is also interesting to note that almost half of the wallets which owned TRUMP were new, suggesting that this event has onboarded a significant number of retail users. Over 80% of wallets hold less than $1,000 worth of $TRUMP, further suggesting that most of them are likely retail that are dabbling their toes in the market.
While these numbers are very positive for Solana and the overall crypto ecosystem, the stress test also exposed some limitations for the blockchain. Solana faced a transaction failure rate of around 40% during the spike in transaction activity, up from the usual threshold of 20%. This meant that most users had to at least attempt a transaction twice for it to go through. Gas fees also spiked to over 0.01 SOL (~$2.5), up by over 2000% from usual fees.
Nonetheless, this has shown the growth of crypto as the ability to handle such load was unfathomable in the past cycle. It also cemented Solana’s position as the most scalable chain suitable for ‘mass adoption’.
Second-Order Effects: What’s Next for Solana, Regulations and Memecoins?
On Solana ETFs and Regulations
Being the ‘president-endorsed’ blockchain, many are speculating that the SOL will be the next cryptocurrency to get an ETF. Even though a leaked page of $SOL futures being launched on CME turned out to be an error, many are still hopeful.
One thing’s for sure: there are more tailwinds than headwinds for the growth of crypto under Trump’s administration.
Trump has expressed his desire to grow the U.S. into a leader in digital assets, starting with the discussions over the strategic $BTC reserve and appointing a working group that would work towards more friendly crypto regulations. Trump-owned World Liberty has also been accumulating several tokens in the past week, with ‘skin in the game’ making people more positive on change actually coming.
Entering the Era of Hypertokenization
Tokenization is one of the core tenets of crypto, and the access to it has become easier over time. With platforms for launching memecoins such as Pump.fun and SunPump offering a ‘one-click’ experience, anyone could try their hand at doing it without much effort.
The success of TRUMP will definitely not go unnoticed from politicians to celebrities and influencers, as it has proved to be a viable and efficient way of crowdfunding. Rus, the founder of a short-form video hosting service called Vine (currently defunct), launched his own $VINE token shortly after, calling for people to support the return of Vine, and it catapulted to over $300 million in valuation overnight.
Platforms like Clout and Tribe.run that enable hypertokenization have garnered significant attention in the past week, reminiscent of the days when Friend.tech first entered the scene. These platforms go beyond simple tokenization by offering benefits tied to ‘ownership’ of individuals, through token-gated channels, allowing creators to explore what value they can bring to users.
Potential Community and Regulatory Ramifications
Despite being seen as a wealth generation event, data shows that less than 50% of wallets have realized profits on $TRUMP. Furthermore, most of the wealth is held in the hands of top whales, including Trump himself and CIC Digital.
TRUMP tokens are set to start unlocking on April 18, 2024, with over 4% of tokens (worth about $1.3 billion at the time of writing) hitting the market immediately. Given that only 20% of tokens are liquid at the moment, it is a sizable amount. Coupled with the fact that most are retail users who are likely not aware of the underlying tokenomics, this could result in significant losses for them as the unlocked tokens are dumped.
Hence, there will likely be more regulatory scrutiny surrounding similar token launches and launchpad platforms.
Ending Thoughts
As the dust settles, many would be asking where the market is headed next. Will attention go back towards the AI x Crypto and AI Agents narratives? Or is it in fact shifting towards DeFi and SocialFi?
Crypto is fundamentally a social movement, driven by sentiments and collective belief towards a certain goal. The TRUMP memecoin’s success shows the power of collectiveness, and we will see more of this as communities shill their own narratives. The hot ball of money continues to rotate across narratives and such phases are accelerated more than ever. Amid the noise, few projects will emerge and stay relevant across cycles, and this is where the greatest upsides are delivered.
In the months ahead, we likely see more volatility than up only. Nonetheless, the future for crypto remains very positive.
If you are building the next Web3 disruptor, and are searching for a crypto venture capital firm to support you along the way, don’t hesitate to contact DWF Ventures via form on our page.
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