From RWA to RWAfi, will Plume be the Alpha key to capturing the trillion-dollar epic narrative?

Written by: Web3 Farmer Frank

From a data perspective, the RWA narrative is undoubtedly the clearest Alpha direction for "Blockchain +" in the next decade.

According to statistics from the RWA research platform rwa.xyz, the total market size of RWA currently exceeds $15 billion. Fidelity predicts that this figure will double to $30 billion by 2025, while BlackRock's outlook is even more optimistic, estimating that the market value of tokenized assets will reach $10 trillion by 2030.

In other words, the potential growth space for the RWA narrative in the next 7 years could exceed 700 times! However, this conceals a core question: who will truly capture the incremental value of this epic narrative?

This should be the billion-dollar question for the entire RWA track moving forward, and the answer may lie in the infrastructure surrounding the RWAfi public chain.

RWAfi, the Historic Bus for RWA

Essentially, moving real-world assets (RWA) onto the chain is merely the first step in tokenization, far from unleashing its true potential—to further realize the release of on-chain value, a more efficient underlying technical architecture, an open infrastructure toolkit, and a well-coordinated ecosystem are needed.

In simple terms, the on-chain transformation of RWA requires not only technological breakthroughs but also a complete service framework covering the entire lifecycle of RWA assets, especially to safely and easily introduce RWA assets into diverse on-chain DeFi scenarios, completely transforming the existing dividends of traditional assets into on-chain incremental value.

This is precisely the significance of RWAfi. Under the framework of tokenization, RWA not only greatly enhances its liquidity but can also generate DeFi yields through operations like lending and staking, introducing real yield assets to DeFi and strengthening the value foundation of the crypto market.

Vitalik Buterin once proposed an interesting analogy that every blockchain network has a unique "soul." Some networks delve deeply into specific DeFi niches, some focus on NFTs and DAOs, while others are dedicated to incubating ZK applications, and so on.

However, when we turn our attention to the RWA ecosystem, we find a thought-provoking reality: despite the popularity of RWA, there are very few RWAfi public chains specifically serving real-world asset management and on-chain circulation—even Ethereum, Avalanche, and others that have made significant strides in the RWA direction were not originally designed to carry trillions of dollars of real-world assets.

The reason is simple: the core mission of RWAfi is to enable the free flow of real-world assets on-chain. Therefore, compared to DeFi and other on-chain applications, it faces the additional challenge of how to make RWA truly "active" on-chain:

• On one hand, the process of "on-chaining" real-world asset rights involves complex asset tokenization processes and multi-party collaboration, requiring solutions for security compliance, liquidity, cross-chain interoperability, and a developer-friendly technical environment to achieve efficient liquidity and transparency for on-chain assets;
• On the other hand, merely completing tokenization is not enough; after "on-chaining," there is also "empowerment," meaning the true value of RWA lies in how to build a transparent, efficient, and highly liquid on-chain financial market through blockchain technology. Therefore, it is necessary to achieve deep integration with DeFi protocols, revenue distribution, and risk management, endowing RWA with liquidity, composability, and interoperability similar to crypto assets.

Taking real estate as an example, once tokenized and on-chain, it is no longer a "static" asset in the traditional sense; it can participate in diverse DeFi scenarios, such as achieving transparent distribution of rental income through smart contracts or using it as collateral for on-chain financing. This "empowerment" raises higher technical and ecological requirements while breaking the inherent limitations of RWA as real assets, injecting higher-dimensional composability and application potential.

Thus, many may not realize that RWAfi is not just a technical solution; it essentially creates a new asset class with native real yield attributes—by introducing real-world assets, capital, and cash flows, it injects native "real yield attributes" into the blockchain ecosystem.

In this context, although many blockchain networks have begun to explore the RWA field, most remain superficial, lacking comprehensive technical support and ecological layout. After all, the success of RWAfi lies not only in completing asset tokenization but also in providing a full suite of solutions from development to operation:

Developers and users need a more accessible development resource environment, more efficient and scalable infrastructure, and a safer and compliant underlying environment. Therefore, the core demand for the future trillion-dollar RWA incremental market is evident—a dedicated RWA public chain.

It can simultaneously meet the diverse needs of institutional users and crypto-native users. In this vision, the RWAfi public chain is not only empowering RWA assets but may also become the core value capture for the incremental value of the RWA ecosystem. By becoming a hub for liquidity and value settlement, all DeFi operations surrounding RWA tokenized assets (such as farming and collateral interactions) can converge value through the RWAfi public chain, further driving the incremental expansion of the RWA track.

In short, the RWA-specific L1 public chain is merely a means, not an end—the players that can truly capture the incremental value of the RWA track will likely be those solution providers that can cover the entire chain from on-chain infrastructure to ecological empowerment, enabling the entire RWA process from "on-chaining" to "empowerment" to run smoothly and efficiently.

Therefore, from this perspective, the golden age of dedicated RWA chains has already arrived.

Analyzing "One-Stop RWA Dedicated Chain" from Plume

For RWAfi, there is another natural advantage that keeps it in a favorable position:

Regardless of which track or product under the RWA narrative ultimately emerges, as long as the overall market size continues to grow, the RWAfi public chain platform, which directly provides the most fundamental support in the form of infrastructure, can tap into a future market worth hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars, capturing the incremental value behind it.

After all, RWA has gradually become a major driver of incremental on-chain digital assets, allowing Web3 to effectively reach the vast asset pools of traditional markets—such as the global bond market ($133 trillion) and the gold market ($13.5 trillion).

Since Compound ignited the DeFi summer in 2020, the total volume of digital assets in the on-chain world has seen significant growth. Even though it faces a substantial pullback compared to the $180 billion in November 2021, as of January 13, 2025, the on-chain TVL still stands at $11.35 billion.

However, compared to the trillions of dollars in tokenizable RWA assets (bonds, gold, stocks, real estate, etc.), this volume still seems insignificant. Therefore, RWA tokenization will undoubtedly bring a new incremental momentum to the on-chain world, expanding unprecedented incremental market space.

Currently, there are very few L1 public chains positioned around RWAfi. Recently completing a new round of financing of $20 million, Plume is almost the only strictly defined RWAfi public chain, marking a significant financing event in the RWAfi field so far.

Plume's notable feature lies in its modular design, as it systematically addresses the tokenization, compliance, liquidity, and interoperability issues of RWA through a one-stop solution, providing developers and institutions with a complete solution covering the entire lifecycle of RWA tokenization.

This systematic model is worth paying attention to. After all, for a public chain, how "high-end" the technology is does not matter as much as whether it can attract developers and users to choose and settle down with it. This is the core competitiveness, especially for products like RWA that involve a high degree of complexity between on-chain and off-chain. If it only provides fragmented services for a certain link, developers and institutional users will not be willing to pay.

Plume's advantage lies in its integration of multiple modular key tools, providing developers with a complete solution for on-chaining RWA assets. This toolkit not only lowers the technical threshold but also incorporates compliance suppliers directly into the platform's upstream supply chain through a "compliance as a service" model, ensuring that tokenized assets meet regulatory requirements from the source:

• Arc - Tokenization Engine: Arc simplifies the tokenization process by integrating compliance workflows and reducing barriers for asset issuers, providing an effective pathway for bringing RWA onto the chain;
• Passport - Smart Wallet: Passport allows users to store contract code directly in their externally owned accounts (EOA), supporting RWAfi composability, yield management, and advanced account abstraction features;
• Nexus - Data Highway: Nexus uses cutting-edge technologies like zkTLS to securely integrate real-world data into the blockchain, enhancing the security and transparency of on-chain assets while unlocking new opportunity scenarios;
  

Through these modular tools, Plume not only empowers developers but also significantly lowers the barriers for traditional financial institutions to enter Web3—developers can quickly deploy complex RWA solutions using modular tools, while the "compliance as a service" model helps traditional institutions address compliance pain points while providing efficient technical support.

This means that Web2 giants like UBS and BlackRock looking to enter Web3 can directly embed RWA tokenization services into their existing products through the one-stop RWA asset tokenization services provided by Plume, rapidly achieving product iteration and market expansion.

This not only allows institutions to easily tokenize assets and introduce them into the blockchain ecosystem but also retains the smooth user experience of Web2, empowering users with asset autonomy and Web3 attributes.

From a broader perspective, in the previous Web2 world dominated by private traffic, whoever could stake out enough private traffic could maximize their profits. This led to a situation where Web2 formed a "fat application, thin protocol" landscape, with super apps like WeChat, Alipay, and Meituan becoming increasingly large, locking users in through closed ecosystems.

In Web3, the product logic has clearly flipped—products in the form of underlying components or middleware are becoming increasingly popular, as they can be inserted as "building blocks" or serve as underlying infrastructure to capture the maximum aggregation benefits. Plume's modular infrastructure perfectly aligns with this Web3 product logic, providing traditional financial institutions and Web2 giants with lightweight RWA integration tools, enabling them to quickly achieve Web3 transformation.

Plume's appeal lies here. For the RWAfi track, future competition will not only be a contest of technical capabilities but also whether it can design an efficient and user-friendly ecological support system centered around developers and users. This model, connecting on-chain innovation with off-chain assets, will become the true watershed for the development of the RWA track.

The Inevitable Path of RWAfi: Bidirectional Links between Institutions and DeFi "Friend Circles"

For Web3, "incremental" is an eternal theme—whether it is the injection of incremental funds or the expansion of incremental users.

The core charm of RWAfi lies in its natural "bidirectional connection" attribute: on one hand, it connects new and old players in Web3, and on the other hand, it interfaces with the massive accumulated assets of traditional finance. This not only provides crypto-native users with new asset classes and yield opportunities but also opens up a path for traditional financial giants to deeply integrate with the on-chain DeFi world, achieving a "1+1>2" synergistic effect.

Taking Plume as an example, it is currently building a "two-pronged" ecological network centered on institutional partners and extended by DeFi partners:

• Institutional Partners: Responsible for providing compliance, trust foundations, and high-quality assets, serving as the credible core of its RWAfi ecosystem;
• DeFi Partners: Provide flexible, high-yield asset participation methods for on-chain users, further enhancing the liquidity and composability of RWA;

A closer look reveals that Plume's institutional circle mainly focuses on traditional asset tokenization, compliance, and asset management, thereby allowing RWA to achieve higher liquidity and transparency through Plume's on-chain infrastructure, paving the way for deep integration between traditional financial giants and RWAfi, such as:

• Anchorage Digital Bank: Provides compliance custody services for Plume's on-chain assets, allowing institutional clients direct access to on-chain RWA yields;
• DeFiMaseer: An institutional partner focused on carbon market tokenization, bringing $200 million in carbon emission quotas on-chain to optimize regulatory market efficiency and accessibility;
• DigiFT + UBS: Collaborating to launch uMint, promoting the tokenization process of on-chain financial assets;
• Dinari Global + BlackRock: Bringing BlackRock's ETFs on-chain to provide higher liquidity for institutional assets;
• Elixir + BlackRock: Supporting Elixir in building more asset circulation infrastructure on-chain;
• NestCredit + MountainUSDM + m0 Foundation + Anemoy Capital/Centrifuge: Building a multi-party cooperation network to promote the sustainable development of diverse on-chain assets.
• Pistachiofi: Introducing on-chain real yield services for the LATAM and APAC regions, expanding regional market coverage;
• Busha: Providing on-chain real yield for the African market, broadening the boundaries of global financial services;
• Cultured RWA: Exploring the on-chain potential of the RWA speculative ecosystem;
• Google Cloud: Utilizing AI to provide RWA pricing services, making on-chain asset pricing smarter and more efficient;

The DeFi protocols that have achieved deep integration or collaboration with Plume mainly convert the existing dividends of traditional assets into on-chain incremental value through Plume, providing on-chain users with diverse participation opportunities through liquidity support, yield optimization, and new scenario exploration:

• Ondo Finance: A leading protocol for tokenizing U.S. Treasuries (USDY), injecting trusted asset liquidity into Plume's RWA ecosystem;
• Anzen Finance: Supporting on-chain stable asset innovation for USDz, optimizing the tokenization experience for dollar-related assets;
• Royco (Berachain): Providing a transparent yield liquidity market specifically for DApps, expanding into the RWAfi ecosystem through collaboration with Plume;
• Bouncebit: A partner of the CeDeFi portal, helping users access trusted institutional-grade yield products through its platform, strengthening RWAfi's influence in the CeDeFi field;
• Midas: A DeFi project focused on high-yield, institutional-grade assets, providing Plume's users with more on-chain yield options;
• PinLink: A DeFi infrastructure provider, collaborating with Plume to introduce fragmented DePIN assets and yield opportunities, enhancing ecological liquidity;
• Avalon Finance: Plume's BTCfi liquidity layer partner, focusing on the lending and circulation of BTC in the RWAfi environment, further expanding the application scenarios of on-chain assets;

Objectively speaking, the Plume team's background inherently carries a "technology + market" gene—members include Degen players from Web3 giants like Coinbase, BNB Chain, and Galaxy Digital, as well as seasoned professionals from traditional finance and technology industries like Robinhood, JPMorgan, and Google. This enables them to better address the complex demands of traditional financial markets while leveraging the unique advantages of blockchain technology to create modular, compliance-friendly infrastructure.

Overall, Plume has already built a vast ecological network that encompasses both new and old participants in Web3 (covering on-chain and token fields) and traditional financial giants (involving off-chain and RWA domains), accumulating over 180 applications and protocols. The testnet has attracted over 3.75 million users, generating hundreds of millions of transactions, achieving remarkable results.

The dual-driven cooperative network has formed an ecological layout jointly promoted by new and old players in Web3 (on-chain, DeFi protocols) and traditional financial giants (off-chain, RWA). Plume has become an indispensable infrastructure role between the two, and as the RWAfi ecosystem continues to develop, it is expected to become a necessity among necessities.

This further strengthens Plume's unique positioning as a "dedicated RWAfi full-chain infrastructure," capable of directly capturing the core value generated by RWA assets in tokenization, liquidity integration, and on-chain operations—from asset minting to deep integration with DeFi scenarios, providing complete technical and ecological support, truly achieving a seamless transformation of traditional asset value into on-chain increments.

From this perspective, this "full lifecycle empowerment" is the irreplaceable competitive advantage of RWAfi dedicated chains like Plume. RWAfi public chains not only serve institutions and developers but also directly target all RWA users, capturing the participation value of end users, thereby sharing the dividends of the entire pan-RWA ecosystem's scaled growth and becoming the core engine driving the expansion of the trillion-dollar market.

Interestingly, as a track closely related to regulation, Plume actually has a potential policy advantage that is easily overlooked: Plume's investor Katie Haun has served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Digital Currency Coordinator, a former partner at a16z, and has joined the Coinbase board. She is one of the few in the crypto industry who deeply understands the profound impact of U.S. regulation on the blockchain industry.

This means that her investment background brings Plume closer to the center of regulatory policy, which is undoubtedly a positive signal for Plume—especially as the U.S. regulatory framework gradually improves, particularly after January 20, when a series of crypto-friendly individuals from the Trump administration take office. Plume is expected to become the RWAfi project closest to the "core of U.S. regulation," thus directly benefiting from the largest policy support and market dividends.

Conclusion

The winds rise at the end of the green rush; the logic of the market has always been subtle, and the value discovery of all narratives has its inherent development logic.

It can be said that RWAfi is one of the few narrative directions that can bridge the gap between on-chain and off-chain. Its potential stems from both the innovation of Web3 and the massive accumulated dividends of traditional finance.

The value of RWAfi public chains needs no further elaboration—serving as the infrastructure that can truly elevate RWA tokenization to an "Internet of RWA assets," providing a feasible answer for the billion-dollar growth of the RWA narrative.

As for whether leading players like Plume, which grasp both on-chain (DeFi) and off-chain (traditional financial institutions), can emerge in the future, it depends on whether they can continuously attract developers and solidify the ecosystem, allowing the integration of RWA on-chain and off-chain to truly flourish. After all, in an unoccupied blue ocean, opportunities have only just begun, and everything remains uncertain.