Real World Asset: the hype is confirmed

11.01.2024
Real World Asset: the hype is confirmed
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In vogue in 2020, the tokenisation of RWAs has come to a halt due to the downturn in the markets. But several start-ups in the field are beginning to raise funds.

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While ETF Bitcoin Spot are clearly going to be one of the strong topics of 2024, Real World Assets (RWA) could be just as much so.

According to our information, several start-ups working on this theme, i.e. the tokenisation of real-world assets (read our report), are in the process of raising funds. This is particularly the case with Centrifuge: the German start-up, which has launched a tokenisation and RWA financing protocol, is in the process of completing a new round of financing. It is expected to raise around €10 million.

Several investors such as BlockTower and Coinbase Ventures, who participated in the previous financing round ($4 million in 2022), are said to be on the verge of going back into the pot. When contacted, neither Centrifuge nor any other investor would comment.

After a strong start in 2020-2021, players in RWA tokenisation have been hit by the market downturn. But growing interest from corporates and traditional finance is giving the sector a new lease of life, especially those that enable real assets to be tokenised and provide liquidity on blockchain, such as Centrifuge. There are other players too, such as Ondo Finance.

"A lot of companies have started to tokenise Real World Assets by targeting this or that theme, either real estate, equities or currency, which is great," explains the head of an American crypto fund. "But the real issue is managing the liquidity and financing of these tokenised products on blockchain. And for that, you need players like Centrifuge," he adds.

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Raphaël Bloch

Raphaël Bloch is CEO and co-founder of The Big Whale, an independent market intelligence platform on digital assets serving financial market participants through editorial coverage, research, a weekly briefing, and in-person events. He co-founded The Big Whale in April 2022. At the platform, he moderates and hosts institutional events bringing together banks, asset managers, custodians, and infrastructure providers on topics including staking, on-chain yield, stablecoins, DeFi lending, and tokenisation. He has moderated panels at events hosted in partnership with Bitwise, Everstake, Gemini, Morpho, Hexarq, Coinhouse, Delubac, Franklin Templeton, and the Ethereum Foundation, held in London and Paris between late 2025 and mid-2026.

Before founding The Big Whale, Bloch worked as a reporter at Les Echos from December 2016 to March 2020, then at L'Express from March 2020 to March 2022. He also previously worked at Reuters. Since September 2022, he has held a concurrent role as Business Analyst at BFM Business. He has been active in crypto journalism since 2016. He holds degrees from emlyon and the CFJ.

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