Author: flowie, ChainCatcher
Editor: Nianqing, ChainCatcher
The key driving force behind the bull market that will start in 2024 is the traditional financial asset management giants led by BlackRock.
The altcoin season that has just started is first led by the tracks related to RWA and payments, which are the focus of traditional financial giants. Tokens such as Ondo, CRV, and ENA that are closely related to traditional asset management giants like BlackRock have seen very eye-catching gains. Among the large market declines on the 10th and 11th, these tokens were also among the more resilient or faster rebounding tokens.
Empowering traditional finance, especially tracks and projects supported by traditional financial giants, may be one of the most definitive directions of this bull market. ChainCatcher has conducted a brief review of the relevant projects. (Excluding content on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP crypto ETFs)
BlackRock
In March this year, BlackRock launched the tokenized fund BUIDL through the compliant tokenization platform Securitize, with a current scale of over $550 million.
Currently, BUIDL is mostly deployed on Ethereum, and last month BlackRock announced the launch of the BUIDL fund on Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, OP and Polygon. The performance of the partners or affiliates around BUIDL has been relatively eye-catching recently.
1. Ondo Finance (Ondo)
Ondo surged 40% last week to break through $1.93, a new high, and has since fallen back to around $1.86. It has risen by over 100% in the past month and over 880% in the past year; its market cap is close to $26 billion and its FDV is over $180 billion.
As the leading project in the RWA track and with close cooperation with BlackRock, Ondo Finance has driven its multiple rallies.
Ondo Finance's two core products are the tokenized US Treasury product OUSG. Previously, the vast majority of the OUSG investment portfolio was BlackRock's iShares Short-Term Treasury ETF (Nasdaq ticker: SHV), and in March this year, after BlackRock announced the launch of the tokenized fund BUIDL, Ondo also reallocated the majority of OUSG's assets to BUIDL. OUSG currently has a TVL of over $180 million and has provided over $25 million in earnings to clients since its launch.
In addition to its close ties with BlackRock, Ondo Finance's ecosystem directory published on X this year also includes partners such as Morgan Stanley, Ankura Trust, Clear Street and NAV Consulting.
The core team of Ondo Finance also comes mainly from traditional well-known asset management companies, with co-founder and CEO Nathan Allman previously responsible for global crypto digital markets at the digital asset department of Goldman Sachs.
In addition to US Treasuries, Ondo Finance will also launch Ondo Global Markets on February 6, 2025, to tokenize stocks and bonds on-chain.
2. Curve (CRV)
As a veteran DeFi leader, the recent rise of CRV is also related to BlackRock's cooperation. Curve is an important partner for BlackRock's foray into DeFi.
On November 30, Curve announced that it has partnered with the blockchain network Elixir to expand the access of BlackRock's tokenized money market fund BUIDL to DeFi. Users will soon be able to use BlackRock's BUIDL to mint Elixer's yield-stable coin deUSD. CRV subsequently surged 60% from $0.5 to $0.8, approaching $1.3 on December 7.
As of the time of writing, CRV is temporarily reported at $1.16, and in terms of gains, CRV has risen nearly 300% in the past month; its market cap exceeds $14 billion and its FDV exceeds $25 billion. CRV's historical high price was $60.5 set in August 2020, and its historical low price was $0.18 set in August this year.
In addition to the cooperation with BlackRock, the market demand for Curve has also surged after the market rally. Curve also stated that within two weeks of Trump taking office, Curve's revenue had doubled from the previous average of $268,000 to $581,000.
Recently, CurveDAO has also launched the interest-bearing stable coin Savings crvUSD (scrvUSD) to expand new use cases.
3. Ethena (ENA)
On November 29, the stablecoin issuer Ethena and the tokenization platform Securitize announced that they will collaborate to launch the stablecoin USDtb to participate in the $1 billion tokenization competition of the lending platform Spark (formerly MakerDAO).
The reserves of the USDtb stablecoin will be invested in BlackRock's institutional digital liquidity fund (BUIDL), making USDtb the only stablecoin backed by BUIDL.
Affected by this news, ENA has continued to rise from around $0.7. It reached a high of over $1.14 last week and has now fallen back to $1.1, with a gain of nearly 80% in the past month. Its market cap exceeds $32 billion and its FDV exceeds $165 billion.
Ethena is also a project invested by Franklin Templeton.
4. Velo (VELO)
Velo is a blockchain-based global settlement network that provides fast, secure and low-cost cross-border payments for individuals and businesses. DWF Labs made a strategic investment of $10 million in it last year.
In September this year, Velo announced that it has integrated BlackRock's tokenized BUIDL fund into its USDV stablecoin, providing seamless transaction and yield opportunities for over 1 million users in Southeast Asia.
VELO surged 50% last week to break through $0.03, and is currently reported at around $0.026, up over 84% in the past month. Its market cap is close to $200 million and its FDV is close to $800 million.
Fidelity
5. Chainlink (LINK)
The oracle network is also indispensable for financial institutions to tokenize assets, as Chainlink can help institutions connect on-chain and off-chain data, unlocking some DeFi use cases.
This year, Chainlink has partnered with multiple traditional asset management and crypto-leading companies, Web2 giants, and Trump crypto projects.
Chainlink has collaborated with Fidelity International and Sygnum to put the net asset value (NAV) data of Fidelity's $6.9 billion institutional liquidity fund on-chain in real-time. Chainlink has also partnered with Swiss asset management giant UBS and SWIFT to complete a pilot project, providing settlement for the subscription and redemption operations of tokenized funds through the SWIFT network.
21Shares has integrated Chainlink's reserve proof system to provide transparency for its Ethereum ETF; Sony's L2 network Soneium has also chosen Chainlink as a partner.
It is worth mentioning that the Trump family crypto project World Liberty recently announced that it will adopt Chainlink's on-chain data and cross-chain connection standards. In the past 9 hours, World Liberty has also purchased over 40,000 LINK.
Last week, LINK's price broke through $20 and briefly reached a high of $27 before pulling back, and has risen again today to break through $29, up nearly 30% in 24 hours. LINK's gains in the past month have also been close to 100%. The last time LINK was above $20 was in January 2020. LINK's historical high price was $52.88 set in May 2021.
As of the time of writing, LINK's market cap exceeds $180 billion and its FDV exceeds $289 billion.
Morgan
6. Avalanche (Avax)
The Avalanche token Avax is also one of the old public chains that has performed well in the just-launched altcoin season. Avax reached a high of over $55 last week and is currently around $50, up over 37% in the past month. Avax's current market cap exceeds $205 billion and its FDV is close to $360 billion.
Here is the English translation of the text, with the content inside <> retained without translation:From the news perspective, the recent rise in Avax may be related to Avalanche's layout and growth in RWA, in addition to the "hype" caused by the hint from Ava Labs founder about ongoing dialogue and cooperation with the new US government.
Avalanche has a major advantage in developing RWA, as it allows developers or enterprises to create their own independent subnets.
Some RWA projects can thus create dedicated subnets based on the legal requirements of different countries or regions, flexibly meeting the cooperation requirements.
JPMorgan Chase and Avalanche have been working closely together, with the former's digital asset platform Onyx utilizing Avalanche to create tokenized funds.
In addition, other major asset managers, banks, payment giants, government agencies, and stablecoin giants have also adopted Avalanche.
In November, BlackRock announced that Avalanche is one of the multiple public chains it is expanding into. Tether also announced that the asset tokenization platform Hadron, which it is launching, will include Avalanche as one of the initial host public chains.
In October, Latin American bank Littio abandoned Ethereum and started using Avalanche.
In August, Franklin Templeton expanded its tokenized money market fund (FOBXX) to the Avalanche network, after previously trading on Stellar, Polygon, and Arbitrum.
At the beginning of this year, Citibank collaborated with WisdomTree and Wellington Management to conduct a tokenization proof-of-concept trial for a private equity fund on the Avalanche subnet Spruce. The California Department of Motor Vehicles also digitized the ownership certificates of 42 million vehicles in the state on Avalanche.
Franklin Templeton
Franklin Templeton's tokenized fund FOBXX currently has over $440 million in assets, initially issued on the Stellar blockchain and later expanded to Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, Aptos, Ethereum, and Base.
Franklin Templeton has invested in around 30 crypto projects, of which 8 have already issued tokens, including Aptos (APT), Ethena (ENA), Sui (SUI), Puffer Finance (PUFFER), SHRAPNEL (SHRAP), LayerZero (ZRO), Spectral (SPEC), and Arcade (ARC).
Puffer Finance, Ethena, and SHRAPNEL are projects invested in within the past year. PUFFER and ENA, the two projects invested in this year, have seen the most impressive token price increases.
7. Stellar (XLM)
Stellar is another payment network founded by Jed McCaleb, the co-founder of Ripple. More than half of the TVL of Franklin Templeton's tokenized fund FOBXX is on Stellar.
Stellar has also collaborated with WisdomTree, with WisdomTree's short-term government debt digital funds being issued on Stellar. WisdomTree has also launched the WisdomTree Prime app, utilizing the Stellar network to launch in 41 states.
XLM has seen multiple price increases over the past month, reaching a high of over $0.6 and currently trading around $0.44, a gain of over 260% in the past month. Its market cap exceeds $13.3 billion, with an FDV of over $22.1 billion.
8. Sui (SUI)
In addition to investing in Sui, Franklin Templeton also announced a strategic partnership with Sui in November, focusing on supporting Sui ecosystem builders and deploying new technologies using the Sui blockchain protocol.
Sui is currently priced at $4.81, up over 53% in the past month, with a market cap of over $14.1 billion and an FDV of over $48.1 billion.
9. Aptos (APT)
In addition to investments, Franklin Templeton's tokenized fund FOBXX has also expanded to Aptos.
APT is currently priced at $13.87, with a relatively small gain in the past month, reaching a high of over $15. Its market cap is over $7.4 billion, with an FDV of $15.6 billion.
10. Puffer Finance (PUFFER)
Puffer Finance is a liquid staking protocol based on EigenLayer. In Puffer Finance's $18 million investment round in April, Franklin Templeton and Avon Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with Fidelity Investments' parent company, participated.
Last week, PUFFER also saw a significant increase, approaching $1, and has since retreated to $0.82, a gain of nearly 130% in the past month. Its current market cap is over $84 million, with an FDV of over $820 million.
11. LayerZero (ZRO)
As one of the cross-chain triumvirate, LayerZero has also seen a very good recent performance. Last week, the LayerZero token ZRO reached a new all-time high of over $7.4, and is currently trading at $6.98, a gain of over 77% in the past month. ZRO has a market cap of $760 million and an FDV of $6.9 billion.
It is worth noting that LayerZero (ZRO) will hold a community-wide vote on December 19 to activate the fee switch.
If the fee switch is activated through governance, the treasury contract will collect fees on the local chain and burn those fees.
12. SHRAPNEL (SHRAP)
SHRAPNEL is an AAA-level FPS game, with investment from well-known institutions such as Polychain, IOSG Ventures, Dragonfly, DeFiance Capital, Mechanism Capital, and Spartan Group.
However, there was an internal conflict in the Shrapnel team at the end of last year, with the Shrapnel game studio Neon Machine mentioning litigation against multiple investors, claiming they were trying to seize control of the company and the treasury.
SHRAP is currently priced at $0.04, with a market cap of over $33 million and an FDV of over $124 million.
13. Spectral (SPEC)
Spectral was originally an AI-powered network on the Base chain, and is now positioned as a platform to help users achieve AI-powered smart contract programming.
In addition to Franklin Templeton's investment, Polychain Capital, Galaxy Digital, Samsung, Circle Ventures, and Jump Capital are also early investors in Spectral.
Recently, in the midst of the AI sector rally, SPEC reached a new all-time high of over $18, and has since retreated to $13. Its market cap exceeds $183 million, with an FDV of over $1.3 billion.
14. Arcade (ARC)
Arcade is a GameFi platform that allows the community to earn meaningful rewards from various Play-and-Earn metaverse games without directly playing the games or owning in-game NFTs. Franklin Templeton invested in Arcade in 2021, and well-known institutions such as Pantera Capital, Crypto.com Capital, Solana Ventures, Shima Capital, GSR, LD Capital, and KuCoin Labs are also early investors.
At the beginning of this year, Crypto.com Capital, Solana Ventures, Shima Capital, GSR, and KuCoin Labs reinvested in Arcade.
ARC is currently priced at $0.038, with a market cap of less than $1 million and an FDV of over $30 million.
VanEck
In addition to having a collaboration with Pudgy Penguins, in October this year, VanEck announced the launch of a $30 million venture capital fund to support the development of the crypto and AI industries.
Previously, VanEck had also invested in at least 7 crypto projects, of which GEODNET (GEOD), Parallel (PRIME), and 1inch (1INCH) have already issued tokens.
15. Pudgy Penguins (PENGU)
Last week, the chubby penguin Pudgy Penguins, which plans to issue a token and has airdrop expectations in 2024, saw its floor price surge, breaking through 27 ETH. Pudgy Penguins also has some connections with VanEck.
In June this year, the asset management firm VanEck had changed the social media avatar of the X platform to the chubby penguin Pudgy Penguins, and also wrote a caption saying "The boss thinks it's too cute, can't help but pfp". Pudgy Penguins also appeared in VanEck's ETH ETF promotional video.
However, recently, the token plan of Pudgy Penguins has been launched on Solana.
16、Parallel （PRIME）
Parallel is a science fiction-themed collectible card game (TCG), the project team includes veteran developers of AAA games such as "Assassin's Creed" and "Valorant", as well as the co-founder of YouTube Chad Hurley.
In addition to VanEck, Paradigm, Solana Ventures, Base, Amber Group, Spartan Group and others participated in the investment, and the first round of financing in 2021 received a $50 million investment from Paradigm, with a valuation of $500 million.
This year, Parallel has also launched the AI survival simulation game Colony and released the AI crypto game lunar landing plan on Solana.
PRIME is currently reported at $15.78, up more than 53% in just one month, with a current market cap of over $566 million and an FDV of over $1.7 billion.
17、GEODNET（GEOD）
GEODNET is a DEPIN project that uses a new type of roof-mounted weather station to collect dense real-time geospatial data from the Earth and its atmosphere. In addition to VanEck, Animoca Brands, Pantera Capital, CoinFund and IoTeX are its investors. Animoca Brands has also formed a strategic partnership with GEODNET.
GEOD is currently reported at $0.24, with no significant increase recently, a market cap of over $48 million, and an FDV of over $240 million.
18、1inch（1INCH）
The veteran DEX aggregator 1inch is also the second largest aggregator in terms of market share, 1INCH broke through $0.6 last week, and is currently down to $0.51, up more than 63% in the past month; with a market cap of over $720 million and an FDV of over $777 million.
After the coin price rose last week, the 1inch team sold 15.698 million 1INCH for 8.38 million USDC in three consecutive days from May 5 to 7, at an average selling price of $0.533.
WisdomTree
In addition to applying for the XRP ETF, WisdomTree has also been actively tokenizing funds and other RWA products recently.
WisdomTree recently stated that platform users can now directly consume funds from the WisdomTree Government Money Market Digital Fund (WTGXX) through their Visa debit card. Currently, the fund has approximately $12 million in assets under management.
In addition, WisdomTree has also launched an RWA platform, allowing users to access its regulated fund tokens through any wallet or blockchain network, and plans to eventually expand access to these assets.
WisdomTree has also obtained a NYDFS license and will launch the crypto application WisdomTree Prime
The short-term Treasury digital fund launched by WisdomTree in 2022 was also deployed on Ethereum and Stellar. WisdomTree has also conducted a tokenization proof-of-concept experiment for a private equity fund on the Avalanche subnet Spruce.
Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs' layout in the crypto field by 2025 is also worth watching.
Recently, there is market news that the CEO of Goldman Sachs said that if the regulators allow, they will "evaluate" participating in the Bitcoin or Ethereum market. Goldman Sachs' attention to cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin may also be an important turning point.
Previously, the head of digital assets at Goldman Sachs said in mid-year that they plan to launch 3 tokenization projects by the end of the year, including their first US project. Goldman Sachs is expanding its cryptocurrency services, focusing on the tokenization field, and will issue "real-world assets" such as money market funds and real estate through public or private blockchains.
At present, Goldman Sachs has not yet disclosed more project details and partners for the tokenization fund, and can be followed up continuously.
Goldman Sachs has also previously invested in projects such as Circle, BitGO, Blockdaemon, and Certik, which are asset management or infrastructure-related.
