Author: flowie, ChainCatcher
Editor: Nianqing, ChainCatcher
The key driving force behind the bull market that started in 2024 is the traditional financial asset management giants led by BlackRock.
The altcoin season that has just started has first led the rise of the tracks focused on by traditional financial giants, such as RWA and payments. The tokens closely related to traditional asset management giants like BlackRock, such as Ondo, CRV, and ENA, 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 the tracks and projects supported by traditional financial giants, may be one of the most certain directions in this bull market. ChainCatcher has briefly sorted out the relevant projects. (excluding 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.
BUIDL is currently 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 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 OUSG's 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.
Ondo Finance's core team also comes mainly from traditional well-known asset management company backgrounds, with co-founder and CEO Nathan Allman previously responsible for global crypto digital markets at the digital asset division of Goldman Sachs. Other key members of Ondo Finance also come mainly from top asset management firms like Goldman Sachs, McKinsey and Bridgewater.
In addition to US Treasuries, Ondo Finance will also launch Ondo Global Markets on February 6, 2025, which will tokenize stocks and bonds on-chain.
2. Curve (CRV)
As a veteran DeFi leader, CRV's recent rally is also related to its cooperation with BlackRock. 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 then 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 its cooperation with BlackRock, the market demand for Curve has also surged after the market rally. Curve also said 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, stablecoin issuer Ethena and 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 since 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 strategically invested $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 back 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.
Notably, the Trump family crypto project World Liberty recently announced that it will adopt Chainlink's on-chain data and cross-chain connectivity 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 falling back and rising 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 set in May 2021 at $52.88.
As of the time of writing, LINK's market cap exceeds $18 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 back 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.
From the news perspective, in addition to the "hype" around Ava Labs founder hinting at talks with the new US government to promote cooperation, Avax's recent rise may also be related to Avalanche's layout and growth in RWA.
Avalanche has a big advantage in developing RWA, as it allows developers or companies to create their own independent subnets, so some RWA projects can create dedicated subnets based on the legal requirements of different countries or regions to flexibly meet cooperation requirements.
JPMorgan and Avalanche have been working closely together, with JPMorgan's digital asset platform Onyx using Avalanche to build tokenized funds.
In addition, other major asset management firms, banks, payment giants, government agencies, and stablecoin giants have also adopted Avalanche.
In November, BlackRock announced that Avalanche is one of the public chains it is expanding into. Tether announced the launch of its asset tokenization platform Hadron, which also includes 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 Avalanche's 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, 8 of which 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 a payment network founded by Jed McCaleb, a 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 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 modest gain in the past month, reaching a high of over $15. Its market cap exceeds $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 saw a significant price increase, approaching $1, and has since pulled back 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 impressive price growth recently. 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.
Of note, LayerZero (ZRO) will hold a community-wide vote on December 19th to activate its fee switch.
The LayerZero protocol may charge fees equal to the total cost of verifying and executing cross-chain messages. If the fee switch is activated through governance, the treasury contract will collect and burn these fees on the local chain.
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, the Shrapnel team experienced internal conflicts at the end of last year, with Neon Machine, the Shrapnel game studio, mentioning litigation against multiple investors, claiming they were trying to seize control of the company and its 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 initially 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 March this year, Spectral launched the AI application Syntax, which can help anyone launch smart contracts on Ethereum and dozens of other blockchains, allowing users to compile, debug, and deploy Solidity code generated by AI.
In addition to Franklin Templeton, early investors in Spectral include Polychain Capital, Galaxy Digital, Samsung, Circle Ventures, and Jump Capital.
Amid the recent AI sector rally, SPEC reached a new all-time high of over $18 last week and has since pulled back 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 other early investors include Pantera Capital, Crypto.com Capital, Solana Ventures, Shima Capital, GSR, LD Capital, and KuCoin Labs.
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 collaborating with Pudgy Penguins, in October, VanEck announced a $30 million venture fund to support the development of the crypto and AI industries.
VanEck has previously invested in at least 7 crypto projects, 3 of which have already issued tokens: GEODNET (GEOD), Parallel (PRIME), and 1inch (1INCH).
15. Pudgy Penguins (PENGU)
Last week, the chubby Pudgy Penguins, which plans to issue a token and have an airdrop in 2024, saw its floor price surge to over 27 ETH. Pudgy Penguins also has some connections with VanEck.
In June this year, the asset management firm VanEck had changed its X platform social media profile picture to a Pudgy Penguins NFT, accompanied by the caption "The boss thinks this is too cute, can't not pfp." Pudgy Penguins has also appeared in VanEck's ETH ETF promotional video.
However, Pudgy Penguins' token plans are now focused on launching on Solana.
16. Parallel (PRIME)
Parallel is a sci-fi-themed collectible card game (TCG) with a team that includes veteran developers from AAA games like Assassin's Creed and Valorant, as well as the co-founder of YouTube, Chad Hurley.
In addition to VanEck, Parallel has received investments from Paradigm, Solana Ventures, Base, Amber Group, and Spartan Group. Its first funding round in 2021 secured a $50 million investment from Paradigm, valuing the project at $500 million.
This year, Parallel has launched the AI-powered survival simulation game Colony and the AI crypto gaming moonshot on Solana.
PRIME is currently priced at $15.78, up over 53% in the past month, with a 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 also investors. Animoca Brands has also formed a strategic partnership with GEODNET.
GEOD is currently priced at $0.24 and has not seen significant price movement recently. Its market cap exceeds $48 million, with an FDV of over $240 million.
18. 1inch (1INCH)
The veteran DEX aggregator 1inch, which is the second-largest aggregator by market share, saw its 1INCH token break above $0.6 last week and has since pulled back to $0.51, a gain of over 63% in the past month. Its market cap exceeds $720 million, with an FDV of over $777 million.
After the recent rise in cryptocurrency prices, the 1inch team sold 15.698 million 1INCH tokens over three consecutive days from May 5 to 7, exchanging them for 8.38 million USDC at an average price of $0.533 per token.
WisdomTree
In addition to applying for an XRP ETF, WisdomTree has also been actively tokenizing funds and other real-world asset (RWA) products recently.
WisdomTree recently stated that platform users can now directly spend funds from the WisdomTree Government Money Market Digital Fund (WTGXX) using their WisdomTree Visa debit card. Currently, the fund has approximately $12 million in assets under management.
Furthermore, WisdomTree has 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 initially deployed on Ethereum and Stellar. WisdomTree has also conducted a proof-of-concept trial for tokenizing a private equity fund on the Avalanche subnet Spruce.
Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs' crypto-related plans for 2025 are also worth noting.
Recent market reports suggest that the Goldman Sachs CEO stated that, if permitted by regulators, the bank will "evaluate" participating in the Bitcoin or Ethereum markets. Goldman Sachs' focus on cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin may also be an important shift.
Previously, Goldman Sachs' digital asset head stated that the bank plans to launch 3 tokenization projects, including its first U.S. project, by the end of this year. Goldman Sachs is expanding its cryptocurrency services, focusing on the tokenization of "real-world assets" such as money market funds and real estate, which can be issued on public or private blockchains.
Goldman Sachs has not yet disclosed more details on its tokenization fund projects and partners, so it is worth continuing to follow their progress.
Goldman Sachs has also previously invested in projects such as Circle, BitGO, Blockdaemon, and Certik, which are involved in asset management or infrastructure.
