Arbitrum DAO Plans To Invest $29M Worth Of ARB Into On-Chain RWAs

Arbitrum’s STEP Committee plans to invest 1% of DAO treasury assets into real-world asset products every year.

The Arbitrum DAO is readying to invest 35 million ARB into on-chain real-world asset (RWA) products.

On June 23, Arbitrum’s Stable Treasury Endowment Program (STEP) Committee announced it has decided on six RWA products to diversify treasury assets after compiling a shortlist of 17 projects.

“To not spread the amount too thinly and increase operational or default risk causing loss of principle, we selected only six products from the shortlist of 17 shared earlier,” the STEP Committee said.“

The STEP Committee plans to invest 11 million ARB intoBlackRock’s BUIDL via Securitize, 6 million ARB into bothOndo’s USDY and Superstate’s USTB, and 4 million ARB into Mountain’s USDM, OpenEden’s TBill, and Backed Finance’s blB01. STEP said that the size of allocations were determined based on the assets under management (AUM) commanded by each project.

Community members can comment on the STEP Committee’s proposed plan for roughly 10 days leading up to the publication of a formal snapshot governance vote.

The price of ARB is up 6.47% in the past 24 hours to last change hands for $0.829, according to The Defiant'scrypto price feeds.

The committee noted that it plans to diversify 1% of Arbitrum’s Treasury into RWAs each year.

The announcement added that the committee ruled out making investments in projects that use their own proprietary blockchain, projects that hire fund managers without prior experience, projects with redemption delays spanning multiple weeks or more, and projects asking fees that aren't competitive with the broader markets.

On-chain RWA growth

The news is the latest sign of the increasing adoption of on-chain RWAs. The market cap of on-chains securities has grown 121% to $1.72 billion in 2024, according to Rwa.xyz.

The STEP Committee advocated for expanding the spectrum of support for RWAs beyond simply adding to the AUM of products, including “subsidizing obtaining Moody ratings.”

On June 17, OpenEden’s TBILL became the first tokenized U.S. treasuries asset to receive an “a”-grade rating from Moody’s, with the product boasting an a-bf rating.

Arbitrum and Base extend lead over rival L2s

Arbitrum and Base have been extending their lead over the Layer 2 sector since the start of May.

Data from GrowThePie shows the number of active addresses on Arbitrum growing 110% to 745,510 since the start of May, while Base is up 38% at 501,400 over the same period. ZkSync ranks third with 239,140 after dropping 46%, followed by Linea with 180,060 after tumbling 21.6%.

When looking at transaction count, Arbitrum is up 47% at 2.57 million, trailing behind only Base with 41% at 3.31 million. For comparison, ZkSync Era ranks third with 537,000, followed by Base with 529,300.