💵Weekly Recap: BlackRock Drives Surge in RWAs

Tokenized U.S. treasury assets dominated the crypto news narrative this week, with the sector’s capitalization surging to an all-time high of more than $1 billion.

The bullish momentum follows the launch of the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) on Ethereum last week. The tokenized fund from the world’s largest asset manager has already mopped up an impressive $275 million since going live to rank as the second-largest on-chain U.S. Treasuries fund.

In related news, Ondo Finance pledged to allocate assets backing its $88.5 million Short-Term US Government Bond Fund (OUSG) to BUIDL. Also, in real-world assets (RWAs) news, Anemoy, a Centrifuge-native asset manager offering exposure to tokenized treasuries, expanded onto Celo.

The buzz surrounding tokenized treasuries comes as the broader market for on-chain RWAs is booming, with the combined capitalization of RWA governance tokens rallying more than 60% over the past seven days.

It was a significant week for regulation-related news, with Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder behind the insolvent CeFi firms FTX and Alameda Research, receiving a 25-year sentence. Bankman-Fried was convicted on seven counts for mishandling customer assets to the tune of an $8 billion loss for users.

In other legal developments, the SEC’s lawsuit against Coinbase will move forward after a court ruled that the agency “adequately allege[d]” that Coinbase offered unlicensed securities through its staking program. The SEC is also facing a lawsuit from the DeFi Education Fund and a small-time airdrop issuer seeking a court ruling that airdropped tokens do not comprise securities investment contracts.

Also, KuCoin is suffering heavy withdrawals after the U.S. Department of Justice charged the exchange and two of its executives with operating an unlicensed money transmission business and violating the Bank Secrecy Act.

Memecoin mania continues to rage on, with meme tokens on Base surpassing a combined capitalization of $1 billion. DEGEN is among the sector’s top performers as of late, with the token rallying an absurd 2,674% in the 30 days. The meteoric gains come as the token finds new utility as a vehicle for fundraising on the network, in addition to the project launching its own Layer 3 network called Degen Chain.

BNB Chain is also benefiting from the recent memecoin craze, with the network’s decentralized exchanges outpacing Ethereum and Solana by trade volume this past week.

Ethena Labs, the team behind the yield-bearing USDe stablecoin, announced that it will airdrop a token to its users, with 5% of its supply going to early adopters, on April 2. MNT, the native token on Mantle, is up 63% in the past week after Mantle began distributing Ethena Shards to MNT stakers via its new Rewards Station (Ethena calls its points, shards).

In Ethereum news, the network’s creator Vitalik Buterin, is urging developers to set their sights on mass adoption, arguing that the post-Dencun fee reductions allow Layer 2s to host applications serving “millions” of users. BlackRock also remains bullish on the prospects of an Ether ETF receiving regulatory approval at some stage, with the firm’s CEO, Larry Fink, stating that even a securities designation from the SEC would not impact the firm’s Ethereum exchange-traded fund ambitions.

Plus, Arbitrum and Azuki joined forces to launch a new anime-focused chain, while Fetch, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol will merge tokens and collaborate on AI development. Finally, Munchables, a project built on Coinbase’s Base Layer 2 networks, suffered a major exploit that experts believe was engineered by a North Korean employee.

And don’t miss our podcast with Tomer Weller, the VP of Product at Stellar, to learn about Stellar’s new smart contract platform, Soroban, and with Erica Kang, the CEO and founder of KryptoSeoul.

Enjoy!

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Karpatkey is the leader in active on-chain, non-custodial asset management, having developed a strong network of DAO treasuries worth $1.7B+ with dedicated finance working groups for GnosisDAO, Balancer, ENS, COW, Lido, and Aave. We’ve also contributed to Uniswap, Spark/MakerDAO, Safe, and Arbitrum by establishing delegate platforms and conducting research.

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In the discussion, Weller explores Stellar’s decade-long journey and dives into Soroban’s features and use cases.

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Our video walks you through Base’s memecoin ecosystem including which tokens are trending and how to buy them.

Friday

• Maker DAO To Reduce Borrowing Fees And Increase Spark Debt Ceiling MakerDAO reduced its stability fees across the board by two percentage points three weeks after hiking them by more than double. Spark’s debt ceiling was also raised to $2.5 billion.
• Centrifuge’s Anemoy Attracts Investment From Celo As Tokenized Treasury Assets Bubble An unnamed entity from the Celo ecosystem invested $100,000 into tokenized treasuries via Anemoy, a Centrifuge-native asset manager.
• Vitalik Urges Ethereum Developers To Target ‘Millions’ Of Users Post-Dencun Ethereum’s chief scientist said Ethereum is ready to support applications servicing millions of users following Dencun's massive L2 fee reductions.

Thursday

• Prisma Finance Suffers $12 Million Exploit Attackers managed to make off with 3,258 ETH before the Prisma team paused its protocol.
• Ondo Finance To Deploy OUSG Assets In Blackrock’s BUIDL Fund Ondo will move a portion of the $88 million in assets backing its OUSG fund to the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL).
• Sam Bankman-Fried Was Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison The founder of FTX and Alameda Research was convicted of seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering.
• DEGEN Launches Arbitrum Orbit-Based Layer 3 Chain The chain was built on top of the Arbitrum Orbit tech stack and will settle transactions on Base.
• BlackRock Would Still Pursue Spot Ether ETF If Ethereum Cops Securities Designation BlackRock’s CEO said the SEC classifying Ether as a security would not preclude spot Ethereum ETFs from entering the market.
• BlackRock’s Tokenized Treasuries Fund BUIDL Sucks Up $245M In First Week The market cap of on-chain U.S. treasuries funds tagged new all-time highs amid BUIDL's success.

Wednesday

• Ethena Labs Announces Airdrop Date of Native Token ENA Ethena will airdrop 750 million ENA or 5% of the token’s total supply to early adopters from April 2.
• Arbitrum and Azuki Join Forces to Create New Anime Blockchain Named AnimeChain, the platform aims to leverage Azuki’s budding anime ecosystem.
• AltLayer Launches ALT Staking The restaked rollup provider now allows ALT holders to stake their tokens.
• Mantle Launches Rewards Portal With Ethena Shards Up For Grabs Mantle’s new Rewards Station allows users to earn a share of 2.5 billion Ethena Shards from the Mantle treasury in exchange for locking MNT.
• U.S. Judge Rules SEC Lawsuit Against Coinbase Can Move Forward “The Court finds that the SEC adequately alleges that Coinbase, through its staking program, engaged in the unregistered offer and sale of securities,” the court ruling said.
• Analysts Believe Munchables’ $63M Exploit Was Internally Engineered Experts believe the hack was internally engineered by a North Korean employee.
• Fetch, SingularityNET, and Ocean To Merge Assets and Forge Shared ‘Tokenomic Network’ The three projects will merge their tokens and collaborate on research and development in artificial intelligence.
• Nomura’s Laser Digital Unveils Institutional Polygon Fund Embracing Liquid Staking Laser Digital is teaming up with TruFin to offer institutions exposure to Polygon’s MATIC token and staking yields.

Tuesday

• Major Crypto Exchange KuCoin Faces U.S. Criminal Charges KuCoin and two of its founders face criminal charges from U.S. authorities for allegedly flouting U.S. anti-money laundering laws.
• DEX Trading Volumes on BNB Chain Flip Ethereum and Solana Daily trading volume on BNB Chain surpassed $2.2 billion on March 24, with PancakeSwap accounting for $1.3 billion.
• SEC Faces Lawsuit Seeking To Exempt Airdrops From Securities Classification The DeFi Education Fund and Beba Collection, a small apparel company and airdrop issuer, hope to establish legal precedent that airdropped tokens do not comprise securities.
• Badger Launches 0% Interest Bitcoin Lending Protocol Badger’s new eBTC protocol leverages stETH as collateral to generate staking yield for both Badger and eBTC borrowers.
• RWA Tokens Rally 81% In One Week As Institutions Dive Deeper Into On-Chain Finance Six of the 15 largest RWA governance tokens rallied more than 100% in seven days.

Monday

• Memecoin Frenzy Arrives On Base As Tokens' Market Cap Crosses $1 Billion Memecoin activity on Base is surging, pushing up transaction fees.
• DEGEN Rallies On Increasing Adoption By Base Ecosystem Projects DEGEN is up more than 1,500% in 30 days amid expanded utility for the meme token.
• Aave Closes In On Zero Token Incentives While Borrowing Surges Aave’s loan activity is trending up despite token incentives steadily falling in recent months.
• Polygon zkEVM Resumes Operation Following Major Outage Polygon zkEVM is back to normal operation after appearing to suffer a 27-hour outage.
• Spot Bitcoin ETFs Suffer Worst Week Yet With $890 Million In Outflows Heavy GBTC sales drove a record five consecutive days of outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs.