How to Build RWA Global Cross-Border Arbitrage: The Intersection of Tradition and Innovation?

By: blockbeats|2025/01/28 09:15:03
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Original Title: "How to Build RWA Global Cross-Border Arbitrage: The Intersection of Tradition and Innovation?"
Original Author: Yekai (WeChat/Twitter: YekaiMeta)

Is your industry facing difficulties in financing and poor liquidity? Are you looking for a breakthrough in cross-border expansion?

The emergence of RWA (Real World Asset Tokenization) has provided a new solution for digitizing traditional assets and enhancing liquidity. By combining with ATS (Alternative Investment Trading), RWA not only enables enterprises to achieve global cross-border financing and cross-domain arbitrage but also promotes industry upgrading and efficient capital allocation. In this episode, Yekai will analyze how to unlock global asset tokenization through RWA.

How to Build RWA Global Cross-Border Arbitrage: The Intersection of Tradition and Innovation?

Core Issue: Lack of Liquidity and Globalization Challenges

Traditional industries face difficulties in financing and restricted asset circulation, especially in global expansion. Regulatory differences and capital barriers make it challenging for enterprises to operate efficiently. Additionally, the value of assets in circulation has not been fully realized, the high friction cost of the traditional financial system hinders industrial development, and the lack of liquidity prevents the full realization of asset value.

Currently, compliant RWA issuance in Hong Kong is still in the private placement and PI stage, lacking a secondary market and liquidity. However, when an enterprise issues RWA, it is not just for a single private placement financing similar to overseas debt financing of tens of millions of dollars but requires the rolling release of asset value and liquidity. The combination of RWA and ATS brings a new solution to this situation. Even non-standard traditional assets are transformed into standardized tokenized assets through RWA, transitioning from traditional alternative investments to standardized, tokenized alternative investment financial products.

Unique Value of RWA: Fusion of Tradition and Virtual

RWA connects real-world assets (such as bonds, real estate, and commodities) to the DeFi ecosystem by tokenizing them, bridging traditional finance with DeFi. It not only facilitates on-chain assets but also allows these assets to trade dynamically in liquidity pools, unlocking their value potential. As a combination of real-world and virtual assets, RWA's mission is to achieve asset refinancing and redistribution in the virtual asset world.

Among these, ATS Alternative Investment is the key engine for RWA's globalization.

1. Global Expansion:

ATS connects mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, and the U.S. markets through ATS regulatory compliance and an ATS exchange, supporting cross-border asset trading and arbitrage.

2. Enhanced Liquidity:

ATS replaces traditional exchanges with a liquidity pool (Dark Pool upgraded to Liquidity Pool) and combines automated market making (AMM) algorithms to achieve efficient, private large-scale transactions.

3. Transparency and Efficiency:

Through dynamic pricing and smart contracts, price manipulation is reduced, providing a fair trading environment for global investors.

Where Is the Opportunity? Global RWA Model

1. U.S. Model: T-Bill tokenization combined with DeFi lending pools drives the efficient conversion of short-term and long-term financial products, similar to projects like Ondo and Mapple, as well as tokenization of MMF money market funds such as BlackRock's BUIDL.

2. Hong Kong Model: Leveraging compliant licensed exchanges to provide tokenization of assets like bonds and stocks in private and primary markets, with several successful issuance cases to date.

3. Singapore Model: Under Singapore's regulated CMS and RMO frameworks, providing asset tokenization for enterprises and protective secondary market support, particularly suitable for enterprises with overseas asset structures.

4. Dubai Model: Through digital banking and money services licenses, providing convenient trading and liquidity services for tokenization of renewable energy, real estate, and commodities. RWA assets can also be pledged under Dubai's digital financial regulatory framework, with RWA assets + secondary layer native tokens trading on exchanges such as Binance and OKX.

In summary, the liquidity design best suited for global RWA cross-border arbitrage includes: Hong Kong primary, Singapore/Dubai secondary, and borderless global DeFi tertiary.

At the core of RWA is not issuing debt, but "cross-domain", transforming traditional financial products backed by medium to long-term real-world assets into short-term, highly liquid tokenized assets to achieve cross-domain arbitrage. What opportunities are there for this kind of cross-domain RWA arbitrage: What is cross-domain that connects global markets?

• From Traditional to Crypto: Allocating traditional funds to the cryptocurrency market, generating liquidity through assets such as pledging Treasury bonds to mint USDT for high-yield strategies.

• From Local to Global: From onshore to Hong Kong, from Hong Kong to Singapore, from Singapore to Dubai, building a cross-border asset flow network among onshore China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai.

• From Long Cycle to Short Cycle: Transforming long-term assets into short-term high-turnover cash flow, utilizing Defi pools for arbitrage opportunities and liquidity enhancement.

• From Traditional Stock Market to Cryptocurrency Exchange: Transitioning from A-shares and H-shares to licensed exchanges and top-tier exchanges to achieve cross-border links for R-shares.

• From Traditional Asset Market to Virtual Asset Market: Moving from industry trading markets to cryptocurrency exchanges, also involving cross-border links and futures-spot arbitrage.

This cross-border arbitrage of RWA must be based on AI Agent intelligent trading. Within the RWA ecosystem, the combination of blockchain, DePIN, AI artificial intelligence, etc., is precisely where the AI Agent, in collaboration with smart contracts, RWA asset Oracles, etc., realizes automatic cross-border arbitrage, rather than relying on manual brick-and-mortar efforts by traditional financial institutions, managers, or traders. Just like DeepSeek AI Agent from Magic Square Quant, which can engage in quantitative trading arbitrage algorithm trading, it can also become an innovative AGI model.

How to Achieve: From Non-Standard to Standardized Cross-Border Upgrade and Industrial Closed Loop?

1.     Tokenization of Underlying Assets

Based on compliant RWAs, through Fund DAOs and smart contracts, achieve private placement and primary markets, tokenize industrial assets on the chain, and distribute them to global liquidity pools, enabling dynamic pricing and transparent transactions.

2.     Defi Staking and Trading with Liquidity

Staking underlying RWA assets to generate Crypto native FT tokens and implement second-layer Defi Lego design to achieve cross-border secondary market upgrades; utilizing the Liquidity Pool model to address traditional dark pool issues, supporting anonymous and efficient block trades, simultaneously safeguarding market stability and increasing fund liquidity.

3.     Industry Upgrading and Circularity

Through RWA Tokens and Industry Stablecoins, integrating cross-border and cross-domain industrial chain payments, settlements, and financing scenarios, the procurement payment settlement and investment and financing in the industrial chain have interest rate differentials and profit margins. Based on these, a positive cycle can be established: underlying RWA assets—secondary market circulation—industry upgrading and scenario application—asset income enhancement.

Goal: Build a Comprehensive Tokenized Asset Fusion Network

From Regional to Global: Mainland China—Hong Kong—Singapore/Dubai—Global Digital Financial Defi, establishing a cross-domain asset network.

From Traditional to DeFi: Integrating the traditional financial market with the DeFi ecosystem to achieve efficient asset transformation.

From Financing to Upgrading: Not only solving the financing problem but also promoting the tokenization upgrading of the industrial chain and enhancing liquidity.

Embarking on the Future of Cross-Domain RWA Arbitrage

The combination of RWA and ATS is reshaping the global asset trading landscape. If you wish to break through financing barriers, optimize capital flow, or explore global arbitrage opportunities, RWA will be an unmissable solution. Want to learn more? Join our community to explore the infinite possibilities of industrial digitization and asset tokenization!

#ARAW Always RWA Always Win!

By 2025, the RWA market will quickly find its place amidst rapid growth. In the new year, Kai Ge is officially opening up to recruit disciples for mentoring. Young talents aspiring to the RWA field are welcome to seize the leading position. Reply "Disciple Class" in the official account to join the preparatory group.

WeChat cannot answer questions one by one. After the core disciple class, there will be a partner class and a listed company research camp. If you have needs or questions, you can bring them to the classroom for serious learning, interactive discussion, and scenario simulation. Add WeChat YekaiMeta to join the RWA study group for discussion.

This article is contributed content and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.

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$COIN Joins S&P 500, but Coinbase Isn't Celebrating

On May 13, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Coinbase would officially replace Discover Financial Services in the S&P 500 on May 19. While other companies like Block and MicroStrategy, closely tied to Bitcoin, were already part of the S&P 500, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency exchange whose primary business is in the index. This also signifies that cryptocurrency is gradually moving from the fringes to the mainstream in the U.S.



On the day of the announcement, Coinbase's stock price surged by 23%, surpassing the $250 mark. However, just 3 days later, Coinbase was hit by two consecutive events: a hack where employees were bribed to steal customer data and a demand for a $20 million ransom, and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the authenticity of its claim of having over 100 million "verified users" in its securities filings and marketing materials. These two events acted as mini-bombs, and at the time of writing, Coinbase's stock had already dropped by over 7.3%.


Coincidentally, Discover Financial Services, being replaced by Coinbase, can also be considered the "Coinbase" of the previous payment era. Discover is a U.S.-based digital banking and payment services company headquartered in Illinois, founded in 1960. Its payment network, Discover Network, is the fourth largest payment network apart from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.


In April, after the approval of the acquisition of Discover by the sixth-largest U.S. bank, Capital One, this well-established digital banking company of over 60 years smoothly handed over its S&P 500 "seat" to this emerging cryptocurrency "bank." This unexpected coincidence also portrayed the handover between the new and old eras in Coinbase's entry into the S&P 500, resembling a relay race scene. However, this relay baton also brought Coinbase's accumulated "external troubles and internal strife" to a tipping point.


Side Effects of ETFs


Over the past decade, cryptocurrency exchanges have been the most stable "profit machines." They play a role in providing liquidity to the entire industry and rely on trading fees to sustain their operations. However, with the comprehensive rollout of ETF products in the U.S. market, this profit model is facing unprecedented challenges. As the leader in the "American stack," with over 80% of its business coming from the U.S., Coinbase is most affected by this.



Starting from the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, traditional financial capital has significantly onboarded users and funds that originally belonged to exchanges in a more cost-effective, compliant, and transparent manner. The transaction fee revenue of cryptocurrency exchanges has started to decline, and this trend may further intensify in the coming months.


According to Coinbase's 2024 Q4 financial report, the platform's total trading revenue was $417 million, a 45% year-on-year decrease. The contribution of BTC and ETH's trading revenue dropped from 65% in the same period last year to less than 50%.


This decline is not a result of a decrease in market enthusiasm. In fact, since the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, the inflow of BTC into the U.S. market has continued to reach new highs, with asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity rapidly expanding their management scale. Data shows that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) alone has surpassed $17 billion in assets under management. As of mid-May 2025, the cumulative net inflow of 11 major institutional Bitcoin spot ETFs on the market has exceeded $41.5 billion, with a total net asset value of $1214.69 billion, accounting for approximately 5.91% of the total Bitcoin market capitalization.


Chart showing the trend of net outflows for Grayscale among the 11 institutions


Institutional investors and some retail investors are shifting towards ETF products, partly due to compliance and tax considerations. On one hand, ETFs have much lower trading costs compared to cryptocurrency exchanges. While Coinbase's spot trading fee rate varies annually in a tiered manner but averages around 1.49%, for example, the management fee for IBIT ETF is only 0.25%, and the majority of ETF institution fees fluctuate around 0.15% to 0.25%.



In other words, the more rational users are, the more likely they are to move from exchanges to ETF products, especially for investors aiming for long-term holdings.


According to multiple sources, several institutions, including VanEck and Grayscale, have submitted applications to the SEC for a Solana (SOL) ETF, with some institutions also planning to submit an XRP ETF proposal. Once approved, this may trigger a new round of fund migration. According to a report submitted by Coinbase to the SEC, as of April, the platform's trading revenue from XRP and Solana accounted for 18% and 10%, nearly one-third of the platform's fee revenue.



However, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs passed in 2024 also reduced the fees for these two tokens on Coinbase from 30% and 15% to 26% and 10%, respectively. If the SOL and XRP ETFs are approved, it will further undermine the core fee revenue of exchanges like Coinbase.


The expansion of ETF products is gradually weakening the financial intermediary status of cryptocurrency exchanges. From their original roles as matchmakers and clearers to now gradually becoming mere "on-ramps and off-ramps" for funds, exchanges are seeing their marginal value squeezed by ETFs.


Robinhood Takes a Stand, Traditional Brokerages Join the Fray


On May 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins gave a keynote speech at the Tokenization and Cryptocurrency Working Group roundtable. The theme of his speech revolved around "It is a new day at the SEC," where he indicated that the SEC would not approach enforcement and regulation the same way as before but would instead pave the way for cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. market.



With signs of cryptocurrency compliance such as the SEC's "NEW DAY" declaration, an increasing number of traditional brokerages are attempting to enter the cryptocurrency industry. One of the most representative cases is the well-known U.S. brokerage Robinhood, which began expanding its crypto business in 2018. By the time of its IPO in 2021, Robinhood's crypto business revenue accounted for over 50% of the company, with a significant boost from the Dogecoin "moonshot" promoted by Musk.


In Q1 2025 earnings report, Robinhood showcased strong growth, especially in revenue from cryptocurrency and options trading. Fueled by Trump's Memecoin, cryptocurrency-related revenue reached $250 million, nearly doubling year-over-year. Consequently, Robinhood Gold subscription users reached 3.5 million, a 90% increase from the previous year, with the rapid growth of Robinhood Gold providing the company with a stable source of income.



Meanwhile, RobinHood is actively pursuing acquisitions in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, it announced a $2 billion acquisition of the long-standing European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Additionally, Canada's largest cryptocurrency CEX, WonderFi, which recently went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, also announced its integration with RobinHood Crypto. After obtaining virtual asset licenses in the UK, Canada, Singapore, and other markets, RobinHood has taken a proactive approach in the compliant cryptocurrency trading market.



Furthermore, an increasing number of brokerage firms are exploring the same path. Futu Securities, Tiger Brokers, and others are also dipping their toes into cryptocurrency trading, with some having applied for or obtained the VA license from the Hong Kong SFC. Although their user bases are currently small, traditional brokerages have a natural advantage in user trust, regulatory licenses, and low fee structures. This could pose a threat to native cryptocurrency platforms in the future.



User Data Breach: Is Coinbase Still Secure?


In April 2025, security researchers discovered that some Coinbase user data was leaked on the dark web. While the platform initially responded by attributing it to a "technical misinformation," it still raised concerns among users regarding its security and privacy protection. Just two days before Dow Jones Indexes announced Coinbase's addition to the S&P 500 Index, on May 11, 2025, Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor claiming to have obtained customer account information and internal documents, demanding a $20 million ransom to keep the data private. Subsequent investigations confirmed the data breach.


Cybercriminals obtained the data by bribing overseas customer service agents and support staff, mainly in "non-U.S. regions such as India." These agents abused their access to Coinbase's internal customer support system and stole customer data. As early as February this year, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed on X platform that between December 2024 and January 2025, Coinbase users lost over $65 million to social engineering scams, with the actual amount potentially higher.


Among the victims was a well-known figure, 67-year-old Ed Suman, an established artist in the art world for nearly two decades, having been involved in the creation of artworks such as Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog" sculpture. Earlier this year, he fell victim to an impersonation scam involving fake Coinbase customer support, resulting in a loss of over $2 million in cryptocurrency. ZachXBT critiqued Coinbase for its inadequate handling of such scams, noting that other major exchanges have not faced similar issues and recommending Coinbase to enhance its security measures.


Amidst a series of ongoing social engineering incidents, although there has not been any impact on user assets at the technical level so far, it has raised concerns among many retail and institutional investors. Especially institutions holding massive assets on Coinbase. Just considering the U.S. BTC ETF institutions, as of mid-May 2025, they collectively hold nearly 840,000 BTC, and 75% of these are custodied by Coinbase. If we price BTC at $100,000, this amount reaches a staggering $63 billion, which is equivalent to the nominal GDP of two Iceland in the year 2024.


Visualization: ChatGPT, Source: Farside


In addition, Coinbase Custody also serves over 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, and endowments. As of the Q1 2025 financial report, Coinbase's total assets under management (including institutional and retail clients) reached $404 billion. The specific amount of institutional custodied assets was not explicitly disclosed in the latest report, but it should still be over 50% based on the Q4 2024 report.


Visualization: ChatGPT


Once this security barrier is breached, not only could the rate of user attrition far exceed expectations, but more importantly, institutional trust in it would undermine the foundation of its business. Therefore, after a hacking event, Coinbase's stock price plummeted significantly.


CEXs are All in Self-Rescue Mode


Facing a decline in spot trading fee revenue, Coinbase is also accelerating its transformation, attempting to find growth opportunities in derivatives and emerging assets. Coinbase acquired a stake in the options platform Deribit at the end of 2024 and announced the official launch of perpetual contract products in 2025. This acquisition fills in Coinbase's gap in options trading and its relatively small global market share.



Deribit has a strong presence in non-U.S. markets, especially in Asia and Europe. The acquisition has enabled Coinbase to gain a dominant position in bitcoin and ethereum options trading on Deribit, accounting for approximately 80% of the global options trading volume, with daily trading volume remaining above $2 billion.


Meanwhile, 80-90% of Deribit's customer base consists of institutional investors, with their professionalism and liquidity in the Bitcoin and Ethereum options market highly favored by institutions. Coinbase's compliance advantage, coupled with its already robust institutional ecosystem, makes it even more suitable. By using institutions as an entry point, it can face the squeeze from giants like Binance and OKX in the derivatives market.



Facing a similar dilemma is Kraken, which is attempting to replicate Binance Futures' model in non-U.S. markets. Since the derivatives market relies more on professional users, fee rates are relatively higher and stickiness is stronger, making it a significant source of revenue for exchanges. In the first half of 2025, Kraken completed the acquisition of TradeStation Crypto and a futures exchange, aiming to build a complete derivatives trading ecosystem to hedge the risk of declining spot transaction fee income.


With the surge of Memecoin in 2024, Binance, OKX, and various CEX platforms began massively listing small-market-cap, highly volatile tokens to activate active trading users. Due to the wealth effect and trading activity of Memecoins, Coinbase was also forced to join the battle, successively listing popular tokens from the Solana ecosystem such as BOOK OF MEME and Dogwifhat. Although these coins are controversial, they are frequently traded, with fee rates several times higher than mainstream coins, serving as a "blood-boosting" method for spot trading.


However, due to its status as a publicly traded company, this practice is a riskier endeavor for Coinbase. Even in the current crypto-friendly environment, the SEC is still investigating whether tokens like SOL, ADA, and SAND constitute securities.


In addition to the forced transformation strategies carried out by the aforementioned CEXs, they are also starting to lay out RWAs and the most talked-about stablecoin payment fields, such as the PYUSD launched through a collaboration between Coinbase and Paypal, Coinbase's support for the Euro stablecoin EURC by Circle that complies with EU MiCA regulatory requirements, or the USD1 launched through a collaboration between Binance and WIFL. In the increasingly crowded trading field, many CEXs have shifted their focus from just the trading market to the application field.


The golden age of transaction fees has quietly ended, and the second half of the crypto exchange platform game has silently begun.


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