Everything we back at @1kxnetwork comes down to one question: what does it cost two parties who don't fully trust each other to transact, and who keeps the margin that cost creates?
In capital markets that margin runs to $17 to $24 billion a year on trade processing alone, the back-office work of matching, confirming, and reconciling trades that exists because every party keeps a separate ledger that has to be checked against everyone else's. It's the most measurable piece of the cost of trust, billed back to whoever is transacting.
$32B in real-world assets now sit on public blockchains, up 5x from January 2025. BlackRock's BUIDL alone holds $2.4B; Apollo, Franklin Templeton, Goldman, BNY, and JPMorgan are all running tokenized funds or payment rails, with Kinexys processing more than $5B daily; the DTCC announced a tokenization pilot for 2026 earlier this year.
The shift from crypto-native experiment to incumbent infrastructure project happened largely in the last 18 months.
Tokenization is doing four things to assets in this market: letting them settle around the clock, making ownership programmable, cutting issuance and servicing costs by collapsing intermediaries, and opening access to investors who couldn't reach these assets through domestic brokers.
The limits matter just as much: liquidity still depends on whether anyone wants the asset, credit risk still depends on whether the borrower pays back, and most tokenized equities today are synthetic or custodial claims rather than direct shares on a company's register.
I wrote a piece walking through the six layers of the RWA stack and where value concentrates by asset class.
1kx invests in the three layers an incumbent ends up renting from someone else regardless of how much it spends internally: compliance, data, and the issuance infrastructure asset managers depend on.
Four 1kx portfolio companies already serving institutions at scale: @SuperstateInc, @0xPredicate, @cryptio_co, @redstone_defi. Between them, they cover issuance, compliance, accounting, and oracles for the firms running this market.
The fourth layer runs the other way. Distribution isn't a neutral rail, it's the place to own the end customer, and the edge we see there is in DeFi, the channel we think gains most from tokenization.
Full piece linked in the reply. Building in this space? We want to hear from you.
Disclosure: 1kx is an investor in Superstate, Predicate, Cryptio, and RedStone.
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Will be at ETHDenver next week, hmu if you're building in DeFi, RWAs, stablecoins or payments and would like to meet.
We're actively leading rounds and looking forward to catching up with our network / meeting new community members.
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I'm unfortunately priced out of @osf_nft and @jakethedegen at the moment.
Gonna check out @GunnarMagnusArt and @zenoyis though! Thanks for sharing.
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I've been scooping up membership NFTs for several different artists. Best asymmetric bets you can make imo
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Due to an initial bug, $WeVE holders aren't receiving any emissions this week. However, the @_veDAO_ treasury has been raking in rewards.
Smart buyers are loading up on $WeVE (up 75% over past 24 hours), as next week's emissions will be huge.
1 day farming rewards of veDAO’s treasury
~$320K in SEX
~$405K in SOLID
Obviously not sustainable but that’s crazy 1 day numbers from a DAO with a treasury of ~$8m
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Those who LP'd on @solidlyexchange and staked on @SolidexFantom are being rewarded handsomely.
Compounding all rewards into WFTM/SEX and SOLIDsex/SOLID seems to be the best option for the next few days, with APR sitting around 10,000% for both.
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Strong first day for @SolidexFantom, here are some numbers:
👉 TVL up to $1.6B, 3rd highest on Fantom
👉 36% of total $SOLID locked on Solidex
👉 $SEX price up ~600% over the past 24hrs, currently at $27.5,
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