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Citizen Daily Brief

Crypto's Quadrillion Dollar Endgame? ($)

Citizen Brief: gm, we're digging into protocols and platforms embracing TradFi asset tokenization.
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May 15, 2025 • 8 min read
Crypto's Quadrillion Dollar Endgame?
Published on May 15, 2025
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NEED TO KNOW
DOJ vs. Roman Storm
  1. 👨‍⚖️ DOJ Proceeds with Case Against Tornado Cash's Roman Storm. Despite dropping part of a charge related to operating an unlicensed money transmitter, the DOJ is planning to continue its prosecution of Storm over charges related to money laundering.
  2. 🥷 Massive 'Illicit' Online Marketplace Shuts Down After Telegram Takes Action. The marketplace, Haowang Guarantee, operated via Telegram and reportedly had upwards of $26B in USDT transactions flow through it.
  3. 💰 FTX Beginning $5B in Creditor Payouts on May 30. The lengthy process to reimburse creditors of the defunct exchange is nearing resolution.
📸
Daily Market Snapshot: One week after ETH's giga-pump, the asset is holding steady near $2,500. What will it take for the next breakout?
Prices as of 7pm ET 24hr 7d
Crypto $3.31T ↘ 0.7% ↗ 2.8%
BTC $103,536 ↗ 0.1% ↗ 0.6%
ETH $2,541 ↘ 2.0% ↗ 16.7%
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CHEAT SHEET
Onchain Stocks

Market Plays:

Hot Reads:

Farming Opps:

Airdrop Hunter:

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PLAY OF THE WEEK
Crypto's Quadrillion Dollar Endgame?
Bankless Analyst: Jack Inabinet

Crypto is on a mission to tokenize everything, and there is no bigger prize than traditional markets!

With over a quadrillion dollars in value locked behind the walled gardens of TradFi, the size of this opportunity is truly staggering. Should crypto win, the blockchain won’t just be for trading memes and JPEGs: it will become the foundation for global capital markets.

But tread carefully, for not all tokenized assets are created equal. Here are five of the leading platforms onchain investors are already using to access tokenized investment opportunities. 👇

🔒 Securitize

Website | Twitter

Securitize is a fully digital securities issuance platform that matches fund issuers seeking to raise capital with accredited investors who want regulated access to traditional investment opps on the blockchain.

Having amassed $4B in assets under management and 550k registered accounts, Securitize cements its status as the undisputed leader in real-world asset tokenization with impressive SEC registration credentials as an authorized broker-dealer, transfer agent, and alternative trading system.

In March 2024, Securitize became a mainstream name within the crypto industry after it was selected to launch the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), crypto’s largest onchain money market fund backed by nearly $3B in short-term U.S. Treasury bills.

Securitize offers onchain investors access to 16 distinct funds, ranging from money markets to private credit and private equity. The firm is backed by a number of prolific investment groups, including Blockchain Capital, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Hamilton Lane, and Jump Crypto.

🪙 Backed Finance

Website | Twitter

Founded in 2021, Backed Finance is crypto’s preeminent security tokenization platform. This protocol bridges the gap between TradFi and DeFi by offering onchain exposure to traditional assets, such as stocks and bonds. Every issued Backed Finance token, or bTOKEN, is backed 1:1 by the asset it represents.

As freely transferable ERC-20s, bTOKENS can be purchased by anyone and used in conjunction with existing DeFi primitives, like decentralized exchanges. Only approved “Backed clients” (i.e.; non-US and non-sanctioned investors), however, can mint and redeem these assets.

Backed Finance tokenized securities are available across multiple networks – including Ethereum, Polygon, and Arbitrum – and its tokenized offerings operate on a compliant regulatory framework, based on the Swiss DLT act. While bTokens represent a claim to the value of underlying securities, they do not provide ownership over the asset or convey any attached rights (i.e.; voting power).

🦸 Superstate

Website | Twitter

Last week, tokenized fund issuer Superstate released Opening Bell, a platform that enables companies to issue publicly registered equities directly onto blockchain networks like Solana and Ethereum. The program’s first issuer will be SOL Strategies, a Canadian-registered Solana investment vehicle that trades under the ticker HODL.

Opening Bell provides public companies access to onchain capital markets, meanwhile, private firms face lower listing standards and can make shares available in crypto markets, with available paths to up-list on traditional exchanges.

Unlike existing tokenized offerings, which offer rudimentary wrapped representations of custodied shares, Superstate’s Opening Bell program will natively issue securities onchain, providing holders with ownership rights and actual voting power.

Tokenized offerings issued through Opening Bell will trade 24/7 and be regulatory compliant; Superstate is already an SEC registered transfer agent and maintains AML/KYC programs for its tokenized bond and carry trade offerings.

🏦 Ondo Finance

Website | Twitter

Ondo Finance is the largest crypto-native tokenized treasury platform, custodying over $1B in value for its USDY and OUSD “yieldcoin” offerings.

While Ondo’s roots rest in tokenized treasuries, the platform is eyeing to expand its scope with Ondo Global Markets, a tokenization service that will enable non-U.S. investors to gain onchain exposure to public securities, like stocks, bonds, and ETFs.

Similar to Backed Finance, Ondo Global Markets will limit creations and redemptions to non-U.S. onboarded investors, but allow for token transferability on secondary markets. This approach preserves DeFi composability, as it does with existing Ondo yieldcoins.

All Ondo Global Markets tokens will be natively issued on the Ondo Chain – an L1 “purpose-built to accelerate the creation of institutional-grade financial markets onchain” – with bridged representations available on other major chains that Ondo supports.

🌊 Hyperliquid

Website | Twitter

Hyperliquid is the top onchain perpetuals trading venue by volume, empowering speculators with up to 40x leverage on a wide array of crypto-native assets. In February 2025, Hyperliquid released the HyperEVM, a general-purpose blockchain that houses the Hyperliquid exchange and enables DeFi composability.

While Hyperliquid does not currently offer trading on real-world assets (like stocks, commodities, or foreign exchange), the recently unveiled HIP-3 upgrade will allow the community to list markets of their liking, making it possible that RWA markets could be listed on Hyperliquid in the near future.

Ostium, an up-and-coming perpetuals platform, already offers leverage trading markets for leading U.S. single stocks and stock indexes.

🧐 Risk Considerations

Although tokenized stock exposure may be desirable for investors seeking onchain alternatives to crypto-native assets, when these instruments represent U.S. securities, they may fall under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a regulatory body that has provided limited clarity on how or when securities laws apply to digital assets.

Securities issued by SEC-regulated entities (like those available to accredited investors through Securitize or Superstate) appear compliant with existing legal frameworks, but lack unrestricted transferability and are difficult to access for most investors.

Conversely, Backed and Ondo Finance attempt to circumvent U.S. securities laws by restricting creations/redemptions to non-U.S. investors and curtailing shareholder rights, meanwhile, unregulated synthetic asset issuance platforms have faced legal scrutiny.

In its case against Do Kwon and Terraform Labs, the SEC previously argued that synthetic “mAssets” – pegged representations of U.S. equities issued through Mirror Protocol – were unregistered “securities-based swaps” that violated federal law.

While a December 2023 summary judgement subsequently threw out this specific element of the Terra/Luna case on grounds that mAsset holders could not have reasonably expected profit due to the minting mechanics, this case demonstrated the SEC’s willingness to pursue unregistered offerings of U.S. securities.

The Trump Administration’s SEC is adamant on prioritizing digital asset clarity, but until policy is finally established, many onchain security issuers risk future legal consequences as they continue to operate in an environment of uncertainty.

FRIEND & SPONSOR: FRAX

The Fraxtal ecosystem is expanding at lightning speed—this month’s biggest highlight is IQAI.com, the newest Agent Tokenization platform from IQ and Frax. IQ is building autonomous, intelligent, tokenized agents launching on Fraxtal in Q1. Empower on-chain agents with built-in wallets, tokenized ownership, and decentralized governance—all within a fast-growing Fraxtal ecosystem.

Learn More
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CITIZEN-ONLY TOKEN RATING
Maple's Sweet Deal?
Bankless Analyst: Jack Inabinet

SYRUP has rallied 260% off its April 8 lows and is setting new all-time highs since converting from the previous MPL ticker in November 2024.

Pros:

  • Fundamental Rally: Maple Finance has been one of crypto’s best-performing lending markets in 2025, parabolically growing deposits by 330% on a year-to-date basis and experiencing considerable success with its newest over-collateralized offerings, which rank among the highest-yielding onchain opportunities with respect to their risk profile.
  • Binance Listing: SYRUP ripped hard on May 6 after Binance listed spot markets for the token, unlocking a new pool of token buyers. Additionally, the move appears to have provided publicity for Maple Finance itself, with deposits increasing by 37% since the announcement.

Cons:

  • Rich Valuation: Maple Finance has demonstrated attractive growth prospects in recent months, but SYRUP is richly valued compared to close competitors. Whereas Aave’s fully diluted valuation (FDV) is 15% of its total value locked (TVL), SYRUP comes with a relatively lofty 34% FDV/TVL ratio.

Price impact:

The Bankless Analyst Team is assigning a bullish rating to SYRUP, believing that the token has room to run for as long as Maple Finance can maintain a strong growth trajectory and its above-market yield offerings.

See dozens of active token ratings in the Citizen-only Token Hub 🔥

Open Token Hub

Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here.

Published in Bankless

There’s a revolution in the world of money. Ethereum, Bitcoin, crypto, open finance, DeFi—a bankless revolution. And you want part of it.