Many years of tokenization practical experience, Standard Chartered's incubation platform Libeara's global ambition for RWA.

Author: Nancy, PANews

Tokenization is rapidly moving from concept to practice, becoming a high-frequency buzzword in the global financial sector. Whether it is native crypto institutions or traditional financial giants, everyone is exploring the same proposition: how to digitalize, chain-enable, and globalize real-world assets (RWA) while ensuring compliance. From government bonds and real estate to commodities and notes, the asset classes are constantly expanding, and the regulatory framework is gradually opening experimental space. This wave of on-chain assets actually hides a deep demand from the global capital markets for efficiency, transparency, and round-the-clock liquidity.

Against this backdrop, Libeara, as an innovative platform incubated by SC Ventures under Standard Chartered Bank, is a regulatory-friendly tokenization practitioner aimed at institutions. Unlike many traditional financial institutions that are still in the pilot stage of tentative layouts, Libeara has accumulated practical business experience through real-world projects. At the same time, unlike some crypto institutions that adopt an aggressive experimental path driven by technology, Libeara places greater emphasis on compliance, security, and institutional-level adaptation.

RWA is entering an acceleration phase, with three major products connecting the path for traditional assets to be on-chain.

The trend of RWA on-chain is accelerating its penetration into the mainstream market. According to the latest data from RWA.xyz, the total value of global on-chain RWA assets has surpassed $25.5 billion so far this year, with a growth rate of nearly 56% since the beginning of the year, covering various asset classes such as US Treasury bonds, real estate, private credit, commodities, and stocks. This trend indicates that on-chain finance is no longer limited to an experimental field for crypto-native assets; the traditional financial market has an increasingly strong demand for more efficient, transparent, programmable, and composable financial infrastructure.

Currently, the issuance and custody processes of traditional financial assets still heavily rely on centralized institutions. Although they have advantages in compliance and security, they also face challenges such as complex and lengthy issuance processes, high participation thresholds, soaring costs, and serious data silos. To address these pain points, Libeara has developed highly compliant and efficient on-chain issuance and management solutions through its three core product lines: Bravo, Delta, and Tango, targeting major asset categories such as bonds, funds, and securities, thereby accelerating the on-chain transformation process of traditional assets.

Bravo: Native Tokenized Government Notes and Bonds

Bravo is an innovative asset tokenization platform designed specifically for national-level financial institutions, supporting the native issuance, trading, and management of government bonds and sovereign debt directly on the blockchain, thereby enhancing the inclusiveness, transparency, and risk resistance of the financial system.

According to official sources, traditional sovereign bonds usually have high thresholds and complex processes, targeting only institutional investors, while ordinary citizens are often excluded. Bravo eliminates the entry barriers of traditional markets by supporting the issuance of small-denomination bonds and on-chain wallets, promoting the democratization of debt. Additionally, traditional bonds involve multiple intermediaries (such as underwriters, custodians, exchanges, and clearing houses), making the process cumbersome and inefficient. Bravo allows governments to directly issue, circulate, and repay on-chain, with automatic execution through smart contracts, making the entire process traceable and verifiable.

Moreover, developing countries heavily rely on dollar debt for financing. Once their local currency depreciates, the pressure to repay debts increases sharply, making it easy to fall into the trap of currency mismatch. Bravo's local currency bond support mechanism facilitates the on-chain integration of native local currency debt, enhancing government strategic autonomy and risk resistance, and strengthening credit anchoring.

In addition, the Bravo platform offers flexible debt product design capabilities. It is known that traditional government bonds have a single form, making it difficult to adapt to the increasingly diverse capital demands and policy orientations. Bravo supports programmable debt instruments, such as inflation-linked bonds, delayed issuance bonds designated for future activation, as well as innovative forms like lottery bonds and birthright bonds, allowing debt products to meet social policy goals and the needs of diverse populations.

More importantly, in traditional debt structures, multiple institutions are involved, and intermediary risks, operational errors, or bankruptcy events can lead to investors being unable to redeem or suffering losses. Bravo implements a native on-chain holding mechanism, where assets are directly owned by investors, eliminating intermediary custody risks and single points of failure, and the data is transparent and verifiable, significantly enhancing system resilience.

Delta: Tokenization services for regulated fund managers

Delta allows regulated fund managers to issue and manage on-chain fund shares, supporting tokenization of fund shares in any denomination, significantly lowering the investment threshold. Through the tokenization mechanism, these fund shares can be freely transferred among compliant investors, effectively breaking the liquidity bottleneck in traditional fund investments. The platform supports multi-asset classes and fund management across jurisdictions, meeting the needs of diverse investment portfolios. Investors can conveniently subscribe, redeem, and transfer fund shares on the Delta platform, greatly enhancing user experience and operational efficiency.

Delta will officially launch institutional-grade applications and platforms developed for the Singapore licensed fund manager FundBridge Capital through Libeara, featuring institutional-level security and compliance. It can be said that Delta meets the different needs of crypto-native investors and traditional investors by bridging traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi).

Tango: Universal Security Token Issuance Platform

Tango is a universal security token issuance platform that supports multiple asset classes, enabling the tokenization of various real-world assets such as securities, commodities, and media. The platform supports multiple blockchain networks to ensure technological compatibility and flexibility, adapting to the needs of different markets. Additionally, Tango integrates KYC and AML functionalities, along with bank-level technology, internal control systems (ICS), risk management, and compliance standards to ensure that all tokenized projects' issuance and circulation meet regulatory and legal standards.

Entering the practical phase, tokenization business has been implemented for many years.

Compared to many RWA participants who are still in the exploration and experimentation phase, Libeara is driving the tokenization from concept to practical implementation. By flexibly adapting to the regulatory and market demands of different countries and institutions, Libeara has been practically tested and optimized in national projects in Singapore, Hong Kong, Ghana, and the Philippines, involving various asset scenarios such as public offerings, private placements, and central bank digital currencies (CBDC), providing a replicable and verifiable technological paradigm for the global market.

For example, the ULTRA Fund is a tokenized U.S. short-term treasury fund launched in collaboration by Libeara, FundBridge Capital, and Wellington Management for qualified and institutional investors. It is also one of the highest-rated tokenized U.S. treasury funds globally, receiving multiple high ratings from institutions such as S&P AA+f and Particula AA+. Recently, on-chain capital entry platform Theo and RWA exchange DigiFT have also announced partnerships with Libeara to expand access to the ULTRA Fund.

Libeara has also partnered with leading domestic public offering institution Huaxia Fund (Hong Kong) to successfully launch a retail tokenized fund – Huaxia Hong Kong Dollar Digital Currency Fund. This fund is the first tokenized fund approved by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission for public investors. Through Libeara's tokenization, it provides innovative investment tools for investors to earn Hong Kong dollar returns through blockchain-based channels.

As early as 2023, Libeara reached the finals of the 2023 Ghana Central Bank CBDC Hackathon, where it built a prototype system that supports CBDC subscription for Ghanaian government bonds and bills, achieving on-chain tokenization issuance and settlement of Ghanaian government bonds. This project not only validates its technological feasibility but also provides a viable path for financial digitalization in developing markets.

In addition, Libeara's tokenization technology has been incorporated into several national-level financial infrastructure construction projects. For example, in 2024, Libeara actively participated in the Project Ensemble launched by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which is a wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (wCBDC) project aimed at promoting the development of the tokenized market in Hong Kong. Libeara collaborated with Mox Bank and Mastercard to conduct proof-of-concept testing, exploring settlement applications for tokenized deposits and tokenized assets, providing practical case support for the HKMA's wCBDC infrastructure. In 2020, Libeara partnered with UnionBank in the Philippines to complete the Philippines' first tokenized retail bond project, issuing a total of 9 billion Philippine pesos (approximately $187 million) in retail bonds on a public blockchain. Libeara also jointly launched the green finance project Project Genesis with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub, aiming to explore the application of blockchain technology in the tokenization of green bonds to improve issuance efficiency, lower investment thresholds, and enhance transparency in green investments. As the technology provider, Libeara laid the foundation for the current system architecture in its first experimental tokenization project.

The core team has extensive financial experience and is dedicated to building the RWA "super safe car".

Libeara, this name is a combination of "Liberty" (the first retail government bonds in the U.S. known as "Freedom Bonds") and "Aerarium" (the ancient Roman treasury). As a fintech company created by SC Ventures, the innovation incubation platform under Standard Chartered Bank, Libeara was established in January 2023 and is headquartered in Singapore. It is dedicated to utilizing blockchain technology to promote the tokenization of government bonds and funds, breaking the friction and barriers of traditional capital markets, and opening up previously inaccessible investment channels.

The core team of Libeara brings together top experts in traditional finance, blockchain technology, and regulatory compliance. Founder and CEO Aaron Y. Gwak has over 20 years of rich experience in capital markets, having designed and executed bond financing programs worth over $180 billion for sovereign nations, corporations, and financial institutions. He has a profound insight into the inefficiencies and pain points of traditional financial markets, particularly in areas such as a multitude of intermediaries, high investment thresholds, and limited liquidity. These experiences form the foundation of Libeara's establishment, enabling it to find a balance between technological innovation and financial security, providing the market with solutions that are both efficient and credible.

Aaron once stated in a public interview, "Tokenized funds and bonds involve too many intermediary steps, resulting in high investment thresholds and difficulty in entry. Tokenization not only simplifies these inefficient processes but also redefines the interaction between investors and assets. Through blockchain technology, Libeara enhances the transferability of these investments, allowing assets to flow peer-to-peer among investors, significantly increasing flexibility. This has also given rise to more new use cases, such as improving liquidity and expanding the range of investor participation."

He emphasized that not all tokenization projects are equally safe. Many past projects simply placed the digital representation of assets on the chain without considering basic investor protection measures, thus introducing unnecessary risks. Libeara aims to build a "super safe car" that can safely navigate the digital highway of modern finance.

The target audience of the Libeara service is a new type of investor, specifically those who hold cryptocurrency wealth but wish to participate in traditional capital market investments. Aaron pointed out that the widespread application of blockchain in traditional finance faces cognitive barriers, as many still equate blockchain with volatile cryptocurrencies and unregulated markets, rather than stable, regulated assets like government bonds. Changing this perception requires not only advanced technology but also a robust compliance framework to demonstrate that blockchain can support serious regulated financial products.

He envisions that the power of wealth allocation will shift from large financial institutions to individuals. Tokenization will play a key role, retaining the stability and structure of traditional finance while meeting the contemporary investors' demand for flexibility and autonomy.