On April 24, 2024 at 9am UTC, we hosted a joint AMA on the Elysia X (Twitter) space. For those who were unable to join the AMA, here is a recap.
📆 When: 24 April 2024, 09:00 UTC
🗣 Guest: Ethan Kim, CEO of NEOPIN
📍 Location: Elysia X(Twitter) Space
TL;DR
- Lately, we’ve been getting a lot of inquiries from organizations about RWA with NEOPIN. NEOPIN’s new RWA platform is designed to meet the diverse needs of institutions, users and the industry. Combining the deep liquidity of traditional finance with blockchain technology
- Just as BlackRock’s BUIDL RWA fund is only available on the Securitize platform, NEOPIN’s new RWA platform will partner with various institutions to make it the platform of choice for institutions. The ultimate goal is to create an all-in-one platform that is as large as Securitize, but with the ability to serve the diverse needs of institutions, holders and the industry.
- Since last year, NEOPIN has accelerated its work on RWA as a long-term growth engine. Last December, NEOPIN signed a memorandum of understanding with Jasmy, a Japanese IoT blockchain company with core Sony employees, and in November, we signed a memorandum of understanding with Indonesia-based international integrated logistics company “PT. Pelayaran Korindo” and the Klaytn Foundation to jointly promote RWA.
- We have been building the RWA business since last year, and the RWA-related DeFi products introduced by NEOPIN are also performing well, so we will definitely grow into the top tier of global RWA within two years.
[Moderator Question and Answer]
Q1. You recently made a big announcement about the launch of the RWA platform, could you tell us more about it?
A1. On the 12th of this month, NEOPIN announced plans for a new RWA platform. We plan to grow into a global RWA leader through the new RWA platform and the existing RWA related DeFi products offered by NEOPIN.
The RWA platform will meet the diverse needs of institutions, users and the industry. Just to give you an idea, we’ve been getting a lot of inquiries from institutions lately about RWA, and the story is pretty much the same: you have real assets, NEOPIN has blockchain technology, let’s work together, and we feel that institutions are very intimidated by blockchain technology.
So NEOPIN wants to provide a more intuitive and simplified solution for institutional participants to engage with RWA technology and markets without having to go through a complex review process. We plan to combine the rich liquidity of traditional finance with blockchain technology.
Many of you are probably familiar with order books from stock or crypto exchanges, and we are designing our new RWA platform as a decentralized order book. It’s going to be something to look forward to.
Q2. I’ve heard that BlackRock’s BUIDL RWA fund, which is the hottest thing lately, can only be purchased on the Securitize platform. Can we expect NEOPIN’s new RWA platform to have a Securitize feel as well?
A2. Yes, it will. I think you’re right, it’s more of an enhanced version of the Securitize feel. NEOPIN recently surpassed $200 million in consolidated TVL and we’ve finally established ourselves as the #1 DeFi on Klaytn, largely due to our multi-chain strategy.
The new RWA platform will be a specialized RWA platform used by many institutions, not just one, and will be easily accessible to users based on the order book, and will be available as a variety of crypto assets on multiple chains. The ultimate goal is to create an all-in-one platform that is as large as Securitize, but reflects the diverse needs of institutions, users and the industry.
Q3. In Korea, NEOPIN and Elysia seem to be the two companies pushing RWA the hardest, which makes this RWA AMA all the more meaningful. Can you tell us a little bit more about NEOPIN’s RWA business?
A3. Let me briefly explain the RWA business that NEOPIN has been driving since last year.
Last year was a time when the word RWA was unknown in Korea, and since then NEOPIN has announced several times that we will take RWA as a long-term growth engine and accelerate related businesses. We will compete globally with a protocol that can chain traditional assets beyond crypto assets. And indeed, we have formed various partnerships with organizations that deal with traditional assets to promote the RWA business.
For example, in December last year, we signed a memorandum of understanding with Jasmy, a Japanese IoT blockchain company and the Jasmy coin issued by Jasmy has been very popular, even referred to as the Japanese bitcoin.
Jasmy has a number of key people from Sony involved. Both companies are very interested in Jasmy’s RWA business based on data monetization. To that end, we are working to develop a joint business.
A month earlier, in November, we signed a memorandum of understanding with the Klaytn Foundation to work on RWA with PT. Pelayaran Korindo, an international logistics company based in Indonesia.
Many people may not be familiar with the company, but it is a shipping and logistics company based in Indonesia. It’s a very big company in Southeast Asia.
Commercial ships carrying cargo are a good candidate for RWA business. In fact, ship finance itself is well developed, so turning it into a tokenized financial product is a very good approach. The scale of existing ship finance is large. According to market research firm Petrofin Research, the global ship finance market, as transacted by traditional financial institutions such as banks, was $525 billion in 2012. That’s over $700 trillion in today’s dollars.
As I said at the beginning, NEOPIN is trying to bring the liquidity of traditional finance to the blockchain, and we believe there are countless, very large opportunities in the process. In fact, we’ve been exploring this space since 2019, and we’ve been building the RWA business since last year. Currently, the RWA-related DeFi products launched by NEOPIN are also getting a good response, so we will definitely grow into a global top-tier RWA platform within two years.
Q4. How has NEOPIN’s latest RWA related DeFi product performed?
A4. NEOPIN recently launched ‘RWA based multi-defi products’ and took its first step into the USD 7 trillion global RWA market. The Boston Consulting Group predicts that it will grow to over $2 trillion by 2030.
NEOPIN’s RWA-related DeFi product uses various DeFi protocols and assets, such as sDAI, an RWA token issued by MakerDao as collateral for short-term US Treasury bonds, USDe, a synthetic asset issued by Ethena labs, and the currently popular Curve Finance, to provide a convenient investment in one. The name of this product is BDLP, which is a bond derivative linking protocol, and SDLP, which is an Ethereum derivative, is also in service. BDLP is quite popular. These products must be deposited in stable coins or Ethereum. Because there are gas costs, it is used by whales rather than little people.
We also offer the “AI Ratio Boost” feature, which analyzes and recommends a customized asset management ratio suitable for each individual, so if you have time, please take a look at NEOPIN.
We are also launching a new RWA product tomorrow. You can now ad-farm crypto assets that are gaining traction in the RWA market, such as thermostats, pens and hi-fi, with Ethereum. We look forward to seeing you there.
Q5. Thanks to your comments, we have gained a deep understanding of NEOPIN’s RWA business. For the fifth and final question, I would like to ask you about NEOPIN’s future goals.
A5. NEOPIN has clear short, medium and long term goals.
In the short term, we want to respond well to the integration of Klaytn and Finschia and become the number one DeFi in the integrated chain. We are already number one on Klaytn and number one on Finschia, so I think we can easily become the largest DeFi on the integrated chain after the merger, but we will not relax and will work harder to become the leading DeFi protocol that can grow with the integrated chain.
Our medium-term goal is to become the number one DeFi in Asia within a year. As I mentioned earlier, NEOPIN has already surpassed $200 million in consolidated TVL, and we believe we’ve grown into a mid-sized company by global standards.
In addition, with Klaytn having a strong presence throughout East Asia and Finschia having a strong presence in the Japanese market with its Linebrand, we believe that the TVL chain will grow even more after the integration of the two mainnets. As a result, we believe it is quite possible for NEOPIN to become the number one DeFi in Asia this year.
After that, our goal is to become a top tier global RWA platform in two years and a top 10 global DeFi in three years.
For now, all of us at NEOPIN are working tirelessly in our offices in Abu Dhabi, UAE and Korea. We look forward to your continued support and interest in NEOPIN’s future endeavors.
[User Questions and Answers]
Q1. As the RWA business expands, there are more choices for investors and it’s hard to pick the best.
I’m curious if there are any other RWA assets you are considering working with in the future besides the sDAI strategy you introduced earlier and the collaboration with Elysia?
A1. NEOPIN has been expecting the RWA market to grow significantly since last year. I can’t say exactly where, but we are already doing a lot of preparation and work internally to launch RWA products with a number of organizations and projects.
I’m based in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, where NEOPIN is headquartered, and we have a lot of real estate assets in the UAE that are worthy of future investment, and the fact that we’re in Abu Dhabi allows us to be more active. If you look at the data, it’s a very large and active market, with $33 billion worth of real estate transactions in the first quarter of this year alone.
On a slightly different note, in addition to real estate, we’re in discussions with a number of different partners that have commercial vessels or transportation. We’re looking forward to introducing advanced RWA investment products to NEOPIN users this year that are not readily available on other protocols.
Q2. The upcoming launch of NEOPIN’s new RWA protocol is generating a lot of excitement.
Please give us some insight into how this protocol bridges the gap between traditional financial systems and decentralized finance, and what potential benefits it offers to participants.
A2. Rather than bridging the gap between traditional and decentralized finance, we want to bridge the gap between them.
Ultimately, we believe that more people will invest in virtual assets and that they will become one of the most preferred financial products. Ultimately, we want to become an on-chain crypto bank by connecting existing traditional finance and DeFi.
So you might ask, “How do we connect the two?”
To give a simple example, we are currently the leader in permissioned DeFi, also known as permissioned DeFi. We are working with the regulators in Abu Dhabi to create a regulatory framework for DeFi. You may also have heard that there have been recent issues between the SEC and Uniswap. Eventually the regulators will apply rules to DeFi as well.
NEOPIN already has a KYC authentication process and a set of internal management platforms and security infrastructure in place for the regulatory environment. We are working with regulators to bring this up to the level of traditional finance, while building a platform suitable for the DeFi environment. In addition, we have an in-house, rather than outsourced, back-end development group that can support different multi-chains while killing two birds with one stone — security.
In the long term, DeFi will move to a permissioned form, but the decentralized form will remain. This is because it is an area that the existing centralized traditional finance cannot do.
However, we believe that traditional finance will be an excellent partner in providing real assets as on-chain products.
However, we believe that traditional finance will be an excellent partner in providing real assets as on-chain products.
This is because traditional finance has a strong foundation that has been built over a long period of time. We also want to work with a DeFi protocol that we can work with for the long term. I think NEOPIN is the answer that traditional finance is looking for in this regard, and in fact NEOPIN is talking to a number of different institutions.
In this regard, we believe that the RWA platform that NEOPIN plans to introduce will be able to meet the needs of different organizations and users. Participants will also be able to experience the widest variety of RWA products in the global market on a platform that guarantees transaction transparency.
Q3. In order to position NEOPIN as a leader in the RWA market, the project is developing a wide range of tokenized real-world assets.
Can you elaborate on your selection criteria for these assets and the impact you expect them to have on the global markets?
A3. The criteria for selecting an asset is that since it is a product we are offering, any user must be able to understand and trust it. So we take a more cautious approach.
Since RWA is linked to real assets, its impact on the global market is greater than expected. In the case of Ondo Finance, which many of you are familiar with, it creates a great synergy with Blackrock’s Buidl Fund.
For example, let’s say NEOPIN launches an RWA product using ships. NEOPIN users will be able to consider investing in an on-chain ship finance infrastructure. In the past, these areas were the domain of only a few institutions and asset owners who were aware of the existence of ship finance. However, by launching our product on an on-chain basis, we are expanding into a public domain without borders.
We believe that there will be different reactions in the market depending on the size and business of our partners and whether this is the first RWA product we are launching globally. We believe that our competitors may benchmark the products we create and that we may also provide them with new business opportunities, environments and ideas.
We believe that the future market will change significantly as the boundaries between traditional finance and decentralized finance become blurred.
Q4. This announcement highlights NEOPIN’s role in simplifying the tokenization, exchange and monitoring of real-world assets for institutional investors. Can you elaborate on the key features and functionalities of the NEOPIN platform that adress the needs of institutions?
A4. As mentioned earlier, if you want to buy Buidl, Blackrock’s RWA fund, you can only do so through Securitize. Ultimately, this means that we will only sell RWA products in places that are trusted and managed.
But not all other institutions will be like BlackRock. Some will be eager to study blockchain technology and get into the business quickly, while others will want to start a blockchain-related business but may not know where to start. In fact, many of the organizations that have contacted us want to do a blockchain business but don’t know how to go about it.
So we want to be an all-in-one RWA platform that provides everything from A to Z. Institutions that have operational expertise in real assets, but no technology development capabilities, develop them into products through the NEOPIN platform, market them to global users, and create a platform where NEOPIN, institutions and users can grow together. We are working hard on that.
The reason we announced the platform launch roadmap in advance was to interact with more organizations. Because if you just provide a platform and there is no product inside, it can only be half-baked. We will continue to work hard to start with more organizations when we launch the platform.
Q5. NEOPIN’s upcoming secret weapon for 2024 has created anticipation within the community. Details may be limited at the moment, but what hints or clues can you share about what this secret weapon means and its potential impact on the DeFi landscape?
A5. This is a community question. If I don’t talk about it here today, people will continue to ask about the secret weapon, so I’m going to answer it. Our recently announced roadmap for the launch of the RWA platform is one of our secret weapons. We will be announcing some of those secret weapons when they are ready. I believe that every partnership around RWA can become a new secret weapon.
NEOPIN is at the center of establishing a DeFi regulatory framework with the Abu Dhabi government, while quickly responding to changing trends. Since the beginning of this year, there have been many good issues that benefit NEOPIN. We will seize the opportunity to record good results and reveal various secret weapons that the community will welcome. Thank you.
Check out the RWA Products on NEOPIN
🏅 NEOPIN BDLP (RWA) ▶️ 10.80% APY
🏅 ONDO — ETH ▶️ 461.62% APR
🏅 PENDLE — ETH ▶️ 440.58% APR
🏅 HIFI — ETH ▶️ 476.34% APR
*The displayed APRs are estimated and should not be considered guaranteed rates of return.
