After years of tokenization experience, Standard Chartered's incubation platform Libeara has a global ambition for RWA

Author: Nancy, PANews

Tokenization is rapidly moving from concept to practice, becoming a high-frequency buzzword in the global financial field. Both crypto-native institutions and traditional financial giants are now exploring the same proposition: how to digitize, on-chain and globalize real-world assets (RWA) while ensuring compliance. From government bonds and real estate to commodities and bills, asset categories are constantly expanding, and the regulatory framework is gradually opening up experimental space. Behind this wave of on-chain assets is actually the global capital market's deep demand for efficiency, transparency and all-weather liquidity.

It is in this context that Libeara, an innovative platform incubated by SC Ventures under Standard Chartered Bank, is a regulatory-friendly, institutional-oriented tokenization practitioner. Unlike many traditional financial institutions that are still in the pilot stage of tentative layout, Libeara has accumulated practical business experience through actual projects; at the same time, unlike some crypto institutions' radical experimental path of technology first, Libeara emphasizes compliance, security and institutional-level adaptation.

RWA enters the acceleration period, and three major products open up the path for traditional assets to be put on the 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 RWA assets on the global chain has exceeded US$25.5 billion to date, with a growth rate of nearly 56% since the beginning of the year, covering a variety of asset categories such as US Treasury bonds, real estate, private credit, commodities and stocks. This trend shows that on-chain finance is no longer limited to the experimental field of crypto-native assets, and the traditional financial market has an increasingly strong demand for more efficient, transparent, programmable and composable financial infrastructure.

At present, the issuance and custody process of traditional financial assets is still highly dependent on centralized institutions. Although it has advantages in terms of compliance and security, it also faces problems such as complex and lengthy issuance processes, high barriers to participation, high costs, and serious data silos. In response to these pain points, Libeara, through its three core product lines of Bravo, Delta, and Tango, has created highly compliant and efficient on-chain issuance and management solutions for major asset categories such as bonds, funds, and securities, thereby accelerating the process of on-chainization of traditional assets.

Bravo: Natively Tokenized Government Notes and Bonds

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

According to official introduction, traditional sovereign bonds usually have high thresholds and complicated processes, and are only open to institutional investors, and ordinary citizens are often excluded. Bravo eliminates the entry barriers of the traditional market and promotes the democratization of debt by supporting the issuance of small-denomination bonds and on-chain wallets. In addition, traditional bonds involve multiple intermediaries (such as underwriters, custodians, exchanges, and clearing houses), and the process is cumbersome and inefficient. Bravo allows the government to issue, circulate and repay directly on the chain, and automatically execute through smart contracts. The information of the entire process is traceable and verifiable.

Moreover, developing countries are highly dependent on US dollar debt for financing. Once the local currency depreciates, the pressure of debt repayment increases sharply, and they are prone to fall into the trap of currency mismatch. Bravo's local currency bond support mechanism supports the native local currency debt on-chain, enhances the government's strategic autonomy and risk resistance, and strengthens credit anchoring.

In addition, the Bravo platform provides flexible debt product design capabilities. It should be noted that traditional government bonds are single in form and difficult to adapt to the increasingly diverse capital needs and policy orientations. Bravo supports programmable debt instruments, such as inflation-linked hedging bonds, delayed issuance bonds designated for future activation, and innovative forms such as lottery bonds and birthright bonds, allowing debt products to meet social policy goals and the needs of diverse groups of people.

More importantly, traditional debt structures involve multiple institutions, and intermediary risks, operational errors, or bankruptcy events may cause investors to be unable to repay or suffer losses. Bravo promotes a native on-chain bond holding mechanism, where assets are directly owned by investors, without intermediary custody risks and single points of failure, and data is transparent and verifiable, greatly improving system resilience.

Delta: Tokenization services for regulated fund managers

Delta allows regulated fund managers to issue and manage fund shares on the chain, supports tokenization of fund shares of any denomination, and significantly lowers the investment threshold. Through the tokenization mechanism, these fund shares can be freely transferred between investors who meet compliance requirements, effectively breaking the liquidity bottleneck in traditional fund investment. The platform supports multi-asset class and cross-jurisdictional fund management to meet the needs of diversified investment portfolios. Investors can easily complete the subscription, redemption and transfer of fund shares on the Delta platform, which greatly improves user experience and operational efficiency.

Delta will be officially launched through the institutional-level application and platform developed by Libeara for Singapore's licensed fund manager FundBridge Capital, with institutional-level security and compliance. It can be said that Delta meets the different needs of crypto-native investors and traditional investors by being compatible with traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi).

Tango: Universal Security Token Issuance Platform

Tango is a general security token issuance platform that supports multiple asset classes and supports the tokenization of multiple real-world assets such as securities, commodities, and media. The platform supports multiple blockchain networks to ensure technical compatibility and flexibility to meet the needs of different markets. At the same time, Tango integrates KYC and AML functions, as well as bank-level technology, internal control systems (ICS), risk management, and compliance standards to ensure that the issuance and circulation of all tokenized projects meet regulatory and legal standards.

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

Compared with many RWA participants who are still in the exploration and trial stage, Libeara is promoting tokenization from concept to actual implementation. By flexibly adapting to the supervision and market needs of different countries and institutions, Libeara has been actually tested and optimized in national projects such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Ghana and the Philippines, involving public offerings, private placements, sovereign debt central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and other asset scenarios, providing a replicable and verifiable technical paradigm for the global market.

For example, the ULTRA Fund is a tokenized U.S. short-term Treasury bond fund launched by Libeara in cooperation with FundBridge Capital and Wellington Management for qualified and institutional investors. It is also one of the world's highest-rated tokenized U.S. Treasury bond funds, and has received high ratings from multiple institutions, including S&P AA+f and Particula AA+. Recently, the on-chain capital entry platform Theo and RWA exchange DigiFT also announced cooperation with Libeara to expand access to the ULTRA Fund.

Libeara also joined hands with China Asset Management (Hong Kong), a leading public fund in China, to successfully launch a retail tokenized fund - China Asset Management Hong Kong Dollar Digital Currency Fund. This fund is the first tokenized fund for mass investors approved by the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission. Through tokenization by Libeara, it can provide investors with innovative investment tools to earn Hong Kong dollar income through blockchain-based channels.

As early as 2023, Libeara was shortlisted for the 2023 Ghana Central Bank CBDC Hackathon finals. It built a prototype system that supports CBDC subscription of Ghana government bonds and notes, and realized the on-chain tokenized issuance and settlement of Ghana government bonds. This project is not only a verification of its technical feasibility, but also provides a feasible path for fiscal digitization in developing markets.

In addition, Libeara's tokenization technology has been incorporated into a number of national financial infrastructure construction projects. For example, in 2024, Libeara actively participated in Project Ensemble launched by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) project to promote the development of Hong Kong's tokenization market. Libeara worked with Mox Bank and Mastercard to conduct proof-of-concept tests to explore the settlement applications of tokenized deposits and tokenized assets, providing practical case support for the wCBDC infrastructure of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. In 2020, Libeara worked with UnionBank of the Philippines to complete the Philippines' first tokenized retail bond tokenization project, issuing a total of 9 billion Philippine pesos (about US$187 million) in retail bonds on the public chain. Libeara also launched Project Genesis, a green finance project jointly launched by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Innovation Center of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), to explore the application of blockchain technology in the tokenization of green bonds to improve issuance efficiency, lower investment thresholds and enhance the transparency of green investments. As a technology provider, Libeara is its first tokenization experimental project, laying the foundation for the current system architecture.

The core team has rich financial experience and is committed to building RWA's "super safe car"

Libeara, the name comes from the combination of "Liberty" (the first retail Treasury bond in the United States, "Liberty Bonds") and "Aerarium" (the ancient Roman treasury). As a financial technology company created by SC Ventures, an innovation incubation platform under Standard Chartered Bank, Libeara was founded in January 2023 and is headquartered in Singapore. It is committed to using blockchain technology to promote the tokenization of government bonds and funds, breaking the friction and barriers of traditional capital markets, and opening up investment channels that were previously difficult to reach.

Libeara's core team brings together top experts in traditional finance, blockchain technology and regulatory compliance. Founder and CEO Aaron Y. Gwak has more than 20 years of rich experience in the capital market. He has designed and implemented bond financing programs with a total value of more than US$180 billion for sovereign states, enterprises and financial institutions. He has a deep insight into the inefficiencies and pain points of the traditional financial market, especially in terms of numerous intermediaries, high investment thresholds and limited liquidity. These experiences have become the cornerstone of Libeara's founding, enabling it to find a balance between technological innovation and financial security, and to provide the market with solutions that are both efficient and credible.

Aaron once said in a public interview, "Tokenized funds and bonds involve too many intermediaries, resulting in high investment barriers and difficulty in entry. Tokenization not only simplifies these inefficient links, but also redefines the way investors interact with assets. Through blockchain technology, Libeara enhances the transferability of these investments, allowing assets to flow point-to-point between investors, greatly improving flexibility. This has also spawned more new use cases, such as improving liquidity and expanding the scope of investor participation."

He stressed that not all tokenization projects are equally safe. In the past, many projects simply put digital assets on the chain without considering basic investor protection measures, thus introducing unnecessary risks. Libeara's goal is to build a "super safe car" that can drive safely on the digital highway of modern finance.

Libeara serves a new type of investor, those who hold crypto wealth but want to participate in traditional capital market investments. Aaron pointed out that the widespread application of blockchain in traditional finance faces cognitive barriers, and many people still equate blockchain with volatile cryptocurrencies and unregulated markets, rather than stable, regulated assets such as government bonds. Changing this view requires not only advanced technology, but also a strong compliance framework to prove that blockchain can support serious regulated financial products.

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