ARK’s Valente Sees RWA Trading Reshaping DeFi Platform Economics

Specialized RWA Venues Could Reshape Onchain Liquidity

Real-world plus (RWA) maturation is changing however trading venues vie for liquidity and economical power crossed decentralized concern (DeFi). In comments provided exclusively to Bitcoin.com News, ARK Invest Director of Research for Digital Assets Lorenzo Valente examined whether expanding RWA-linked derivatives markets volition stay concentrated connected crypto-native trading venues.

Winning crypto trading historically required bitcoin and large layer-1 liquidity, which attracted nonrecreational traders and supported deeper markets. New platforms consequently faced nonstop contention from established exchanges specified arsenic Binance and Coinbase.

Valente summarized the competitory alteration facing emerging onchain venues and established cryptocurrency exchanges:

“You tin present physique ample onchain outcomes and primitives with fundamentally zero BTC/ETH marketplace stock by specializing successful RWAs instead.”

He pointed to Trade.xyz arsenic the clearest illustration and Robinhood chain arsenic different possibility. Rather than concentrating alongside crypto-native activity, RWA liquidity could “fragment by plus class,” allowing antithetic venues to pb abstracted categories, helium explained.

Those remarks followed a July 23 station connected X, wherever helium wrote, “We are entering a caller epoch for DeFi.” The station referenced Blockworks information showing RWAs accounted for 54% of Hyperliquid’s play volume, surpassing cryptocurrencies for the archetypal time.

Within that breakdown, idiosyncratic equities made up 61% of RWA enactment aft overtaking indices and commodities successful June connected Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 builder-deployed perpetual markets. Across decentralized exchanges, full perpetual measurement reached $79 cardinal for the week, with $50 cardinal connected Hyperliquid, including $26 cardinal from HIP-3 perpetuals linked to real-world assets.

Order Flow Could Give Trade.xyz Greater Fee Leverage

Continued maturation by Trade.xyz could alteration its commercialized narration with Hyperliquid if the exertion becomes the exchange’s superior root of activity.

Fee allocation creates hostility astatine respective levels of the blockchain stack. Market participants indispensable find how worth is divided betwixt L2 and L1 networks, applications and big chains, and brokers oregon builder codification and superior exchanges.

Valente addressed the effect concentrated bid travel could person connected the economical narration betwixt Trade.xyz and Hyperliquid:

“If trade.xyz grows to 90% of Hyperliquid volume, which I spot arsenic precise possible, I don’t spot wherefore they wouldn’t request a larger stock of the wide idiosyncratic fee.”

Although Valente noted that “leaving Hyperliquid wholly is simply a abstracted question,” helium anticipates negotiations implicit the economics erstwhile the exertion gains capable influence.

Independent Chains Are Likely to Suit Only a Minority of Apps

Pump.fun presents the aforesaid fee-allocation hostility betwixt an exertion and its underlying infrastructure. Valente views lawsuit acquisition arsenic the platform’s existent precedence and considers a Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) fork an unnecessary distraction portion the existing exemplary continues producing more than $1 cardinal successful beingness revenue.

Operating an autarkic web would increase power implicit execution, fees, and merchandise design, helium described. It would besides necessitate further engineering resources and exposure the exertion to migration risks that bash not beryllium portion it remains integrated with Solana.

Valente framed the determination astir “what is the app’s accidental cost” and “how easy tin it fork the infra without losing its users?” User retention yet determines whether method independency remains commercially viable.

The ARK Invest probe manager outlined the threshold an exertion would request to transverse earlier operating its ain chain:

“The astir fashionable apps launching their ain chains is 1 imaginable answer, but it lone makes consciousness erstwhile an app’s interest measure exceeds the worth of the liquidity, users, and information it’s renting. Some volition get there, astir won’t.”

The broader debate, which Valente calls “the cardinal dollar question for the industry,” centers connected L1 monetization power, the durability of web effects, and whether applications are paying the close terms for blockspace and distribution.