Animoca-backed NUVA connects Figure’s $19 billion of tokenized assets to Ethereum
The protocol, led by veteran BNY executive Anthony Moro, aims to connect real-world assets with DeFi markets, starting with home equity lines of credit and Treasuries.
Animoca-backed NUVA connects Figure’s $19 billion of tokenized assets to Ethereum
The protocol, led by veteran BNY executive Anthony Moro, aims to connect real-world assets with DeFi markets, starting with home equity lines of credit and Treasuries.
NUVA, a new Ethereum-based marketplace from Animoca Brands and Nuva Labs, is linking $19 billion of tokenized real-world assets tied to Figure to decentralized finance.
The platform debuts with two flagship products, a Treasury-linked yield vault and a token tied to Figure Technologies’ $18 billion home equity line of credit portfolio.
NUVA aims to create a global distribution layer for institutional-grade products that retail users can trade, lend or use as collateral across DeFi, CEO Anthony Moro said.
Tokenized real-world assets have become one of crypto’s fastest-growing sectors. Asset managers and fintech firms view blockchain rails as a way to modernize how financial products are issued, traded and used as collateral. The broader market for tokenized assets could reach trillions of dollars over the next decade, according to multiple industry forecasts.
NUVA was designed as a distribution layer for tokenized assets, allowing them to move beyond closed financial networks and into DeFi markets, giving average retail users access to assets often limited to accredited investors.
It debuts with two flagship products: a Treasury-linked yield vault called nvYLDS, tied to Figure’s SEC-regulated stablecoin YLDS with more than $500 million supply, and nvPRIME, a token tied to Figure’s $18.4 billion portfolio of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). While the former gives investors money market yield, the latter offers high single-digit yield — more than 7% currently — that is mostly accessible to institutions and accredited investors in traditional finance.
Anthony Moro, CEO of Nuva Labs and a former BNY executive, said the goal is to create a marketplace for blockchain-native financial assets rather than wrapped versions of traditional products.
“Nobody really has that unified global distribution layer for blockchain-native assets,” Moro said in an interview. “We thought what was missing was a platform where users could access institutional-grade assets in a simple, composable format.”
Users deposit stablecoins into vaults and receive ERC-20 tokens representing ownership in the underlying assets. Those tokens can then be traded, lent or posted as collateral across Ethereum-based DeFi protocols.
As the NUVA platform expands, Moro said to “look for a wide range of assets to be available to everyone in an easy to use, self-directed and self custodial manner, eliminating Wall Street’s limited access, time lag and high fees.”
Moro argued that many existing tokenization models still rely too heavily on offchain infrastructure and manual reconciliation.
“The way to tokenize assets isn’t a digital twin,” he said. “The Figure loan itself is digitally native. There’s no filing cabinet somewhere keeping the real record.”
Figure has become one of the largest issuers of blockchain-based private credit products through the Provenance network. Moro said the broader vision is to eventually bring a range of tokenized assets onto NUVA from multiple issuers and expand to other blockchains beyond Ethereum.
“Cheaper, faster and safer will win,” Moro said. “That’s how all financial assets eventually come onchain.”
The French crypto security firm, which is said to have explored a potential $4 billion U.S. listing, is reassessing its public market plans as volatile conditions weigh on investor appetite for crypto IPOs.
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