Wall Street Eyes RWA Growth Through Guggenheim and Ripple Partnership

US investment manager Guggenheim is expanding its digital commercial paper offering via a partnership with crypto-native enterprise Ripple, illustrating the accelerating convergence between traditional finance and the crypto sector.

Under the agreement, Guggenheim Treasury Services, a subsidiary of Guggenheim, will make its US Treasury-backed fixed-income assets available on the XRP Ledger. Bloomberg reports that Ripple will invest $10 million in these assets as part of the collaboration.

The commercial paper issued through this offering will be fully backed by underlying US Treasurys and feature customizable maturity periods extending up to 397 days.

RippleX executive Markus Infanger told Bloomberg the offering could facilitate purchases using Ripple’s US dollar-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD since its December launch. RLUSD’s circulating supply has surpassed $350 million.

Representation of a tokenized real-world asset — *Tokenized real-world assets are gaining prominence. Source: RWA.xyz*

This marks the second notable collaboration between Guggenheim and the crypto sphere. In September 2024, the firm tokenized a $20 million commercial paper on the Ethereum blockchain.

Wall Street Clubs into Real-World Asset Tokenization

RWAs, such as commercial paper or treasury securities, are rapidly becoming a focus of Wall Street’s tokenization initiatives. Leading financial institutions view blockchain-based RWA trading as offering enhanced liquidity, efficiency, and accessibility.

A significant trend involves the tokenization of money market funds. Notable examples include BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), Franklin Templeton’s OnChain US Government Money Fund, and Fidelity’s tokenized dollar fund.

Crypto-native firms are concurrently working to democratize access to tokenized assets. German tokenization protocol Midas recently launched tokenized Treasury bills on Algorand, attracting a broader investor base due to its absence of minimum investment requirements.

Graph showing growth in on-chain RWA value — *On-chain real-world asset values continue climbing. Source: RWA.xyz*

This ecosystem is also attracting outside investment. Blockchain-focused venture capital fund Jump Crypto recently led an investment into Securitize, a leading tokenization platform powering BUIDL. Securitize manages over $4 billion in on-chain assets, with BUIDL representing nearly $3 billion of that total.