$300 million RWA fund goes on-chain, can it save Avalanche's TVL?

Written by: BitPush

In one of the hottest narratives in the crypto industry—the wave of tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), Anthony Scaramucci is once again at the forefront.

This investor, who hails from Wall Street and previously served as a vice president at Goldman Sachs, is also well-known for his brief tenure as the White House communications director under the Trump administration. He is now betting on the emerging track of "fund tokenization" as the head of SkyBridge Capital. He recently announced that SkyBridge will tokenize approximately $300 million of its assets (about 10% of its total managed scale) and has chosen Avalanche as the blockchain to support this.

For Scaramucci, this is not just a technical attempt in his investment portfolio, but also a judgment on the future financial landscape. In an interview with Fortune magazine, he stated that 2026 to 2027 will become the "era of tokenization of real-world assets." In his view, the value of tokenization lies not only in the enhancement of efficiency but also in redefining the transaction and circulation methods of traditional finance.

Scaramucci's journey in finance and politics

Before entering the crypto world, Scaramucci's experience was already legendary. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he joined Goldman Sachs as a vice president in the investment banking division. In 1996, he founded Oscar Capital, which he later sold to Neuberger Berman. In 2005, he started another venture, founding SkyBridge Capital, and gradually built it into a highly influential asset management company in the alternative investment space.

In 2017, he became a focal point for the American media due to his brief tenure as the White House Communications Director under the Trump administration, lasting only 11 days. However, from then on, his dual identity as the "White House Storm" and "Wall Street Veteran" kept him in the public eye for a long time. After leaving politics, Scaramucci did not retreat to the background, but continued to focus on investments and quickly embraced cryptocurrencies after 2020. SkyBridge established Bitcoin and Ethereum funds successively, and Scaramucci himself has publicly supported the crypto industry multiple times.

Although he has stumbled due to investments in FTX, this has not shaken his long-term belief: the integration of cryptocurrency and traditional finance is an irreversible trend, and tokenization is the most promising bridge.

RWA Craze: US Treasuries vs Fund Tokenization

The starting point of the RWA track is almost "on-chain US Treasuries". During the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike cycle, US Treasuries and money market funds have become the most sought-after assets on-chain. They have low risk and stable returns, making them an ideal allocation for DAOs, stablecoin issuers, and exchanges.

Overview of Mainstream RWA Projects

Project/Institution Asset Type Deployed Blockchain Current Scale/Status BlackRockBUIDL US Treasury/Currency Fund Ethereum Scale of several billion dollars, RWA leader Franklin Templeton Money Market Fund Polygon, Stellar Hundreds of millions of dollars, mainly compliant investors VanEck Money Fund Pilot Solana, Aptos Emerging exploration stage Ondo Finance US Treasury/Short-term Bonds Ethereum, Solana High level of marketization, attracting DeFi users SkyBridge Capital Hedge Fund Shares Avalanche 300 million dollars (about 10% of AUM), first entry into fund-type RWA

It can be seen that SkyBridge differs significantly from mainstream RWA routes: it has chosen not low-risk treasury bonds, but rather two hedge funds: one is a fund for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin that have not been recognized as securities by the SEC, and the other is a "fund of funds" that covers SkyBridge's venture capital and crypto fund products. This type of asset targets a higher threshold for investors, has relatively limited liquidity, but implies higher returns and differentiated competition.

The current situation of Avalanche: declining popularity, can it reverse through RWA?

Avalanche once ranked among the "Ethereum killers" during the DeFi boom of 2021-2022, with a peak TVL exceeding 11 billion dollars. However, as the market receded, Solana rebounded strongly, and Ethereum L2 exploded, the popularity of Avalanche significantly declined:

TVL Reduction: According to DefiLlama, the current DeFi asset scale of Avalanche is less than 2 billion dollars, far below its peak.

Decline in ecological activity: Compared to Solana's comprehensive recovery in meme, NFT, and DeFi, Avalanche's user growth and application enthusiasm are mediocre.

Lack of New Narrative Drive: In the context of the emerging Layer 2 narrative, Solana ecosystem, and the continuous rise of Bitcoin's second layer, Avalanche lacks sufficient blockbuster topics.

Most RWA projects choose Ethereum due to its compliance infrastructure and the highest level of institutional recognition; Solana has rapidly risen based on high performance and low cost; Aptos is positioned as a testing ground for the "compliant new public chain." Avalanche is not the first choice for RWA, but its Subnet architecture is tailored for institutions, allowing for the design of dedicated blockchain environments for compliance, custody, and auditing, which is precisely what SkyBridge values.

The roles of different public blockchains in the RWA field

Public chain advantages typical RWA projects Ethereum compliant infrastructure mature, institutional preference BlackRock BUIDL, Ondo Solana high performance, low transaction costs Franklin Templeton, Ondo some products Avalanche Subnet flexibility, fast transaction speed SkyBridge hedge fund tokenization Aptos emerging, testing compliant market VanEck money market fund pilot

Avalanche, with the "endorsement" of SkyBridge, is attempting to break through in the crowded RWA space, but the tokenization of SkyBridge's fund is not the only move Avalanche is making in the RWA field.

This year, Bergen County in New Jersey, one of the wealthiest suburbs of New York, announced the migration of 370,000 property deeds to the Avalanche blockchain, with a total value of up to $240 billion. These deeds will be stored in an immutable, searchable on-chain ledger, representing the world's first large-scale digitization and on-chain implementation of real estate deeds.

This means that Avalanche is not simply betting on financial products, but is trying to establish its own on-chain ecosystem in the two major categories of traditional assets: "funds + real estate."

So, can RWA bring liquidity to Avalanche?

The issue is that RWA is not a market that can be achieved overnight. Even though the cases of SkyBridge and Bergen County are significant, they may not directly translate into on-chain trading activity in the short term.

The tokenization of hedge fund shares is aimed at high-net-worth individuals, and liquidity is inherently limited.

The on-chain property contracts are closer to a "digital archive", and there is still a distance in terms of systems and markets to true financialization (such as mortgages and secondary trading);

Avalanche needs more than just "headlines"; it also requires the establishment of complete application scenarios and financial products around these assets in order to truly bring funds into the on-chain ecosystem.

In other words, RWA provides a new narrative for Avalanche, but whether it can turn into new liquidity depends on whether the ecosystem can build on-chain markets for trading, lending, insurance, and so on around these assets.

Outlook: Three Possibilities for Avalanche

RWA has given Avalanche a brand new narrative, but the outcome may lead to divergence:

Successfully transformed into an institutional chain If the case of SkyBridge and Bergen County can attract more funds, banks, and local governments to follow suit, Avalanche has the opportunity to establish a barrier in the field of "on-chain institutions and public assets." It may not become the main battlefield of DeFi, but it can serve as the infrastructure for real asset tokenization.

Continue to marginalize If RWA only stays at the "news effect" without bringing real trading and liquidity, then Avalanche's position will not fundamentally improve. The halo of RWA may ultimately be siphoned off by Ethereum, Solana, or even new compliant chains.

Waiting for the next narrative Avalanche may also gain some attention through RWA, accumulating resources for the next wave of industry narratives (such as AI + blockchain, national digital currencies, cross-border settlement, etc.). RWA may not directly bring liquidity, but it could reserve chips for a future turnaround.

Conclusion

RWA has moved from experimentation to reality: data from RWA.xyz shows that the tokenized market has doubled to $26 billion over the past year, with institutions like McKinsey, Ripple, and BCG predicting it could grow to a trillion-dollar level by 2030. Against this backdrop, Avalanche is betting not on the popular government bond track, but on high-net-worth funds and real estate contracts.

This path carries greater risks, but if successful, Avalanche may indeed find a different way to survive through RWA compared to Ethereum and Solana.