As interest in real-world assets continues to grow, Woo X cryptocurrency exchange has made a groundbreaking move by launching tokenized United States Treasury Bills (T-Bills), marking the first time such a protocol is available to retail investors.

The exchange introduced its real-world asset (RWA) tokenization vaults, known as RWA Earn Vaults, which allow users to earn yield by holding Circle’s USD Coin (USDC). In an X post on April 22, Woo X stated:

"With the RWA Earn Vaults, all @WOO_X users can now earn stable, predictable yield on their USDC holdings backed by U.S. Treasury Bills without having to jump through any extra hoops."

These RWA Earn Vaults are backed solely by U.S. T-bills and offer annual percentage rates (APRs) ranging from 4.5% to 4.7% to USDC holders. The announcement mentioned:

"User subscriptions accumulate real yields, fully backed by U.S. Treasury Bills, with current APRs for 7-day and 28-day terms at ~4.5% and ~4.75% respectively."

The product was launched in collaboration with OpenTrade, a tokenization platform based in London and backed by Circle, the issuer of the world’s second-largest stablecoin, USDC, with a market cap of $34 billion.

Tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) emerged as the second most profitable narrative in the crypto space during the first quarter of 2024, according to CoinGecko. Analyst Lim Yu Qian stated:

"The memecoin narrative was 4.6 times more profitable than the next best-performing crypto narrative of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) and 33.3 times more profitable than the layer 2 narratives with the lowest returns in Q1 this year."

This highlights the increasing institutional interest in the RWA sector, exemplified by BlackRock's launch of a USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund and the tokenization of over $1 billion worth of U.S. Treasurys through various products by March 28. Franklin Templeton's Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund remains the largest treasury tokenization fund, with a value exceeding $390 million.