• Swarm announced the launch of its permissionless real-world assets (RWAs) trading platform.
• “Open dOTC” is a decentralised public goods service platform on the Ethereum blockchain.
• Traders can access tokenized US Treasury bond ETFs, while tokenized stocks for companies such as Apple, Tesla are to be added.

Swarm, a BaFin-regulated decentralised finance (DeFi) platform, has launched its permissionless real-world assets (RWAs) trading platform.

The over-the-counter platform is dubbed “Open dOTC”, a decentralised non-governed public goods service network built on the Ethereum blockchain, Swarm said in a blog post published on Wednesday.

Targeting the tokenized RWAs market

Open dOTC will utilise smart contracts to remove slippage, provide for instant settlement and reduction of credit and counterparty risks via fully collateralised trades.

Tokenized US Treasury bond ETFs are available to traders, while tokenized stocks of publicly-traded companies such as Apple, Tesla and others will be added in due course. Users can also add and trade any of the assets currently available on SwarmX, according to the announcement.

The tokenization market, estimated to grow to over $10 trillion by 2030, is seeing rapid expansion across the globe. Swarm hopes to play a crucial in this sector.  

“Adoption of tokenized assets is impeded by a lack of viable platforms where they can be traded. We know the crypto market is bifurcating into regulated and non-regulated offerings, and we think it is imperative people have a choice of how they trade and access assets,” Swarm co-founder Timo Lehes said. 

Lehes added:

“The launch of this public goods service means more people can take advantage of the RWA narrative that has exploded in 2023 and will continue in 2024 and beyond.”

Open dOTC comes after three years of engagement with European regulators, Swarm noted, with the company’s “head start” on other players key amid the upcoming MiCA regulation. Swarm co-founder Philipp Pieper said:

“Swarm has been in the regulatory process for three years so we have had a head start on most players in the space. We know there is a whole crypto and DeFi ecosystem that believes in permissionless infrastructure and open dOTC has been designed with them in mind. To date, innovation has happened in the largely unregulated area of DeFi, which regulated players are now taking advantage of. We hope to see the same trend with Open dOTC as a complimentary offering to Swarm’s regulated activities.”

While Swarm has unveiled this new feature, it will continue to run its permissioned platform. According to the company, this will ensure users intent on using a regulated, decentralised platform continue to do so.

The Open dOTC will have a fixed 0.25% trading fee cost, with this used to buy and burn Swarm’s ERC-20 token $SMT. This is likely to impact the value of $SMT, which currently trades around $0.31. Over $8.3 million worth of assets is locked on the Swarm Protocol.