Chukwunelo Ebuka Alpha
3 min readMay 31, 2024

Helix 2.0 Upgrade: A new dawn for Real World Assets

Recently we saw news of the Helix upgrade to Helix 2.0 and one thing that really stood out was the mention of Real World Assets (RWA). This piece would take a little dive into what RWAs are and the class of RWAs we would be seeing on Injective through Helix app.

Real World Assets

Real world assets (RWAs) are physical assets found in the real world, like real estate, precious metals, currencies commodities, and artwork. By tokenization—the process of transforming an asset's ownership rights into digital tokens on a blockchain—these assets, which have inherent value, can now be included into blockchain technology. This means that users can actually hold these assets just by having equal-value tokens in their wallets. This comes with many benefits.

Benefits

Here are some of the amazing benefits of real world assets.
Liquidity: Tokenizing RWAs increases market liquidity by enabling fractional ownership, which enables investors to purchase and sell small amounts of an asset. This means you wouldn't need to have the complete money to buy a unit if rwa but can bite at it with whatever fund you have, and still be part of the cake.
Transparency: By ensuring that ownership records and transactions are transparent and unchangeable, blockchain technology boosts participant trust. All transactions remain on chain and are immutable. They are also accessible to anyone who wants to have a check.
Accessibility: Global access to and trading of tokenized RWAs allows for greater investment opportunities and involvement for people everywhere. With this, you can be in your little apartment, in a tiny village with data service and still get your RWAs with one click of the phone. Just like someone being able to buy gold without having to see or touch it.

Applications

It’s not enough to know that these real world assets exist. It’s proper to know how their use applies to in real life.
Real Estate: Tokenizing properties allows investors to buy fractional shares, making transactions simpler and more effective. Just like when partners come together to buy a property, you can also do same when you all get the tokenized entities of that real life apartment. The beauty of this is that you can leverage on those tokens and trade for more profit whilst still owning a fraction (or all) of the house.
Commodities: Tokenized trading of precious metals and other commodities offers a safe and effective trading mechanism. Just like the apartments, you can own tokenized commodities and leverage trade them for even higher positions.
Art and Collectibles: Tokenizing valuable goods, such as artwork and rare collectibles, gives investors another option to diversify their holdings.

Tokenizing RWAs merges traditional finance with decentralized finance (DeFi), creating new opportunities for investment, improving liquidity, and ensuring greater transparency and accessibility. Whilst everyone keeps talking about how DeFi is the next big thing, we can't brush traditional finance aside and real life transactions must occur. The beauty of tokenized RWAs is that it has given us insight into how these different classes can function together.

A case for Helix 2.0

As stated earlier, Helix app upgrade would see perpetual futures for a range of assets. Earlier, the Japanese Yen (JPY) was listed on Helix for trading. This upgrade would see 4 more listings and these would be the first of many to come. The first two assets are mineral commodities, Gold and Silver. Tradoors would be able to trade XAU/USDT and XAG/USDT perps. The remaining two are currency commodities, Euros and Pounds. Tradoors would be able to trade EUR/USDT and GBP/USDT perps too. This is awesome in the grand scheme of things. Imagine owning and leverage trading these assets from the comfort of your bed on one of the fastest blockchains out there.

We, Ninjas, know there's more to come. Stocks, bonds, properties, more currencies and more minerals. Let's keep pushing the narrative for premier DeFi on Injective.