[███░░░░]: Centrifuge Just Made History

Welcome to the TAC's Progress Bar, where we combed through 514 relevant tokenization news stories from the week, analyzed the key stories on our weekly podcast, then distilled what you need to know into a few hundred words in this newsletter. Delivered to your inbox in time for Friday happy hour in NYC (usually).

Back from a delightful week in New York attending RWA Summit, which, per usual, was the best tokenization event if the year.

RWA Summit is like Davos for tokenization and the density of prestige is second to none. I was fortunate to moderate a panel directionally primed for conflict pitting "DeFi vs. Tradfi" with some absolute industry legends (hint: it's not or but and). TAC also co-hosted the RWA Summit Supper Club with our friends at S&P DJI, which was a highlight side event and will undoubtedly become the first of many.

While "out" last week (there is no out) SO much happened. I will likely do separate full length coverage on 2 of the stories below, given how important they are.

But which two? Let me know your preference and maybe - just maybe - you'll get an invite to the next supper club.

Before we go in let's check in with the metrics.

Market KPIs (brought to you by RWA.xyz)

📈 RWA market cap was up to $39.1 billion, creeping toward the $40 billion milestone
🏆 Biggest RWA winner: Spiko's Safo Eurofund added $100M, up to $1.3 billion
🏆 Biggest network winner: Stellar added $70M, up to $3.3 billion

📈 Stablecoin market cap was up to $305 billion, well above the $300 billion mark
🏆 Biggest stablecoin winner: USDT added ~$300M
🏆 Biggest network winner: Arbitrum added ~$200M, up to $4.3 billion

📈 Onchain risk free rates:
Short term treasuries (1m): 3.64%
Aave / DeFi: 3.86% (now above SOFR for the first time since the DeFi crisis a few months ago, likely driven by increased borrowing and leverage as crypto blue chips have moved)

Stories we're tracking this week

A packed week with a historic governance vote, a 400-page SEC rulemaking, a bank stablecoin consortium, and one very entertaining Twitter beef.

• Centrifuge just made history with the passage of the governance vote to convert from a token project to tokenized equity, with 98% approval, marking what appears to be the first governance-sanctioned token-to-tokenized-equity conversion in the industry. The structure allows the project to price on actual business fundamentals rather than trading on beta against crypto blue chips, and unlocks access to a far larger capital pool than exists in crypto capital markets today. TAC's Johnny Reinsch disclosed he has been advising Centrifuge on the transaction and noted that multiple other projects have already reached out about pursuing similar conversions. A template now exists, and it will be used again.
• The SEC dropped its first major transfer agent rulemaking in roughly fifty years, formally acknowledging that a permissionless blockchain can serve as the authoritative ledger for securities ownership. The rule opens a 60-day comment period and touches on whether a blockchain wallet address alone can satisfy the master security holder file requirement, a debate that will have major downstream effects on DeFi composability for regulated securities. If adopted, natively tokenized securities will be able to interact directly with DeFi protocols, self-custodied wallets, and onchain markets in ways that previously lacked clear legal sanction. This is arguably the biggest structural development for tokenized securities infrastructure in a generation.
• Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi, Capital One, PNC, and a number of global institutions announced a consortium to issue a USD stablecoin, targeting formation of the issuer entity in H2 2026 and a stablecoin launch in H1 2027. The consortium is designed to be GENIUS and MiCA compliant. JPMorgan is notably absent, continuing its separate payments infrastructure strategy. The strategic logic is largely defensive: rather than ceding net interest margin entirely to USDC and Tether, these competing banks would rather split stablecoin economics among themselves as a native on/off ramp for their tokenized deposit products (our speculation).
• A cloture vote on the GENIUS Act was scheduled for September 15th, requiring 60 votes to end debate and advance the bill toward a final Senate vote. Polymarket odds remain at 70% for passage by end of year, holding steady despite natural time decay pressure, which the market is reading as a mildly bullish signal. Some opposition members have moved to neutral, but the presidential ethics provisions remain the primary sticking point with no reported movement. Cloture is necessary but not sufficient: even a successful cloture vote leaves the final passage vote as a separate hurdle.
• AMC CEO Adam Aaron publicly condemned Robinhood Chain for tokenizing AMC stock and enabling meme coin launches using AMC as a base pair, calling the practice "contemptible, outrageous, disgusting, detestable, inexcusable, vile" and threatening action from his "high priced securities counsel." A platform called Pons, which functions similarly to pump.fun but pairs meme coins against tokenized stocks rather than native crypto, was the specific catalyst. Robinhood CLO Dan Gallagher responded: "We know something about US securities laws and will not desist. Send your lawyers and we'll educate them." The episode raises a real question the SEC may eventually need to answer: what rights, if any, does a stock issuer have over how its shares are wrapped and used in DeFi?

Tweet of the week

"JUST IN: Sergey Nazarov speaks at the White House on tokenization's impact on the American economy 'There's a very real and tangible outcome that's benefiting the adoption of U.S.-issued assets and the U.S. dollar'"
-- @chainlink (Chainlink)

Summer's Over, and the SEC Just Changed Everything

This week on The First Trillion, Johnny and Charlie covered the SEC's landmark transfer agent rulemaking, the Centrifuge governance vote that just made history, the bank stablecoin consortium that read like a TradFi all-star team (minus JPMorgan), and the AMC vs. Robinhood Twitter beef that accidentally became one of the more interesting securities law discussions of the year. Charlie also flagged that the Aave / DeFi rate has flipped above SOFR for the first time since the DeFi crisis, a sign that leverage is returning to the market.

The episode is available below and we've summarized it for you here.

Stay ahead of the curve

Be sure to follow us on X, LinkedIn, and Spotify for real-time updates, behind-the-scenes insights, and the occasional hot take that didn't make it into the Progress Bar or the First Trillion podcast episode or summary.

Until next week,

The TAC Team