- Libre, a new tokenization platform developed using Polygon CDK, collaborates with major financial firms like Nomura’s Laser Digital and Brevan Howard’s WebN group, focusing on creating virtual versions of real-world assets on public blockchains.
- Led by Avtar Sehra, Libre emphasizes full decentralization and compliance, aiming to efficiently match users with suitable financial instruments, including a hedge fund asset and private credit product, launching in Q1.
- Libre’s roadmap includes expanding into collateralized lending and managed accounts, with a long-term goal to significantly reduce operational costs for alternative assets through value-added web services.
By Ian Allison
Heavy hitters from the world of institutional cryptocurrency investing like Nomura’s Laser Digital, Brevan Howard’s WebN group and private markets giant Hamilton Lane are foundational partners and the first users of a newly established tokenization platform called Libre, the companies said on Wednesday.
Libre emerges from stealth mode under the leadership of tokenization pioneer Avtar Sehra, and is constructed using Polygon CDK, the blockchain development kit of the Ethereum-based scaling network.
These days, tokenization – the creation of a virtual version of a real-world asset (RWA) on the blockchain – is all the rage, and the big financial firms working on it seem to accept that public blockchains are the general direction of travel, even if they remain queasy about fully embracing that reality.
Libre aims for full-on decentralization from the outset, taking inspiration from the achievements of decentralized finance (DeFi), Sehra said in an interview, which means the two most important types of institutions, issuers and distributors, are allowed to interact completely on chain without any other platform.
“This decentralized infrastructure needs to have compliance built into it,” Sehra said. “It’s not just about adding KYC and AML in the form of a single flag stating whether a user is whitelisted or not. It has to have a lot more nuance to match the right user to the right instrument and a lot of factors come into play: what instrument are you actually issuing, and who can actually hold that? How can it be marketed and to what type of investors in which jurisdictions?”
Libra is looking to go live in the first quarter with a hedge fund type of asset of the sort Brevan Howard focuses on and, on the Hamilton Lane side, a private credit fixed-income type product, Sehra said. Thereafter, the roadmap for later this year includes collateralized lending and separately managed accounts, allowing users to balance portfolios on-chain.
“Over time, our goal is to take operational costs down to near zero, from an average of around 100 basis points for an alternative asset,” said Sehra. “The aim is potentially to start making money on the protocol purely from value-add web services like collateralized lending and secondary transfers etc.”
Libre grew out of WebN Group, an incubation hub for fintech and Web3 innovation backed by Alan Howard, a co-founder of Brevan Howard, and Laser Digital.
See source article HERE
Disclaimer: The information provided on this page does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, trading advice, or any other sort of advice and it should not be treated as such. This content is the opinion of a third party and this site does not recommend that any specific cryptocurrency should be bought, sold, or held, or that any crypto investment should be made. The Crypto market is high risk, with high-risk and unproven projects. Readers should do their own research and consult a professional financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
