Crypto investment firm RockawayX is betting $150 million on yield becoming next big use case
The $2 billion digital-asset investment firm rolls out an initiative to back, build and provide liquidity to projects bringing real-world yields into DeFi.
Digital asset investment firm RockawayX is putting $150 million to bring more private credit and other yield-generating assets onchain, betting that lending tied to the real economy will become one of crypto's largest markets.
The $2 billion digital-asset investment firm is rolling out Catapult, a program that will provide venture funding, product structuring, liquidity, market making and distribution for tokenized credit products, the firm told CoinDesk Thursday.
RockawayX already operates across several parts of the crypto investment stack. It runs venture funds for early-stage investments, a market-neutral fund that provides liquidity to DeFi protocols, and a vault business with roughly $300 million in deployed capital. The firm also acquired crypto hedge fund Relayer in August.
Tokenized real-world assets like bonds, equities and funds have grown rapidly to roughly $38 billion, but more than half of the market consists of tokenized money-market funds, according to RWA.xyz. RockawayX expects the market to reach between $10 trillion and $20 trillion by 2030. That’s an even more ambitious target than Citi analysts’ $5.5 trillion forecast by the end of the decade as the base case.
The next big opportunity is in assets that offer higher returns and behave differently from crypto markets, CEO Viktor Fischer said in an interview with CoinDesk.
“Our thesis going forward that after trading, yield will be the largest use case onchain” Fischer said. For that, “we need new sources of yield, 12% plus, uncorrelated to crypto,” he added.
Catapult will focus on areas including trade and supply-chain finance, specialty asset-backed securities, CLOs and real-estate-related credit.
Fischer said the appeal of putting less-liquid assets onchain is that market makers can create an exit even when the underlying investment has lengthy redemption periods.
RockawayX is looking for traditional finance professionals who know how to originate and underwrite those assets, then pair them with crypto-native operators who can help structure and distribute them onchain.
“The hard part of RWAs was never tokenization. It's everything after: who buys the asset, where it trades and what happens when someone needs to get out,” Fischer said.
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Asanat Analysis — Why it matters
RockawayX's $150M allocation signals institutional conviction that tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) generating native yields represent a maturing DeFi primitive rather than speculative narrative. The firm's three-part commitment—backing projects, building infrastructure, and providing liquidity—mirrors how VCs scaled DeFi's earlier waves (DEXs, lending protocols). This matters because yield generation, not price appreciation alone, addresses the core critique that crypto lacks fundamental cash flows. The move echoes similar recent capital deployments from established players like Blackstone and Coinbase into RWA infrastructure.
The timing reflects sector maturation: regulatory clarity around tokenized securities (US, EU frameworks crystallizing), institutional custody solutions standardizing, and on-chain settlement infrastructure improving. However, success depends on whether yields remain materially differentiated versus traditional fixed income—regulatory arbitrage fades quickly. RockawayX's liquidity provision specifically targets a known bottleneck: RWA tokens often suffer low trading depth, creating friction for large institutional adoption. Watch whether this capital accelerates clearing of that barrier or simply extends valuations without market structure improvement.