Ethena, Securitize Target Q2 Mainnet Launch for RWA-Focused Blockchain, Tap Arbitrum, Celestia

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Ethena and tokenization agency Securitize mentioned they are going to use a part of Arbitrum’s tech and knowledge availability community Celestia for his or her real-world asset centered, Ethereum-compatible blockchain, aiming to launch mainnet within the second quarter of this yr.
The Converge chain is getting down to have quick blocktimes, permitting customers to pay fuel charges by way of Ethena’s USDe and USDtb, whereas creating safety and guardrails through its Converge Validator Community, the 2 protocols behind the challenge defined in a tech replace shared with CoinDesk.
“The concept is that we go on a testnet very quickly, within the subsequent few weeks, as a result of we have already been engaged on this for some time,” Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, mentioned in an unique interview with CoinDesk. “Then, the mainnet: the objective is to do it earlier than the tip of Q2.”
The precise timing of the general public rollout additionally relies on third-party integrations corresponding to Anchorage for custody assist, Fireblocks for key administration and different DeFi apps the challenge partnered with, Domingo added.
Connecting RWA and DeFi
Converge, unveiled final month, goals to attach the quickly rising tokenized real-world belongings (RWA) sector with the DeFi house, constructing on current ecosystems round Ethena and Securitize and their multi billion greenback price of belongings.
Ethena has shortly develop into a DeFi powerhouse, spearheading the yield-bearing stablecoin pattern with its $5 billion “artificial greenback” token USDe. In the meantime, Securitize points almost $4 billion in tokenized belongings by conventional finance giants like Apollo and Hamilton Lane and BlackRock’s blockchain-based cash market fund token BUIDL. The latter can also be the important thing backing asset of Ethena’s $1.4 billion USDtb stablecoin.
“Converge’s formidable imaginative and prescient of onboarding tens of billions of institutional capital on-chain requires offering customers with excessive efficiency and elevated safety ensures,” Man Younger, founding father of improvement agency Ethena Labs, mentioned in a press release.
To realize that lofty objective, the Converge chain’s efficiency depends on a customized sequencer for an Arbitrum-powered blockchain, whereas utilizing Celestia as the information availability layer beneath it, based on the tech replace shared with CoinDesk. A sequencer is a key piece of blockchain infrastructure that compiles transactions from layer-2 networks and posts them again to the layer-1 community.
Information availability layers, like Celestia, goal to carry down the downloading and storage prices for href=”https://www.conduit.xyz/weblog/introducing-conduit-g2-sequencer/”>G2 sequencer, in addition to the usage of Arbitrum and Celestia’s tech is meant “to push the boundaries of what degree of throughput is feasible on EVM-based networks,” the group wrote.
The community will use Ethena’s USDe and USDtb as fuel tokens to pay for transaction prices throughout the community. Each tokens are designed with a value anchored to $1, permitting simpler accounting for transaction prices, the group wrote.
Converge will even assist each permissionless and permissioned purposes working aspect by aspect. Builders can deploy permissionless DeFi apps freely, whereas institutional issuers corresponding to Securitize can create permissioned environments for compliant real-world asset merchandise.
As well as, the Converge Validator Community (CVN) is meant to offer the foundations of the community’s safety, by primarily performing because the chain’s safety council. The CVN can have the power to intrude throughout emergencies like when funds are in danger, carry out circuit breakers to pause user-activity if there are critical bugs, in addition to evaluate essential governance proposals.
With the intention to take part within the CVN, validators should stake ENA, Ethena’s governance token. In response to the group, the CVN will go reside shortly after mainnet launches.
“Technical breakthroughs on this initiative will drive uneven product outcomes for Converge, and thus progress in USDe, USDtb and different Ethena and Securitize merchandise,” Younger mentioned.