Tokenized real-world assets across chains with Kaio

Transcript

You're going to have a lot of fiat that is going to come on chain. Once dollar are on chain, what are you going to do? You're not going to go back and invest in analog product. But again, a lot of those investors are unlikely to go and get comfortable investing in a pure crypto asset. They may want to look at digital product from names that they recognize. What's up everybody? body. It's LG Ducet here and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show that may have spoken too soon yesterday when we said we were all excited about the move to 80K. Today is April 28th, 2026. We're not going to talk about prices today. We have stuff that's a little bit more interesting and a little bit more long-term to discuss. We know that someday soon everything is going to be on chain. After all, the total

adjustable market for global assets is like 600 trillion or something like that and only 30 billion of those assets are onchain today. But the big question is where does the value actually get captured? Our guest today is running a protocol that's bringing traditional funds onchain and actually landing them on L1s you wouldn't typically suspect being part of the action like Sooie SAI apttos near all of those. Olivier Dung co-founder of Kaio is on the show today. Today's episode is brought to you by Cape the privacy first mobile carrier Feros the layer 1 built for reali and consensus Miami where the next cycle starts. Olivier what's up man? Hey. Hey.

How are you? >> Uh I'm good man. Uh great to have you on. Um I want to understand really quickly um before we kind of get into it because RWA is again something that we try and we try and get really break down. Um but I want to understand what does Kyio do exactly as like an RWA protocol if you even call it that. Yeah, we are a protocol and our specialization, our focus has always been on alternative funds and it's uh started from a very simple thesis which is uh those funds like a hedge fund, private equity fund and so on are pretty hard to access unless you have uh you know a bank account at a private bank and a few millions in in your in your account. And we wanted to make those a bit more accessible to um you know

institutional uh and professional investors and at some point all the way down to to retail with tickets as low as $100 to invest in tokenization solve for this extremely well. You know you are making the world process which is very paperbased a lot more simple uh and more streamlined and then you enable distribution through uh different channel that are typically not the ones where those alternative funds are typically looking to race from. So that has been our thesis from day one and we've been uh busy cooking and building over the last two years and we've been live for a couple of months now with almost 100 million of aum or TVL on on the platform.

>> That's amazing. So what so okay this is this is a lot of good information that I I want to understand what you have almost $100 million TVL on the platform. What are those? Like I think that this is what we're trying to understand with RWA. We've had different people come on and explain like what these funds are that are coming on chain and we've talked about like housing and all this other stuff that's coming on but you guys what you guys have seems very institutional and I just want to understand what those are so we can understand like what what has already started to move on chain. >> Yeah. Um, look, I I mean, I've been in crypto a long time and when I saw a few years ago things like real estate or art or whiskey or wine or you name it going

on chain, I felt that was, you know, an interesting uh idea but probably unlikely to to scale. And that's why we thought let's take something that is already big in terms of an asset class uh but that has a lot of um kind of issues to to to scale in terms of retail access. So we take those very institutional grade fund. Uh the ones we have tokenized to tokenized to date are a black rockck money market fund hedge fund run by one of the largest hedge fun in the world called Breven World and then a private credit fund which is managed by um Hamilton Lane a very uh a very large alternative asset manager and then a few others such as laser digital which is one of our main holder who has

built more like a crypto yield fund. We just announced recently as well we're launching a fund managed by Mubadala, one of the largest sovereign wealth fund in the Middle East. So yeah, you you're 100% right. Those are very institutional uh funds and the people who are currently investing in those tend to be a bit more so on the institutional side. I would say crypto institutional so large foundations uh crypto whales and our goal is to um start to broaden the footprint so that we have a bit more people that are you know in in the retail space starting to enter into those but the funds are typically uh funds that you could buy on a you know a typical kind of a web two structure but like I say to get access to those you either need a bank account

at you know Morgan Stand Private Bank or you know you name it and uh it's not necessarily for for for you and me to get access to those. So what we wanted to do is make those a bit more accessible. And why? Because I think they offer very attractive uh risk return profiles. Hedge fun that is uh you know very alpha uh and absolute driven uh offers returns across market cycle. A money market fund that is you know indexed to US treasury offers you a good way to to generate yield on a daily basis. So those are products that are necess in retail with your with your typical um kind of products there.

>> If you're not seeing this, you're trading blind right now. There are real moves happening behind the scenes that most people don't see until it's way too late. Inside Milkro Pro, you can track exactly what our analysts are buying, selling, and what's on their watch lists before it moves. You can try it out for just a dollar for 7 days. The link is in the description. I just want to understand what the what these are exactly. So this this first one this Black Rockck ICS US dollar liquidity fund what exact what exactly is that? >> That's one of the largest fund in the world that invests very simply in US treasuries and they have you know very sophisticated strategies where there's a bit more duration and a bit more strategies that are managed by Black

Rockck and generates around you know three and a half 4% yield. What we are doing is working with a distributor and tokenizing that fund. And we make this accessible for as low as in this case $1,000. You could go and invest and you get a token that represents uh a fund unit basically. Um you have to do it through Kio today. So you have to be KYC, you have to be on boarded because you know the full distribution to retail is not yet something we support although we have plans for that. But literally then the token uh the Kio token that represent these funds mimics exactly the returns associated to that fund.

>> Got it. Okay. Okay. And how does this work? Cuz I'm just looking at the the how. So there's so this fund specifically which I think is your biggest one, right? This one has a yeah like 35 to 40. Yeah. >> And on and on here on um we kind of see the distribution. I should also use the Kyio website. So you see that the supply that's on each chain is split across near and sooie and immutable and ethereum. What I guess like is that I guess I'm just trying to understand like which part is on chain and why is it split across so many different L1s like I just trying to understand how that works.

>> Yeah, maybe we we need to start a bit from our vision. Initially we were always chain agnostic. Um, I'm I'm a Trafy guy. You know, I've been in crypto long guy, but at heart I'm I'm a Trafy guy and uh I don't really know which layer one, which layer two is going to win the battle or even if one is going to win or if it's going to be spread out across uh multiple chains. They each have their pros and cons. And what we decided to do from the get-go is like let's not select one uh ecosystem. Let's build something that through the technology of Caillio and you know in simple terms it's it's a bridge literally but you know we have built those Kaio gateways that enable us to bridge into you know any almost any any chain it takes us like a couple of weeks

to build those gateways and you can start and add new chain if we work with the foundation of that layer one in in a couple of weeks add add a new chain there. So what's the point you say you ask to to add a new chain for different reasons you know there are certain ecosystem where the capital is in that ecosystem and it doesn't want to go out and bridge into another one but still want access to the products that we have so we have built I think close to 12 uh gateways 11 12 gateways you have them listed there so from near mutable appto obviously eer and all of those are live it's on chain those products are on chain um and um if you sit in Hedara and you have your uh ecosystem there and you

want access to the Black Rockck IC fund don't want to go out into Ethereum or another chain you can you can do that directly >> okay so this so the so the chain choices are being driven by the people that are buying part of this fund through Kyio so it's demandd driven okay that's what I wanted to understand so it's not you guys you guys are just creating kind of like a multi-chain gateway where people can from any chain come and invest here or or come and uh I don't even call it invest but just like buy the shares I guess or yeah invest I guess. Um but and then and then that's what you're seeing demand. So that's interesting. So this is something I feel like an angle we haven't seen because I think a lot of people are really wondering you know especially you zoom out into the we talk

a lot about cycle and price action all that kind of stuff and people really wonder like what is the role of L1's? We've seen that as such a huge debate in the last six 6 12 months in the space. Um you know what is the value of these L1s? people post funny screenshots of L1's that make zero money that and none of them that are here are these these are all really good ones but I'm just saying is that we I haven't seen anything for that kind of shows us that direct demand through those L1s into funds that are coming directly basically from Wall Street. So, I think that that's that's really interesting, man. Are you were you guys surprised at all by which chains are seeing the most volume here? Because we're seeing at the top of the charts for these different funds. You've got uh Hideera, Near,

Immutable, we see a lot. Aptos is at the at the top of your Brevin Howard one like that that again that's what stood out to me. >> Yeah, surprise to a certain extent. I think we we've been initially working closely with those foundation and they help us assess what they saw as you know the the appetite from their ecosystem into those type of products. So I'm not entirely surprised but uh you know what I don't know is uh let's have this this call this podcast in a year and I have no idea what the distribution will be you know across those chains and you know it will depend a lot on their own interesting success that are based on very different variables that I don't control but if one ecosystem jumps and then they have a bit more I don't know

institution coming there and those institution are looking for more wall street type product as opposed to I don't know me coins and and and whatever then you may see at least for us a bit more traction in that specific L1 for a specific product. So yeah, it'd be interesting to see and you know here here I won't be able to make any any prediction. I have no clue. >> Got it. Got it. What actually speaking of meme coins I one thing that stood out to me and again you guys seem to be very early in what you're doing despite having 100 million already. It seems like you know you guys are positioning for for the long term here and like you said in a year you don't know what it's going to look like. Salana only appears once in this list with less than a

million TVL which is surprising to me given that Salana to me really positions itself as a place for digital assets. Um is that is that I don't know if you're you're able to comment on specific chains. >> Not really but I think Solana are very close partners of us. They were at some point higher and I think it moves a lot based on you know the the market evolution. So I wouldn't read too much into this. Not not at all. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. What is what's the vision then for Kyo because you guys are 100 million TVL you've got these four very institutional funds so far is that is that the roadmap to continue to add these are you looking at you mentioned art and all that kind of stuff before uh but clearly this was the starting place what is what are the next couple years

look like for for platform like yours >> I think because we have very um institutional shareholders and very crowdfi uh uh DNA we will be the best I think at convincing any asset manager on the planet that they should work with us. Uh but I'm not going to go and call every single asset manager in the world and say why don't you tokenize with us. It's going to be again based on demand. So we're going to build both in parallel the access to the best managers out there and then our distribution channel. And I think you know distribution we have all of us as a as an industry try to broaden into into web two. Um so I'm thinking you know B2B B2C with mobile operator with you know platform who have

uh thousands hundreds of thousands of of clients that don't have access to those product and try to understand what they're looking for. It could be and I'm making this up but a a Middle East platform that needs a Sharia compliant product you know then I can find an asset manager uh that has this product and work with them to tokenize that and offer their um their phones in a tokenized format on any layer one uh you know to to to this uh to this distributor. So that is the vision. I want to bring the best phone out there um and match them with a distribution network that uh uh today is not uh is not available um to to those phones and for those end users products that they will never think they could have access to because today and that's where I I still sometimes struggle with the

tokenization of equities you know anybody with an interactive broker account or revolute account has access to um equities yes not 24/7 but frankly I'm not sure I want to trade on a Sunday night you know but you Some people may want to do that. But you know, I think really the value of tokenization is bringing hard to access product to a category of people who didn't have access to that product and and so that's the whole vision that we had from the get- go and uh that's what we want to deliver on. So take you know the next uh venture capital fund, the next private equity fund, the next hedge fund uh that is having a significant traction and uh interest and then we are going to go and speak to them. We have access to those

guys based on you know the network that we have and we'll work with them to see if they have any appetite to tokenize uh their product and we'll try to convince them or explain to them the distribution network that they can tap into with this uh and that's I think where the magic happens you know and that's where we're going to grow our TVL uh with our partners the different layer ones and our shareholders obviously and try to uh to to make this a success and I think there's a lot of tailwind for that because if you take a a look at what's happening especially in driven in the US by by the the regulation genus clarity act stable contract and so you're going to have a lot of um fiat that is going to come on chain um once dollar are on

chain what are you going to do you're not going to go back and invest in analog product but again a lot of those investors are unlikely to go and get comfortable investing in pure crypto assets they may want to look at digital product from names that they recognize. You know, Black Rockck, Hington Lane, all of those guys. They would recognize those name and hopefully look to to invest in those via via us. Yeah. >> Your phone carrier knows more about you than your best friend does. Where you go, who you call, when you sleep, and they're selling all of it. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, they've all been caught leaking data or cashing in on it.

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What is what? That's that's a really good point. What what is the process then for getting these types of assets on chain like is this the black rockck one like obviously black rockck is involved >> right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So some are involved, some are are not involved. They obviously fully aware. In that specific case, we work with one of their distributors because working directly with Black Rockck is not bus, but they are fully aware of that. But over all of the other phones that we have tokenized, we've worked directly with the asset manager. So with Hington Lane, with Mubala, with Breven, and we have two ways to do that. We either set up what's called a feeder fund, think of it as you know SPV in a way or we directly tokenize the master fund and there are

pros and cons in both in terms of time to market and uh benefit. So we've done both and certain manager prefer the tokenization of a feeder fund others prefer the the master fund directly. So the process is simple. Um let's say in in the case of um an asset manager that we're working directly with, we sit down with their compliance guys, we sit down with their product guys. uh we understand what fund they would like to tokenize and then it's a process that we have streamlined uh all the way to what four or five weeks to bring a phone on chain typically those managers have no specific view around which layer one so we work with them and you know most of them they tend to select the the ones that they know the most or Ethereum but we explain to them that in certain case

there may be demand in a in another ecosystem and then typically they want to assess that they may want to speak directly to that foundation and we facilitate that process and then once we done the you know mostly compliance work and you know legal work that we have to do as opposed to technical integration or that the foundation are in place and then that phone can be added to our platform and like I said right now you have then to go and KYC and on board with us in order to access those phones but in the background we've been working for a couple of months now to have um a retail wrapping offering for some of those phones not all of them So what it means is then you and me with as low as a $100 you may be able to uh uh access

those products on a nonkyc basis. There are distributors here distributors could be crypto exchange could be retail apps could be other intermediaries. Um so always you will have to be KYC at some point by somebody but the goal is to work with people who already have KYC clients and then distribute through them. Yeah. >> Would do you ever do you see a world where people don't have to KYC to buy the stuff? >> Uh not with the products that we have. Yeah, you know that that's for sure and and and I don't want this, you know, I want to know at some point somebody should have a record of on what Yeah, that that is but you know again I love crypto for different reasons and certain products don't have to be KYC and that's okay but not what we're building.

>> What do you think what do you think is the what do you think will be the largest over time and deterrent for Wall Street kind of moving this way? Because we cover this a lot on the show. We we we have a lot of bitwise and everybody you know comes and tells us about the conversations they're having similar conversations that you're having and it's clear there's a lot of appetite you know Fidelity is hiring an entire digital asset uh uh uh department and u you're seeing all this adoption but what outside of outside of things like clarity and and actual policy >> is the fra like what is the holdup what what would be the largest kind of um reason that you would hold back a lot assets assets from coming on chain.

Yeah, it's a great question and I mean we've all been sitting here in crypto for the last five years thinking the tipping point is that here, the tic point is that here it's yet to happen to a certain extent. So I don't have the exact answer to that. I think a lot of it has been solved uh at least from a regulatory standpoint and that's a massive hurdle that has been lifted. No, it's more the nuts and bolts of building the technology and you know upgrading the system within those traditional institutions and with tech people who are working for you know uh 90% of their time on running the bank and they have no clue how to transform their infrastructure to start to go uh on chain. So I I think what we're going to

see is um you know some of the very large bank will have their in-house team. you've mentioned fidelity and you know they have hundreds of millions of dollar to allocate to that and they will build their own infrastructure and run that but for a lot of smaller banks smaller asset managers um they won't have the capacity to do that and I don't think they'll necessarily want to work with a competitor's platform you know because of you know transparency and different reasons so they'll go go and you know ping us or we'll ping them and work with a more independent partner that supports their ability to go on chain but I still think one of the biggest biggest hurdle will be a cultural issue. Now if you are a sales guy in a bank uh you've been selling your traditional product get your

commission and whatever ways those people get incentivized and suddenly you have a platform that are coming through that are ripping this off making you know the uh fees much lower the transparency uh visible to almost anybody like you know what you were showing on our website. good luck trying to see that level of granularity in in Clati in web two. So I think a lot of the cultural switch uh will take a very long time and I'm hoping you know as new generation of investors who have been more involved in crypto from the very beginning are looking for diversification they will ask for this level of transparency they will ask for onchain type of product and then those

traditional financial institution will have no choice but unfortunately I think it's not going to move in at the pace that we were hoping I think it still is a long journey and That's why for Caillo we there for the long run you know the investors that we have are extremely committed to this it's laser digital which is Nura one of the largest Japanese bank in you know we have te we have consensus we have bre award we have f venture those guys are not looking to make a quick bug they know this is a long journey and uh you know that's I think is the right way to think about tokenization >> in what okay so in what scenario do you see like a a normal consumer, let's say somebody who is just looking to add to

their 401k or whatever whatever your investment vehicle is in in your country, um your long-term retirement vehicle, and they're like, "Listen, investment advisor, I want you to take my half million dollars that I have for retirement, and I want you to to put it into I only want onchain funds." You know what I Like in what does that is that how you see it happening or is it just that these funds they will just be onchain with much better fees and or or even the investment advisor doesn't exist. It's just people just learn how to use these types of platforms or or some other kind of you know aggregate for them.

>> Oh man that's an excellent question. I I I don't know. I think it's such a hard one. I think what we'll see is um the the current uh the current people who are about to retire will never ask that question from their investment ad. No, not not a chance in a million years. you know their kids may you know their kids may say well hold on how come you are paying you know whatever 2% and still have no clue what you invested in you know look this is on my mobile phone I can see you know the transparency on the products I'm investing in and so on and maybe that journey will will take a lot of time you know but you'll start to see maybe um some of the boomers have they retire and look and get pressure from you know their kids who are saying well

you know why are you paying so much into an advisor where you can get all of that um at a much cheaper price point on on chain. Um but I don't know I'm more speculating here. Maybe that doesn't happen at all and you know the journey will be different. So uh but it's an excellent question. Um I think it will take time. That's for sure. >> It will take a long time. >> Yeah, it will take a long time. Yeah. >> Let's u I want to talk about Kaio. We still have time. You guys uh just announced a fund raise, correct? I guess to kind of develop this this vision. Tell me about that. Yeah, we um so we've uh started about three years ago and to date we've raised close to almost $20 million 19 uh through two two rounds. The more recent strategic round uh we brought in and

very thankful for that teor uh who is backing our vision of um you know more fiat on chain means we need more high quality uh digital product to invest in and and they fully understand what we're building. So they're backing us and then um systemic venture which is part of consensus is also backing us. They are a very much big believer in in tokenization and then some of our most of our historical shareholder have also invested. So further venture is a one of the largest VC in the Middle East backed by a sovereign wealth fund. We have laser digital which is nom. We have bre so we're very fortunate like I said to have long-term investors uh on our cap table. We understand the challenge of we understand that technology is relatively

uh solved. It's almost solved right now. It's like there's no edge in building a new gateway in a new chain unless there is significant demand. There's no edge in building a more sophisticated kind of a platform to tokenize. But what they understand is that distribution is key and credibility is key. you want to go and speak to uh uh you know the Fidelities overall, the Black Rockck overall uh and not coming with you know a very product heavy lens. So if you are two crypto guys in a garage and a Panama Foundation, I don't think you'll be able to convince one of those large asset manager to work with you. We can you know we you know I've been 20 years in finance and uh my co-founder as well. So we understand that space and u and and that's the journey we on.

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Got it. I mean, hey, listen, man. I feel like a lot of crypto chains that are big today probably started as two guys in a garage. So, Yeah, but if now if somebody if there's two guys in a garage trying to do what you're doing then you have more credibility. Totally. But Apple started Apple started as two guys in a garage or one guy in a garage. So no shout out people still work. I don't know anybody who still works in the garage actually. I feel like that that level of entre that level of entrepreneurship is gone. That's from like our our generation or the generation before us. U very cool man. Is this um I guess I guess you this will is this was this a series A just maybe kind of illuminate how the how the the VC part works for us.

>> Uh yeah, we've done a seed this is more like a pre uh uh pre pret. So our goal is to have at some point a token out there. Uh I won't comment too much on that but there is a you know we are full onchain believer and we believe the governance of a digital asset manager should be on chain. >> Got it. Okay that's great. That's great. Well best of luck to you guys. Um, last question for you, Olivier, is um, what's your view on the market? We always talk about that every day on the on this show. This is we're more of a market show these days and and we love talking to, you know, builders, entrepreneurs like yourself. But, uh, you know, you say you're a crypto guy. It seems like you're a bit of a den because you did say that, you know, part of you wishes

you could build stuff that didn't need KYC. So, tell me, uh, you know, give us your give us your kind of broad broad scope view on the market um, in terms of everything that's going on these days. >> Oh, I crypto crypto specifically. Be crypto specific. We don't >> Yeah. Yeah. So I remain super bullish, you know. I mean I I've been in that space for a very long time. I remain super bullish. Yeah, it goes in cycle. I think what we'll see is once Bitcoin break out of its current range um a lot of the um uh you know at least top five, top 10 uh coins, I won't comment which one. I have not necessarily a specific view will uh will reacelerate. And what we've seen as well with um uh hyper native is the importance of having a business model where you're not just uh

you know maybe from the previous cycle communitydriven and hope that you know price appreciation will come from your community uh pushing that people want to see real uh business model on chain and that's where I think uh the the the project the apps the uh protocol that are building along those line will be more successful. So I'm much more differentiated now when I invest in in projects but I remain super bullish and I think it's driven by what I see from you know um the tailwinds of regulation institutionalization and so on but again doesn't mean that your bag of mecoin will do well that I'm not sure but definitely your high quality you know project should be should be actually

doing okay as uh as the market continues to um you know clean up and improve and obviously we've been all suffering for the last couple of months since 1010, but I think we're getting out of that of that cycle now. >> You're obsessed with meme coins. I can tell I can tell that you you see Yeah, exactly. I tell you spent time in the trenches by how many times you've referred to meme coins and how you shouldn't expect your meme coins to go back up. It's clearly self-referential >> 100% unfortunately. But >> no, but that gives that honestly you're saying that you're saying that 20 years in Tradfi gives you credibility in my eyes that gives you credibility is that that it's that and then also that you've you've come and you've come and tried

the street food of crypto uh and and got and had food poisoning. So that's that's how I see that. Great to have you on, man. Uh thanks for breaking this down for us and and best of luck in the future. >> Thank you. Really appreciate you having me here. Thank you. Want insights on what's moving crypto markets and how we're trading each event? Subscribe to our channel and join the Milk Road daily and pro newsletters and start investing like the top 1%. This show is for educational purposes only. Nothing we say is financial advice. Investing is risky. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.