Introduction

Plume is a fully integrated modular Layer 2 focusing on RWAfi. They have built the first modular, composable, RWA-centric EVM-compatible chain to simplify the tokenization of all types of assets through native infrastructure and chain-wide unified RWAfi-specific functionalities. Plume is developing a composable DeFi ecosystem around RWAfi, featuring an integrated end-to-end tokenization engine and a network of financial infrastructure partners for builders to plug and play.

The Plume Network ecosystem has attracted over 180 projects, covering various categories such as collectibles, synthetic assets, luxury goods, real estate, lending protocols, and perpetual DEXs. This diversified ecosystem further demonstrates the broad application potential of Plume Network and the RWA sector.

Funding Background

Funding Background (Source: https://www.rootdata.com/Projects/detail/Plume%20Network?k=MTA0ODA%3D)

Plume Network has completed two rounds of financing. The seed round took place on May 23, 2024, raising $10 million, led by Haun Ventures with participation from Superscrypt, Galaxy Digital, SV Angel, A.Capital, Reciprocal Ventures, Portal Ventures, and Eric Chen. The Series A round was completed on December 18, 2024, securing $20 million from Haun Ventures, Superscrypt, Galaxy Digital, Faction, and HashKey Capital. [1]

Team Members

Team Members (Source: https://www.rootdata.com/Projects/detail/Plume%20Network?k=MTA0ODA%3D)

The core team of Plume Network includes: Co-founder and CEO Chris Yin, Co-founder and CTO Eugene Y.Q. Shen, Co-founder and CBO Teddy Pornprinya, CSO Shukyee Ma, Head of Growth Johanna Tseng, Head of Business Development Jason Meng, and Head of Product Alex Palmer. The team primarily consists of professionals from the Asia-Pacific region, with a strong focus on Web3 expertise. Teddy and Johanna have prior experience working at major centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Binance, while Eugene and Shukyee bring experience from blockchain projects dYdX and PolyHedra, respectively. The core team members possess highly competitive work experience and resources. [2]

Core Features and Functions

Built on Arbitrum Nitro and utilizing Celestia as the Data Availability (DA) layer

Plume Network is built on Arbitrum Nitro, the same stack that powers Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova. This ensures high compatibility and consistency with Ethereum, enabling most smart contracts from Ethereum and other EVM-compatible chains to migrate seamlessly to Plume Network, significantly reducing developers’ migration costs and time.

Additionally, Plume Network uses Celestia as its data availability layer, which reduces gas costs by 99.9%, providing a more cost-efficient transaction environment and further lowering gas expenses. As the foundational infrastructure for RWA, the operational costs of Plume Network are already exceptionally low.

Rich Token Standards

For RWA assets, beyond compliance, the greatest challenge lies in asset diversity. U.S. Treasury bonds, real estate, artwork, jewelry, fine wine, and even sneakers and jerseys can all qualify as RWA assets. To meet the diverse demands of various real-world assets, Plume Network fully supports multiple token standards, including ERC-20, ERC-721, ERC-1155, and ERC-3643. This extensive support allows a wide range of assets to be tokenized and traded on Plume Network, significantly enhancing the platform’s applicability and flexibility.

Among these diverse token standards, ERC-3643 is particularly suited for regulatory needs. It features an integrated decentralized identity system called ONCHAINID, ensuring that only users meeting specific criteria can hold tokens. Asset issuers using ERC-3643 for tokenization can access interfaces to set transfer restrictions, freeze tokens, burn tokens, and enforce token transfers — critical operations for regulated tokenized RWA securities. Additionally, KYC processes for different individuals and institutions further enhance Plume Network’s compliance capabilities.

Tokenization Engine – Arc

Arc, currently under development, is a standalone, comprehensive, full-stack tokenization engine that is fully open-source, licensed under MIT, and free to use. Arc will be launched by Plume in the first quarter of 2025, allowing developers to run their own self-hosted versions. It is actively being developed.

ARC Types (Source: plumenetwork.xyz)

Arc serves as Plume’s efficient asset tokenization engine, designed to simplify tokenized RWA registration, creation, and management. It supports the tokenization of both physical and digital assets. It integrates with compliance and data systems to ensure the accuracy, security, and regulatory alignment of each asset on the network. The key advantage of Arc lies in its structure, enabling issuers to tokenize assets quickly and cost-effectively while benefiting from automated compliance checks.

Plume Arc adopts an app store model to address the diversity of tokenized assets, allowing issuers to install modular applications tailored to their specific tokenization needs.

• Asset Tokenization: Ensuring compliance with U.S. securities laws.
• On-Ramps and Off-Ramps: Facilitating the transfer of USD proceeds on-chain for tokenholder distribution and off-chain redemption of sale proceeds.
• Identity Verification: Ensuring adherence to Know Your Counterparty (KYC) standards.
• Monitoring and Sanctions: Ensuring compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations.
• Primary Issuance and Secondary Trading: Enabling asset purchasers to trade their assets on the secondary market.
• ATS (Alternative Trading System) Integration: Allowing asset purchasers to trade their assets on an ATS, a subset of the secondary market.

Plume Smart Wallet

RWA assets are fundamentally different from traditional crypto assets. They generate exogenous returns—income from outside the blockchain ecosystem, such as interest from real estate or solar assets—and require entirely different infrastructure to host, distribute earnings, and ensure compliance.

Plume Smart Wallet (Source: plumenetwork.xyz)

Currently, most RWA holdings are stagnant; many RWA assets cannot be staked, collateralized, or integrated into DeFi, making true composability a challenge. Plume’s smart wallet changes this by embedding custodial and compliance features directly into the wallet, abstracting these functions to simplify the user experience. These wallets offer customizable controls for managing digital assets, yield tools, and contract-based interactions, all within a secure, user-friendly wallet environment. The advantage of the Plume smart wallet is that it allows users to access advanced DeFi functionalities, such as yield generation and liquidity management while maintaining control and security over their assets.

Data Highway – Nexus

Plume Nexus, launched in collaboration with leading oracle partners Seda, Stork, OpenLayer, and Supra, is the cornerstone of Plume’s vision, aiming to bridge the gap between real-world data and decentralized ecosystems. Unlike traditional RWA projects that focus solely on asset tokenization, Plume’s data highway, Nexus, enables seamless integration of various types of data—ranging from weather patterns to economic indicators and social trends—directly onto the blockchain.

(Source: plumenetwork)

Nexus is a foundational component that brings real-world data on-chain, offering new use cases for prediction markets, DeFi applications, and speculative indices. This data pipeline integrates reliable off-chain data, connecting to external sources, and delivers real-time, actionable insights directly to the blockchain. By leveraging Nexus, users can access accurate, up-to-date information for prediction markets, lending protocols, and other DeFi applications related to RWA, thereby enhancing the value and functionality of tokenized assets.

Stablecoin Plume USD (pUSD)

Plume USD (pUSD) is the stablecoin within the Plume ecosystem, designed to support seamless financial operations in Real-World Asset Financing (RWAfi). Plume USD is fully backed and highly liquid, which is critical in ensuring secure payments, efficient transactions, and robust collateralization for on-chain applications on Plume.

Plume USD is pegged 1:1 with the U.S. Dollar, ensuring deep liquidity, strong price stability, and unparalleled user confidence.

RWAfi Use Cases

Plume USD (pUSD) is supported by ecosystem dApps, enabling a variety of use cases across multiple categories, including:

• Nest: Earning yields from real-world assets (e.g., loans, invoices).
• Culture: Betting on markets like crypto and sports.
• Solera: Lending with RWA as collateral.
• Osprey: Secure lending and yield generation.
• MetaStreet: Complex lending solutions.
• Mystic Finance: Providing RWA-backed lending and access to lending strategies.

Minting Plume USD (pUSD)

• Bridges and Minting: Transfer assets from Ethereum or other networks and mint Plume USD (pUSD) on Plume.
• Support for USDC and USDT: Deposit popular stablecoins to mint Plume USD.
• Redemption: Redeem Plume USD (pUSD) back into the stablecoins you deposited at any time.

Once Plume is live, you can begin minting Plume USD (pUSD).

Roadmap

According to Plume Network’s official documentation, its mission is to redefine Real-World Asset Financing (RWAfi) by creating a powerful crypto-native ecosystem. The phased growth strategy and roadmap reflect the commitment to building a decentralized, compliant, and user-centered platform to support the evolving needs of both crypto-native and traditional financial participants. The roadmap outlines plans to expand the Plume Network ecosystem from initial crypto-native involvement to potential future integration with institutional finance.

Phased Growth Strategy

• Crypto-Native Foundation (2024-2025): Development of foundational tools, smart contract infrastructure, and integration for RWA tokenization aimed at crypto-native users.
• RWA Market Expansion (2025-2026): Expanding Plume’s ecosystem to cover a broader range of real-world asset classes and yield-generating use cases.
• Traditional Finance Integration (2026 and beyond): Establishing partnerships with traditional financial institutions and custodians to bridge decentralized finance with traditional finance.

Future Development and Long-Term Vision

Plume’s development will continue to focus on user-centered innovation, regulatory coordination, and enhanced asset functionality. Upcoming features include enhanced smart wallet controls, data-rich DeFi applications, and cross-chain interoperability designed to support crypto-native users and institutional partners.

Plume’s long-term vision is to create a sustainable, transparent, and interoperable ecosystem that connects traditional finance with blockchain technology. Plume aims to transform the financial industry and establish decentralized RWA participation as a global standard by expanding access to real-world assets and unlocking new financial possibilities.

Recent Activities

Mileage Points for Voyage

Plume Testnet (Source: https://miles.plumenetwork.xyz/)

In Q3 2024, Plume Network launched the “Boarding” event, where users could earn mileage points by interacting with the testnet or purchasing the Plume Goon NFT to double their mileage points.

Currently, the testnet hosts the “Voyage” activity, where users can earn additional mileage points by completing simple social tasks. [3]

Nest Treasury

Nest Latest Activity (Source: x )

Recently, the RWA yield-generating project Nest announced the launch of the RWA staking vault on Plume Network, with a funding cap of $10 million. The Pre-Deposit Vault has completed its deposit phase, and users who deposit funds can earn points before the mainnet goes live, which will later be converted into Plume rewards. It is noted that after Nest’s mainnet launch, the deposited funds will earn real yields in the Nest staking vault. The pre-staking activity ran from December 19 to December 23. [4]

Conclusion

As the BTC spot ETF approaches its one-year milestone, I’ve noticed an increasing number of traditional financial institutions entering the cryptocurrency market. A year ago, did you expect BTC to rise to $100K?

Today, RWA is becoming a key bridge between traditional finance and cryptocurrency, and it will continue to gain favor from traditional financial institutions. Traditional assets can be tokenized and brought on-chain through RWA, providing higher efficiency and transparency. The RWA sector will visibly emerge as a dominant track in the future.

Plume, as the first modular EVM Layer2 network created for the RWA sector, is working to lay a competitive foundation for the RWA sector by lowering barriers, reducing on-chain gas fees, and enhancing liquidity.