Crypto Exchange Woo X Claims a First With Tokenized Treasury Bills for Retail Investors

Woo X is claiming bragging rights for being the first cryptocurrency exchange to offer retail customers exposure to tokenized U.S. Treasury bills.

The yield-bearing product, unveiled on Monday, called RWA Earn Vaults (as in real-world assets) has been built in partnership with London-based institutional tokenization platform OpenTrade. The product's arrival was described as a “significant milestone” by Woo X Chief Operating Officer Willy Chuang.

“For the first time, retail users on a centralized exchange can invest in USDC real-world asset vaults, with U.S Treasury Bills as the underlying assets,” Chuang said in an email. “This initiative bridges a crucial gap between traditional financial securities and the dynamic world of cryptocurrency, offering our users an unprecedented opportunity to engage with low-risk, high-quality financial assets in a seamless, secure, and efficient manner.”

Tokenization – especially involving bank-grade assets like U.S. Treasuries – has become popular, partly in response to interest rate increases, and now dovetailing with the current crypto bull run. Last year, crypto investment platform Finblox said it was planning to offer retail users access to tokenized T-Bills.

OpenTrade has links to Center, the now-dissolved collaboration between USDC issuer Circle, and, going further back, the Marco Polo enterprise blockchain project.

Woo X recently introduced index-linked perpetuals covering crypto meme coins and layer-2 tokens, in association with market maker Wintermute.