The concept of 「Internet Capital Markets」 preached by Solana Foundation Chair Lily Liu has become hot on Solana after the explosion of Believe, while another 「ICM」 concept RWA project Collaterize's token COLLAT market cap recently surged past $90 million, now retraced to $54 million. Since its launch in January, it had been consolidating around a $9 million market cap, finally breaking out on May 18. Solana co-founder Toly retweeted Collaterize's App Demo video to pump the token and reignite market interest in these two former Microsoft employees' RWA project.

What is ICM?

A few years ago, Solana proposed the vision of building a 「Nasdaq on-chain」, but as Nasdaq itself explores on-chain, the narrative has gradually shifted towards a more cryptonative 「Internet Capital Markets (ICM)」. As an alternative to Traditional Capital Markets (TCM), ICM allows entrepreneurs to bypass venture capital and IPOs, raising funds directly from the network community through tokenization. Solana projects like Believe App have made it easy to issue and invest in projects on X.

Today, 「ICM」 has replaced 「Nasdaq on-chain」 and become Solana's core narrative. Lily Liu, Chair of the Solana Foundation, has repeatedly emphasized that the goal of ICM is to build a global financial infrastructure that allows 5.5 billion internet users to participate in capital markets seamlessly. The Solana team is also working hard to build it as a key infrastructure for on-chain ICM.

By the end of December 2024, Akshay BD, head of Solana's ecosystem Superteam, mentioned the concepts of 「Internet Capital Markets」 and 「F.A.T. Protocol Engineering」 in the Solana 2025 marketing memo. He believed that by 2024, companies would list directly 「on the internet」 and access over a billion investors holding private keys — they use their funds to vote for the future they want, not limited to stocks but covering all asset classes, cultures, and ideas worth owning.

And the data shows that from less than 8,000 private equity firms needing liquidity from somewhere in 2005, the demand had surged to 30,000 by 2024, making it seem imminent to 「list on the internet」.

Despite ongoing criticisms, such as lack of regulation, low project thresholds, and the ease of launching deceptive tokens, ICM still has strong mass adoption potential, especially in transitioning Web2 users to Web3 through a simple user experience, fiat onramps, and viral narrative promotion. To achieve long-term development, platforms like Believe need to move beyond short-term hype, promote founder accountability mechanisms, optimize the tokenomics, build DAO governance, and achieve real utility, transforming ICM from a Meme trend into a new capital formation paradigm. After experiencing a series of products like Pumpfun, Timefun, and Believe updates, the market now requires a more open, permissionless financing and trading ecosystem, covering various assets from meme coins to NFTs to startups, with Collaterize extending ICM's business to RWA within this concept.

RWA Also Has Its Own Bonding Curve — Collaterize

The founders of Collaterize are two French individuals, Paul Antoine Arrighi and Pierre Hoffman, both of whom previously worked at Microsoft. Paul started his own entrepreneurial project called OneClight in 2015, which was similar to Onkey, allowing passwordless access on web pages. However, a year later, the project did not make much progress, so in 2017, Paul embarked on another 4-year career at Microsoft.

On the other hand, co-founder Pierre also joined Microsoft in the same year, managing Microsoft partners to ensure the accurate deployment of software asset management services in public and private sectors. After only a year at Microsoft, Pierre left and joined the IOTA Foundation to oversee business expansion.

Paul Antoine Arrighi showcasing the Collaterize App at AWS Demo Day

Pierre Hoffman once stated, "RWAs can achieve functionalities that were previously impossible, such as liquidity, programmability, or broader access, making it meaningful. We are starting to see early cases in this direction, especially with RWAs traded publicly like US Treasuries or stocks, but there is a greater opportunity in private assets as these assets currently cannot access more liquid markets."

Development of the RWA Sector in the United States, Hong Kong, and France, where the Collaterize project is based

Hoffman further commented, "If we can bring these assets onto the chain, within the right framework, and maintain transparency, we can let the market decide which assets have enough value to be traded, collateralized, and utilized. It feels premature now, but the fundamentals are gradually emerging," echoing the concept of "On-chain Everything" previously mentioned by White House Crypto Czar David Sacks. The asset types supported in their documentation also to some extent demonstrate Collaterize's ambition.

Collaterize supports the tokenization of any Real World Asset (RWA), from baseball cards to real estate, from company equity to tokens. What sets this protocol apart is its use of a dynamic bond curve. Once the target is reached, assets can be traded on Meteora, which has already audited the bond curve scheme. The Solana-based protocol charges a 1% fee on transactions, which increases to 5% when moved to Meteora. Additionally, 15% of the fee will go into Meteora's liquidity pool.

Of course, the process of creating tokens is not as straightforward as Believe or Pumpfun's Bonding Curve model. When a token goes live, it will undergo Collaterize's relatively strict review. Firstly, applicants need to hold 100,000 $COLLAT tokens and then submit an application. Collaterize will assess whether the company has multi-faceted sustainability, including a clear business model and growth plan, the ability to generate stable revenues, and expand into new markets; possess a strong profit record and predictable cash flow, among other factors. Furthermore, specific high-value collectibles and luxury items may be considered as assets, provided they have authoritative assessments, clear provenance, and secure storage, among other safeguards.

Based on publicly available information, we know that Collaterize's highest-value product at the moment is a forthcoming real estate "Token" in France. This collaboration marks the first product launch after Collaterize's partnership with ARP (Asset Realty Partners). ARP announced its collaboration with Collaterize at the MIPIM International Real Estate Exhibition in March 2025.

This real estate full-service company, founded in 2006, has quite a reputation. Headquartered in Paris, France, it was established by Pascal Roth. After working in a German mortgage bank for nearly 20 years, he founded ARP to provide professional real estate services, and the group currently manages assets worth billions of euros.

And this is not their first attempt at "fractional real estate ownership." In 2020, they entered the real estate crowdfunding market through a subsidiary called Beefordeal. The platform allows investors to participate in real estate projects with a minimum of 1000 euros, offering approximately a 10% potential return. By 2023, the platform had raised over 11 million euros.

However, even with such a luxurious lineup in the real world, Collaterize cannot escape a paradox. At the current stage, Crypto Native users instinctively reject a compliance mechanism that leads them to shun compliant asset protocols, while traditional asset users do not accept the interface and asset form of Crypto, creating this "compliance and user demand misalignment" market paradox.

According to Collaterize's on-chain data, the blockchain's activity remains very low four months after the project was established, with only 70,000 total transactions to date and a total of only 381 addresses. Even compared to this figure, it does not match the number of holders of a meme coin with a market cap in the tens of millions. However, RWA still has a rather long development period ahead, with a market potential of $75 trillion. Still, there is considerable uncertainty regarding regulations, infrastructure, and censorship.

But a new era always requires new explorers. As one of them, Collaterize is also searching for the "possible" treasure in this vast ocean.

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