Galaxy Digital’s venture arm is leading a $7 million seed round for Tenbin Labs as the New York startup aims to build a more institutional-grade take on tokenized real-world assets. Tokenization promised faster, cheaper and more accessible markets — but many onchain versions of real-world assets have suffered from thin liquidity, slow settlement and prices that drift from spot markets. Tenbin’s co-founder and CEO Yuki Yuminaga says the company wants to fix that by designing tokenized assets that track real-world prices closely, settle quickly, and generate yield for holders. The $7 million round was led by Galaxy Ventures (the VC arm of Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital), with participation from Wintermute Ventures, GSR, Variant, Archetype, FalconX and others. Tenbin plans to launch a tokenized gold product in the coming months backed by prime brokers including Hidden Road and StoneX, with FX-denominated tokens (starting with the Brazilian real and Mexican peso) to follow. Instead of using custody-wrapped assets, Tenbin anchors pricing and hedging to CME futures contracts. That approach is intended to keep token prices aligned with real-world markets and to capture yield from futures basis — the spread between futures and spot — which Tenbin passes through to users. Yuminaga emphasizes the model doesn’t require local banking relationships: “We can capture all those yields and offer [them] to users without even touching the Brazilian bank,” he said, citing Tenbin’s proprietary CME hedging system. Architecturally, Tenbin is built for fast minting and redemptions, low-fee usage in most cases, and seamless movement across DeFi protocols. The FX tokens are pitched as particularly attractive for onchain carry-trade strategies, offering higher-yield alternatives to dollar-denominated stablecoins at a time when many DeFi users are searching for more profitable exposure than simply holding USD. Tenbin is betting that better liquidity, true-to-market pricing and embedded yield will make tokenized real-world assets genuinely useful to institutional and retail DeFi users alike. “If we can offer real pricing, instant liquidity and yield in one token,” Yuminaga said, “that’s where tokenization actually delivers.” Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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