RAAC, a decentralized real-world asset (RWA) lending and borrowing ecosystem, is partnering with I-ON Digital Corp. to make $200 million of tokenized gold available for innovative, on-chain investment opportunities.
The deal positions RAAC, a nascent project, among the top 15 RWA protocols in decentralized finance (DeFi) by total value locked (TVL), alongside BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Tether, and Paxos (as of Oct. 2).
I-ON Digital, a provider of compliant gold digitization, will deploy its gold-backed digital asset ION.au into RAAC’s ecosystem, beginning with an initial tranche of $200 million. Subsequently, RAAC will launch pmUSD: a stablecoin partially collateralized by ION.au that will be available for decentralized investment strategies.
These will include structured yield opportunities across tokenized assets, including gold and other precious metals, alongside real estate, through mechanisms such as auto-compounding DeFi vaults, gold-backed lending markets, and participation in ZENO Bonds and iRAAC index pools*.
RAAC is a Chainlink Build Project, a member of The Circle Alliance, and counts Curve founder Michael Egorov among its chief advisors. Like I-ON, RAAC is also backed by Chainlink proof-of-reserves and attested by Instruxi – a recognized leader in RWA tokenization for some of the world’s largest banks and asset managers. This ensures trustless validation for institutional partners.
“This deal marks a historic moment for the integration of physical, real-world assets from traditional to decentralized finance – a long-held, but hardly achieved aim,” RAAC founder Kevin Rusher said. “We are thrilled to be working with a firm like I-ON that has such a strong track record in the tokenization of gold to bring steady, income-bearing investments into the mainstream of DeFi.
“We believe the integration of steady, reliable assets like gold is how we support open finance to achieve its full potential, which is facilitating access to sustainable wealth creation for any type of investor.”
In addition to this deal, I-ON will invest up to $1 million in RAAC as a founding partner of the newly formed RWA Federation: a governance body that will guide the development of RAAC’s RWA open finance ecosystem.
Carlos X. Montoya, CEO and chairman at I-ON Digital, said, “This agreement represents a watershed moment for I-ON Digital and our gold-backed stablecoin, ION.au. Our alliance with RAAC underscores our unwavering commitment to transforming the future of decentralized finance through the tokenization of real-world assets and the delivery of market-ready, asset-backed stablecoins to the global financial community.
“By aligning with visionary technology partners like RAAC, Instruxi, Chainlink, and Curve, we are not just expanding market and liquidity opportunities – we are setting the stage for a new era of trust, transparency, and global accessibility in the RWA economy.”
The announcement follows the launch of RAAC’s genesis NFT collection – RAAC Bots – the entirety of which was minted in less than 10 seconds on Magic Eden, and has gathered a community of DeFi power-users that collectively hold more than $30 million in on-chain capital.
RAAC is currently in testnet and is available to non-US persons.
