Animoca Brands and Rayls expand access to tokenized real assets through institutional DeFi collaboration

In a move that could reshape institutional access to tokenized real assets, Animoca Brands has signed a new strategic agreement with Rayls and NUVA.

What does the Animoca Brands and Rayls partnership involve?

On 1 December 2025, Animoca Brands announced that it had entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Rayls, a blockchain ecosystem designed to bridge traditional finance with decentralized finance.

The strategic partnership focuses on the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) and aims to create new institutional channels for on-chain exposure to tangible value.

The agreement will leverage Animoca Brands’ extensive global network to drive the origination of RWAs by identifying suitable asset classes and issuers for tokenization on the Rayls infrastructure.

Moreover, Animoca Brands will support the structuring of the economic, technical, privacy, and utility parameters that will govern how these RWAs are tokenized and used on-chain.

How will NUVA support the tokenization and distribution model?

NUVA, described as a unified and chain-agnostic vault marketplace, is expected to act as a key distributor of Rayls-tokenized RWAs.

In this model, Rayls will provide NUVA with assets, technology, or services designed to enhance yields, improve liquidity, and strengthen investor engagement across different blockchain environments.

To underpin this distribution layer, Rayls will supply NUVA with the core institutional settlement and privacy infrastructure that institutional investors typically require. Additionally, Rayls will make available to NUVA cross-chain bridge solutions, the necessary technical interfaces, and settlement workflows to ensure secure and efficient movement of tokenized positions across networks.

Why is institutional infrastructure central to this RWA strategy?

By combining Animoca Brands’ reach with the Rayls tokenization platform, the partners seek to create institutional-grade rails for the lifecycle of tokenized real-world assets, from origination through to settlement.

However, the collaboration also emphasizes privacy and robust settlement processes, which are often decisive factors for regulated entities considering exposure to blockchain-based instruments.

NUVA’s chain-agnostic vault architecture is designed to serve as a scalable front end for these institutional channels. That said, the success of this framework will likely depend on how effectively Rayls’ institutional infrastructure and NUVA’s marketplace tools can work together to deliver consistent yields and reliable liquidity.

What are the key comments from Animoca Brands and Rayls?

Marcos Viriato, co-founder and CEO of Parfin, the core developer of Rayls, highlighted the importance of institutional adoption at this stage of the crypto market.

He noted that institutional participation is increasingly critical to provide stability and reliability within the sector, and said that, with Animoca Brands’ reach, Rayls can enable more widespread adoption of RWAs and pioneer new sectors for tokenisation.

Evan Auyang, group president of Animoca Brands, stressed the scale of the opportunity, saying that the partnership with Rayls unlocks a seamless pipeline for tokenizing trillions in real-world assets globally.

Moreover, he explained that by combining Rayls’ institutional-grade settlement and privacy infrastructure with Animoca Brands’ broad ecosystem and NUVA’s chain-agnostic vaults, the companies aim to build the future infrastructure for institutional DeFi‘s next era of yields, liquidity, and global access.

What could this mean for future on-chain asset markets?

The collaboration between Animoca Brands, Rayls, and NUVA signals a push toward more mature institutional DeFi infrastructure anchored in real-world collateral. If executed as outlined in the MOU, the model could encourage a broader range of issuers and investors to explore blockchain-based representations of traditional assets.

In summary, the partnership positions the three entities to play a significant role in the emerging market for RWAs, aligning Animoca Brands’ ecosystem, Rayls’ settlement and privacy stack, and NUVA’s marketplace capabilities to support institutional-scale tokenization and distribution.