The Good Tech Companies - Ivo Grigorov on Building a $500M Layer 1 Blockchain for Traditional Banks

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/ivo-grigorov-on-building-a-$500m-layer-1-blockchain-for-traditional-banks. Ivo Grigorov discusses why existing blockchains fail institutional RWA tokenization and how to solve such problems to build rails for institutional capital. Check more stories related to web3 at: https://hackernoon.com/c/web3. You can also check exclusive content about #web3, #blockchain, #cryptocurrency, #real-finance, #real-finance-news, #rwa, #good-company, #crypto-investment, and more. This story was written by: @ishanpandey. Learn more about this writer by checking @ishanpandey's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com. Real Finance CEO Ivo Grigorov discusses why existing blockchains fail institutional RWA tokenization and how his $29M-backed Layer 1 embeds risk assessment, insurance, and disaster recovery directly into consensus.

This audio is presented by Hacker Noon, where anyone can learn anything about any technology. Evo Grigerev on building a $500 million dollar one blockchain for traditional banks. By Ashan Pondi, real-world asset tokenization has moved from theoretical promise to institutional reality in 2025. But behind the headlines of billion-dollar RWA markets lies a fundamental infrastructure challenge. Traditional financial institutions require security, compliance, and operational frameworks that existing blockchain networks weren't designed to provide. Evo Grigoriv, CEO of Real Finance, brings both banking expertise and blockchain conviction to this problem, having worked in traditional finance since 2016 while building in crypto markets.

With $29 million in backing from Nimbus Capital and Magnus Capital, Real Finance is architecting a layer one blockchain that integrates risk assessors, insurers, and tokenization firms directly into Consensus, aiming to tokenize $500 million in assets within its first year. HTTPS colon slash slash ex.com, real fin official, status, 1 quintillion 98 quadrillion 780 trillion 396 billion 775,9703. Embedible equals true we spoke with Evo about the technical and business realities of bringing institutional capital on chain, why existing infrastructure falls short, and what it takes to build financial rails that traditional banks will actually use. Ashon Pondi, you've worked in traditional banking and have been active in blockchains since 2016.

What specific problem in the RWA tokenization market convinced you that a new layer one infrastructure was necessary, rather than building on existing chains? The core issue is that existing blockchains were never designed to handle financial risk as a first-class concept. Most chains treat RWA's as simple tokens while pushing risk assessment, insurance, and accountability off-chain. That model might work for crypto-native assets, but it fundamentally breaks down for banks and regulated institutions. In traditional finance, risk classification, capital backing, and disaster recovery are not optional layers. They are the system itself. When I looked at existing L-1s, there was no way to enforce honest asset onboarding,

penalize misclassification, or embed insurance directly into protocol logic. That's when IT became clear that RWA tokenization requires a purpose-built financial blockchain, not a workaround on top of generalized infrastructure. Ashan Pondi, you're targeting $500 million in tokenized assets in year one. What asset classes are you prioritizing, and what bottlenecks do you encounter when onboarding each category? Evo Grigorov. We're prioritizing cash flow generating assets where where tokenization brings immediate efficiency, real estate debt, private credit, trade receivables, structured notes, and certain bond-like instruments. Each category has different bottlenecks. Real estate requires clear ownership structures and long-term insurance coverage. Private credit needs reliable

probability of default modeling and transparency around collateral. Receivables require strong verification and short settlement cycles. The common challenge across all of them is trust, specifically, how to make risk, insurance coverage, and enforcement transparent and verifiable on-chain. Reels model addresses this by embedding tokenizers, risk scorers, and insurers directly into consensus with staking and slashing, so those bottlenecks are handled at the protocol level rather than through manual oversight. Ashan Pondi, how does Reel's embedded risk framework and disaster recovery mechanism function at the protocol level, and how do you convince institutional risk officers it meets their standards, Evo Grigorov. At the protocol level, every asset on

real is onboarded through adafined pipeline, tokenization, risk scoring, and optionally insurance. Each of these functions is performed by a business validator that must state dollar acid tokens and can be penalized if their performance deviates from reality. The disaster recovery fund is critical. If an insurance validator fails to meet obligations, the protocol issues network debt tokens that are repaid over time through redirected consensus rewards, without minting new inflation. This is very familiar to risk officers because it mirrors how loss absorption and resolution mechanisms work in traditional finance. What convinces institutions is not promises, but structure. When they see that risk, insurance, penalties, and recovery are enforced

by code and economic incentives, not governance discretion, the conversation changes completely. Ashon Pondy. What does integration look like when a regulated bank wants to use real finances infrastructure? Evo Grigerev. Banks don't plug in, overnight. Integration usually starts with a limited pilot, one acid class, one jurisdiction, one issuance structure. From a technical perspective, they interact with real through permission onboarding flows, while still benefiting from a permissionless settlement layer. Regulatory hurdles vary by jurisdiction, reporting requirements, custody rules and investor eligibility differ significantly between, say, Panama and Austria. That's why Real focuses on being regulation-aware but not regulation-specific. We provide standardized primitives,

risk classes, insurance coverage, metadata while allowing institutions to comply locally. The key is that banks don't need to abandon their existing processes. Real complements them by turning those processes into verifiable on-chain logic, as well as benefiting the on-chain action. by giving them a trusted party for custody of the RWA's. Ashon Pondi, Nimbus Capital's commitment is structured differently than traditional VC. What does that signal about institutional capital's view of RWA infrastructure? Evo Grigorov. It signals a shift from speculative investment to capital deployment.

Nimbus isn't betting on token price appreciation. They are committing capital tied to an infrastructure which will accommodate real assets that will be tokenized and settled on real. That's exactly the kind of alignment we want. It shows institutions are re-evaluating RWA infrastructure the same way they evaluate clearing systems or settlement rails, based on reliability, risk management, and capital efficiency, not hype cycles. Ashon Pondy. Why is 2025 different from three years ago for RWA tokenization? Evo Grigorov. Three years ago, regulation was unclear, infrastructure wasamature, and institutions were still experimenting conceptual.

Today, regulatory frameworks are clearer, balance sheets are under pressure to find yield, and blockchain tooling has matured enough to support real operations. Most importantly, institutions now understand that doing nothing is riskier than experimenting. Tokenization is no longer a marketing exercise, it's becoming a competitive necessity. Ashan Pondi How does your traditional banking background influence reels design? Evo Grigorov. Certain concepts are non-negotiable, risk classification.

communication, capital backing, accountability, and recovery mechanisms. Those must exist in any system that touches real money. What blockchain allows us to reimagine as enforcement? Instead of policy documents and committees, we use staking, slashing, and transparent metadata. Instead of opaque risk models, we put assumptions on chain. Real is essentially traditional financial logic enforced by crypto economics. Ashan Pondi. How do regional regulatory differences affect Reel's architecture? Grigerev, we're building a universal protocol layer, not region-specific chains. The core primitives, asset classes, risk grades, insurance coverage are globally understandable. Jurisdictional requirements are handled at the onboarding and application layer. This approach allows real to

scale across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia without fragmenting liquidity or security. Ashan Pondi, what advice would you give founders building institutional grade blockchain infrastructure, Evo Grigorov. Stop optimizing for crypto-native preferences alone. Institutions didn't care about novelty. They care about risk, accountability, and failure modes. If your system can't clearly answer, what happens when something goes wrong? It's not ready for institutional capital. Build for that first, and adoption will follow. Don't forget to like and share the story. This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. Hacker Noon has reviewed the report for quality.

but the claims here and belong to the author. Hashtag DiO thank you for listening to this Hackernoon story, read by artificial intelligence. Visit hackernoon.com to read, write, learn and publish.