Plume has taken a major regulatory step, securing a digital asset business license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) — a move the company says makes it the first regulated on-chain vault manager. Announced on X, the approval gives the real-world asset (RWA) protocol a formal foothold inside a jurisdiction that has been actively building out tokenization and blockchain-ready financial infrastructure.
Why it matters
The license is notable because it ties regulatory legitimacy directly to Plume’s on-chain vault business — a distinction most vault protocols don’t have. Plume isn’t positioning itself as a generic Layer 1 chain; it bills itself as a platform to bring real-world assets on-chain and turn them into usable DeFi primitives rather than static tokens. That positioning aligns with the company’s public advocacy: in a letter to the BMA, Plume pushed for an “activities-based, outcomes-focused” regulatory framework for asset tokenization, arguing for clear rules on how tokenized assets are issued and managed.
Operational traction
Plume has already shown some operational progress. In coverage of its Genesis mainnet, the company said an earlier alpha phase deployed more than $150 million of RWA capital on-chain — a sign there’s early demand for its approach to tokenized assets and on-chain management.
Regulatory context and Bermuda’s ambitions
Plume’s approval places it alongside prominent firms that have chosen Bermuda as a regulated base for crypto activity, including Circle and Coinbase, which were highlighted in government plans to build a “fully onchain national economy.” Other exchanges have also used Bermuda’s regime: Kraken has participated in the island’s digital asset ecosystem, and Binance launched derivatives trading there under a BMA license. Taken together, these moves show Bermuda is aiming not just to be a friendly licensing venue but to create a functioning, regulated operating environment for on-chain finance.
Market potential and limits
The timing also taps into big-picture opportunity in tokenized real estate and other RWAs. Analysts like Deloitte have estimated tokenized real estate could reach as much as $4 trillion by 2035, a scale Plume has publicly targeted. That said, the BMA license is an important signal of legitimacy — but it’s not proof the model will scale. It does, however, give Plume a regulatory edge as it tries to occupy the narrow but valuable niche of compliant, on-chain asset management for tokenized RWAs.
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