Former Microsoft Employee's Fate as an "ICM Concept," Why Did Collaterize Surge 10x in May?

The concept of "Internet Capital Markets," preached by Solana Foundation Chair Lily Liu, has become hot on Solana after the explosion of Believe, while another "ICM" concept RWA project Collaterize's token COLLAT market cap recently surged above $90 million, now retracing to $54 million. Since its launch in January with a market cap of around $9 million, it has been consolidating around $90 million and finally broke out on May 18th. One of Solana's co-founders, Toly, retweeted Collaterize's App Demo video, causing the token to skyrocket and bringing market attention back to these two former Microsoft employees' RWA project.

What is ICM?

A few years ago, Solana proposed the vision of building an "on-chain NASDAQ." However, as NASDAQ itself explores on-chain solutions, the narrative has gradually shifted towards a more cryptonative "Internet Capital Market (ICM)." As an alternative to Traditional Capital Markets (TCM), ICM allows entrepreneurs to bypass venture capital and IPOs, raising funds directly from the network community through tokenization. Solana projects like Believe App have made it easy to launch and invest in projects on-chain.

Today, "ICM" has replaced "on-chain NASDAQ" and become Solana's core narrative. Solana Foundation Chair Lily Liu has repeatedly emphasized that the goal of ICM is to build a global financial infrastructure that allows 5.5 billion internet users to participate in capital markets seamlessly. The Solana team is working hard to establish it as a key infrastructure for the on-chain ICM.

By the end of December 2024, Akshay BD, the head of Solana's ecosystem Superteam, mentioned the concepts of "Internet Capital Markets" and "F.A.T. Protocol Engineering" in Solana's 2025 marketing memo. He believes that in 2024, companies will list directly "on the internet" and have access to over a billion investors holding private keys — using their funds to vote for the future they desire, encompassing not just stocks, but all asset classes, cultures, and ideologies worth owning.

Data shows that from less than 8,000 private equity firms needing liquidity from somewhere in 2005, the demand surged to 30,000 firms by 2024, seemingly making "listing on the internet" imminent.

Despite ongoing criticism, such as lack of regulation, low project thresholds, and the ease of launching misleading tokens, ICM still has strong mass adoption potential, especially in terms of providing a user-friendly experience, fiat onramps, and virally driven Web3 to Web2 narrative promotion. To achieve long-term development, platforms like Believe need to move beyond short-term hype, promote founder accountability mechanisms, optimize the tokenomics, build DAO governance, and achieve real-world utility, transforming ICM from a mere meme trend into a new capital formation paradigm. Having gone through a series of products like Pumpfun, Timefun, and Believe, the market currently needs a more open and permissionless financing and trading ecosystem, covering various assets from meme coins to NFTs and startups. Collaterize is extending ICM's business to RWA within this concept.

RWA Has Its Own Bonding Curve—Collaterize

The founders of Collaterize are two French individuals, Paul Antoine Arrighi and Pierre Hoffman, who both previously worked at Microsoft. Paul initiated his own startup called OneClight in 2015, which provided a passwordless authentication feature similar to Onkey on websites. However, a year later, the project did not make significant progress, leading Paul to begin a four-year career at Microsoft in 2017.

The other founder, Pierre, also joined Microsoft in the same year, where he managed Microsoft partners, ensuring the accurate deployment of software asset management services in public and private sectors. After only one year, Pierre left Microsoft and joined the IOTA Foundation to oversee business development.

Paul Antoine Arrighi Showcasing the Collaterize App at AWS Demo Day

Pierre Hoffman has stated, "RWA can enable functionalities that were previously impossible, such as liquidity, programmability, or broader access, so it makes sense. We are starting to see early use cases, especially in RWAs like U.S. Treasuries or publicly traded stocks, but there is a bigger opportunity in private assets as these assets currently cannot access highly liquid markets."

Development of RWAs in the United States, Hong Kong, and France, where the Collaterize project team is based

Hoffman further stated, "If we can bring these assets onto the chain, in the right framework, and maintain transparency, we can let the market decide which assets have enough value to trade, collateralize, and use. It still feels early, but the fundamentals are gradually emerging." This statement aligns with the concept of "everything on-chain" previously mentioned by White House Crypto Czar David Sacks, and the asset types supported in their documents also somewhat reflect Collaterize's ambitions.

Collaterize supports tokenizing any real-world asset (RWA), from baseball cards to real estate, from company equities to tokens. A notable feature of this protocol is its employment of a dynamic bonding curve, and once the target is reached, assets can be traded on Meteora, with the current bond curve scheme already audited by Meteora. The Solana-based protocol charges a 1% fee for transactions, which increases to 5% when moving to Meteora. Additionally, 15% of the fee will go into the Meteora liquidity pool.

Of course, the process of creating tokens is not as straightforward as the Believe or Pumpfun Bonding Curve models. Upon token listing, Collaterize undergoes a relatively strict review process. Firstly, applicants need to hold 100,000 $COLLAT tokens and then submit an application. Collaterize will assess whether the company has various dimensions of sustainability, including a clear business model and growth plan, the ability to generate stable income and expand into new markets, a good profit record, and predictable cash flow. Additionally, specific high-value collectibles and luxury goods may be considered as assets, provided they have authoritative evaluations, clear provenance, and secure storage.

Based on publicly available information, it is known that the highest value product currently supported by Collaterize is the upcoming tokenized real estate in France. This collaboration marks the first product launched after Collaterize partnered with ARP (Asset Realty Partners), with ARP announcing the collaboration at the MIPIM International Real Estate Exhibition in March 2025.

This real estate integrated services company, established in 2006, is no small player. Headquartered in Paris, France, it was founded by Pascal Roth. After nearly 20 years working in a German mortgage bank, he created ARP to provide professional real estate services. The group currently manages assets worth billions of euros.

And this is not their first foray into "fractional real estate assets." In 2020, they entered the real estate crowdfunding market through a subsidiary named Beefordeal. The platform allows investors to participate in real estate projects with a minimum of 1000 euros, offering around a 10% potential return. By 2023, the platform had raised over 11 million euros.

However, even with such a luxurious lineup in the real world, Collaterize cannot escape a paradox. At the current stage, Crypto Native users instinctively reject the review mechanism, which leads them to shun compliance-oriented asset protocols. On the other hand, traditional asset users do not accept Crypto's interface and asset form, creating this "compliance and user demand misalignment" market paradox.

According to Collaterize's on-chain data, four months after the project's establishment, the blockchain's activity remains very low, with only 70,000 total transactions to this day and a total of only 381 addresses. Even in comparison with these figures, it is not as high as the number of holders of a meme coin with a market value of tens of thousands. However, RWAs still have a fairly long development period, with a limitless $75 trillion market potential behind them. But regardless, there is significant uncertainty in regulations, infrastructure, and censorship.

But a new era always requires new explorers, and as one of them, Collaterize is also searching for the "possible" treasures in this boundless ocean.