As the host of Blockchain Banter, I recently sat down with Dr. Mark Richardson, Project Lead at Bancor and Carbon DeFi, and Yves Burri and Oliver Giera, the Founder and Co-founder of Aureus — a Real World Assets (RWA) protocol that’s quickly becoming a go-to solution for institutions entering the space.
This episode unpacks why now is the time for RWAs, and the pieces coming together to make it possible.
What Held Them Back? Enforceability
“If you go into the office of a $100 million fund and pitch tokenized assets, they won’t rely on regulation that will hopefully rule in their favor. They need certainty. They need to know: ‘Can I enforce my rights in court?’”
Aureus spent years fusing together institutional-grade infrastructure with meticulously designed legal blueprints and compliant frameworks — and for the first time, the answer to institutions’ biggest question is an unequivocal yes.
“Now, institutions aren’t just curious — they’re actively reaching out. They want to be among the first movers.”
But enforceability alone doesn’t complete the picture. Compliance without privacy isn’t enough.
COTI and the Compliance-Privacy Paradox
Institutions have another non-negotiable requirement: not just privacy, but the right kind of privacy.
As Yves put it, Monero is a cypherpunk’s dream — but for a regulated market? “It’s dangerous to even list.” The issue isn’t privacy itself — it’s unaccountable privacy.
“Society is okay with Aunt Josephine having privacy over her bank account. But when Osama Bin Laden asks for privacy to buy remote controllers, that’s where lines get drawn.”
Yves mentioned there were a number of privacy solutions out there, but only with COTI’s Privacy-on-Demand technology did Aureus find a privacy solution that doesn’t jeopardize compliance.
“It stays sealed unless a legitimate authority has a reason to look inside.”
With enforceability addressed and privacy secured, one barrier still remained — an institutional-grade trading system that could actually support large asset transactions.
This is where “Bancor’s Carbon DeFi completes the puzzle”.
Bancor and the Institutional DEX Problem
“The infrastructure that you have to provide to cope with the compliance, scale, and just general structure and experience of a traditional finance player — this has not been there in DeFi three, four years ago.”
“Carbon DeFi, the single-sided order book curves that you provide — this not only complies with what a private equity or private debt [holder] would want… It goes beyond that. It allows them to effectively scale in and out of assets based on parameters they can define.”
In other words, Carbon DeFi doesn’t just meet institutional expectations — it lets them trade on their own terms, with programmable precision.
“It’s almost like you can define a term sheet with very elaborate terms that they’re used to, and you can put it onchain as a passive order.”
And unlike most DEXs, Carbon DeFi is resilient by design.
“There’s no sketchy or elaborate mechanisms that people could run sandwich attacks or try to move your order curve in any way. There’s simply no incentive — you would just lose money and essentially play into the hands of the strategy maker.”
This level of control and predictability? Unmatched and native to the protocol, with no third party dependencies or risks involved.
“Many of these things are such a novelty. But they really, for us, make such a strong case when we talk to these institutional players… Nothing else offers this level of flexibility — not even close.”
Not All DEXes are Built the Same
“You guys are titans of the DeFi industry. You invented the AMM and in my opinion, you kind of invented DeFi… but now you’ve invented a much better product than even the AMM — which is Carbon DeFi.”
“Nobody is going to sell a $20 million infrastructure asset on Uniswap… but now with Carbon DeFi, with your idea of an onchain order book, you brought a solution. We couldn’t really do what we want to do without this part of the puzzle.”
For Aureus, Bancor was the final layer that brought their institutional blueprint to life.
*If you’re a builder and want to integrate Carbon DeFi directly, contact [email protected] for licensing opportunities.
From Idea to Execution
With COTI’s Privacy-on-Demand and Bancor’s Carbon DeFi, each solved a fundamental piece — from compliant privacy to programmable, institutional-grade trading infrastructure. But it was Aureus bringing them together, and bringing crypto closer to true institutional adoption.
Watch the full episode — Presented by Bancor
https://x.com/Bancor/status/1948037694287954008
Blockchain Banter is a live, unscripted discussion series where industry experts, builders, and thought leaders come together to share knowledge, challenge ideas, and explore the evolving landscape of DeFi and blockchain.
🎙️ Follow me on X and LinkedIn, and reach out if you’re interested in joining a future episode – I love connecting with builders, thought-leaders, and especially skeptics.
Aureus
Aureus is engineering a new era of sovereign, resilient finance — a trusted bridge that liberates trillions in real-world assets and channels them into the world’s most liquid capital markets. Our ecosystem is anchored by AUg, a gold-backed settlement token, and a fully regulated exchange for tokenised equities. By fusing institutional-grade decentralised infrastructure with radically simple user experience — and upholding our Swiss Standard of Trust — we are building a fairer, more robust global economy.
COTI
COTI is renowned for its “Privacy-on-Demand” solution, a revolutionary approach to on-chain confidentiality. By utilizing an innovative implementation of garbled circuits, COTI enables encrypted and compliant transactions, protecting users from front-running and other malicious attacks without compromising on-chain liquidity.
Bancor
Bancor is a pioneer in decentralized finance (DeFi), established in 2016. It invented the core technologies underpinning the majority of today’s automated market makers (AMMs) and continues to develop the foundational infrastructure critical to DeFi’s success — focusing on enhanced liquidity mechanics and robust onchain market operation.
For more on Bancor
Website | Blog | X/Twitter | Analytics | YouTube | Governance
Carbon DeFi
Carbon DeFi, Bancor’s flagship DEX, enables users to do everything possible on a traditional AMM — and more. This includes custom onchain limit and range orders, with the ability to combine orders into automated buy low, sell high strategies. It is powered by Bancor’s latest patented technologies: Asymmetric Liquidity and Adjustable Bonding Curves.
For more on Carbon DeFiWebsite | X/Twitter | Analytics | Telegram
All products of Bancor are governed by the Bancor DAO.
Simply Powerful Trading — Powered by Bancor
