R3 and Solana Target Real-World Assets in Collaboration

R3 and the Solana Foundation have unveiled a collaboration to bring together private and public blockchains with the intention of bringing regulated financial institutions and real-world assets onto Solana.

The firms claim the collaboration will deliver the first enterprise-grade, permissioned consensus service offered to the public directly on a Layer 1 network, thus bringing the TradFi and DeFi worlds into “true convergence”, marrying the reach of R3 into the TradFi ecosystem with the scale, liquidity, and innovation of internet capital markets.

R3 has invited Lily Liu, president of the Solana Foundation, to its board of directors, and the firms say they will bring regulated assets onto a public blockchain at a time when the RWA sector is at a pivotal juncture. They cite regulatory tailwinds that are spurring investor confidence in digital assets, financial institutions becoming increasingly comfortable with leveraging public networks, and the DeFi sector maturing as factors in this shift. “These forces are driving growing demand for high-quality, tokenised assets on public networks,” the firms state. “As the world’s largest collection of permissioned RWA networks, with over $10 billion in regulated assets on-chain across its platforms, the R3 ecosystem is ideally positioned to meet this demand.”

R3 says its Corda blockchain has the most live, in-production use cases and millions of transactions processed daily by institutional players. Integrating with Solana’s blockchain will enable these assets to flow to meet the growing demand on public networks, and unlock new settlement options across these ecosystems, including using high-quality stablecoins, it adds.

Unlike traditional interoperability approaches, R3 says this comprehensive integration means private transactions on Corda can be confirmed directly on Solana mainnet, inheriting the network’s performance and security, and enabling true transactional atomicity.

R3 and Solana say they will create a consensus service deployed on Solana to enable native interoperability between R3’s existing Corda platform – as well as other private networks – and Solana, bridging the gap between permissioned and public blockchain ecosystems for the first time. This will enable regulated financial institutions to fully harness the openness and efficiency of Solana without re-writing their applications or compromising on compliance, security, or asset control.

Critically, they add, this collaboration simplifies the complexity of managing RWAs on public blockchains – bringing Corda’s strengths in identity, privacy, and compliance to a public and permissioned environment. This allows traditional financial institutions to operate with the same control and clarity they expect from enterprise-grade infrastructure, while unlocking the scale and flexibility of a public network. 

“This is a major step forward for the institutional adoption of public blockchain,” says Liu. “R3’s decision to bring its regulated financial network onto Solana is powerful validation that public blockchains have reached institutional readiness. With Solana’s unmatched performance, enterprise-grade permissioning, and growing roster of regulated assets, we’re not just witnessing convergence between TradFi and DeFi – we’re enabling it. This collaboration signifies that the future of capital markets will be built on public infrastructure.”

David Rutter, founder and CEO of R3, adds, “We’ve never pursued blockchain for its own sake – our mission is to solve real financial problems. After years of laying the groundwork, R3 is ready to bring our experience and our network of regulated financial institutions towards a new public future with one of the best and most trusted public ecosystems – Solana.

“This is more than a milestone; it’s a strategic realignment for the entire industry,” he continues. “We know DeFi isn’t coming to TradFi, so it’s up to us to build the connective infrastructure that links these two ecosystems. This is about adapting to deliver real-world utility, institutional-grade readiness, and shaping the long-term future of regulated markets.”

Post-trade infrastructure provider Clearstream is a long-standing user of R3’s Corda which underpins its digital collateral solution. Jens Hachmeister, head of issuer services & new digital markets at the firm welcomes the announcement, observing, “Tokenisation isn’t just about digitising assets – it’s about building scalable, global infrastructure where real-world assets can interact directly and securely, no matter where investors are located. The convergence of public and private blockchains is no longer a future promise – it’s happening now. This is a generational shift in how value moves, and a compelling moment for any institution looking to enter the crypto space.”