CRYPTO 101 Ep. 705: Tokenizing RWAs Onchain & Solana's Role in it with Jupiter Exchange

Hosts: Bryce Paul & Brendan Viehman
Guest: Xiao Xiaoju, President of Jupiter Exchange
Date: February 17, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode centers around the accelerating trend of tokenizing real world assets (RWAs) on blockchain, examining Jupiter Exchange’s leading role on Solana. The conversation explores Xiao Xiaoju’s remarkable journey from legacy finance and consulting into crypto, the philosophy behind onchain finance, Solana's technological advantages, the innovation of Jupiter’s new stablecoin, and the future of tokenized assets. Listeners will gain deep business, technical, and philosophical insights on how onchain applications are shaping the next era of finance.

Guest Introduction & Background

[01:30] Xiao Xiaoju’s Journey from Wall Street to Crypto:

• Professional History:
  • Over a decade at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), advising Fortune 500s on strategy and some of BCG’s first blockchain projects (e.g., diamond provenance with De Beers in 2016).
  • Led global digital asset strategy at KKR, a private equity giant with $700B AUM, deploying significant investments into early-stage crypto VCs and funds (Dragonfly, PowerFi, Bitcraft, Ethereal Ventures).
• Personal Connection to Crypto:
  • Early angel investor in numerous projects.
  • Former professional pianist, experienced in drastically changing fields.
• Transition to President at Jupiter:
  • Saw “a very big jump from KKR, one of the most prestigious blue chip financial institutions on Wall Street, to Jupiter, which… I joined… to build out as the leader in onchain finance.” [03:40]

The Philosophy & Appeal of Onchain Finance

What Drives The Shift from Traditional to Onchain Finance?

[10:25]

• Motivation: Xiao was “fascinated about this… parallel stack… onto which financial activities can be built, which empowers people and users as opposed to gatekeepers.” He wanted to be “on the front line of this fundamental shift and… not just watch it from the old world.”
• Institutional Involvement: While KKR invested 9-figure sums into crypto, “it never justifies more than a small part of my time” compared to their traditional billion-dollar deals.
• Onchain Advantages:
  • Traditional finance is “opaque, inefficient, and built essentially on trusting gatekeepers like banks, asset managers… intermediaries.”
  • Onchain solutions are “open, transparent rails, globally accessible from day one… self-custody, self-sovereignty, permissionless and trustless.”
  • Quote: “What we now at Jupiter call onchain finance—not web3, not just crypto… not even defi, but really onchain finance—is a fundamentally better way to do finance.” [16:30]

Solana’s Role and Jupiter’s Strategic Choice

Why Solana?

[17:34]

• High Performance: Solana is “a high frequency global financial coordination layer. Because of its sub-second finality and really negligible fees, by now it is the only chain where you can build something like Jupiter, a decentralized trading venue… that truly rivals the speed and feel and low cost of a centralized exchange like Binance or even NYSE.” [18:11]
• User Experience & Technical Stack:
  • Solana’s unified approach “makes it simply easier to aggregate user experience and liquidity, which is very important if you want almost a web2-like experience.”
  • Contrasted to Ethereum’s modular path, which “can create a more fragmented user experience.”
• Vision for End-Users:
  • “The non crypto-native user should almost not care on which chain applications are built… It’s the job of… new onchain protocols and super apps like Jupiter to really build out a user experience to abstract away these differences.” [20:55]

Jupiter’s Onchain Stablecoin: Jupe USD (JupUSD)

Rethinking Stablecoin Economics

[22:48]

• Market Context: ~$300B total stablecoin supply globally, $30T in annual transaction volume, yielding $10B+ in net profit for issuers.
• Critique of Traditional Stablecoins:
  • “If you really think long and hard about this, in a target state, you shouldn’t have to just keep all of this to the stablecoin issuers… The issuers should not keep all the interest from the assets backing these coins.”
• JupUSD’s Core Innovation:
  • Utilizes tokenized BlackRock T-bills (via Athena partnership) to flow the yield back to users: “We wanted to… create something where… yield generated… flows essentially to users throughout our ecosystem of products.”
  • Institution-grade safety with Solana’s speed, aiming for “a new generation of onchain-first stablecoins… objectively superior and more rewarding than traditional bank deposits or even traditional stablecoins.” [24:10]

Yield Structure & User Alignment

[26:33]

• Yield Distribution: “The yield generated from the treasury bills backing [legacy stablecoins] flows entirely to the issuers… not to the users. Ultimately, we want that value to flow back to our users.”
• Composability: JupUSD on Jupiter Lend (the “AAVE-like” protocol on Solana) not only provides baseline lending yield but also gives a share of the T-bill yield—structurally higher than other stablecoins.
• Innovative Use Cases:
  • Deposit JupUSD for yield while it’s deployed as collateral (e.g., in limit orders or prediction markets), making capital efficient for users: “You actually continue to earn yield on your stablecoin… only possible on an onchain trading venue like Jupiter.” [30:33]

RWAs and The Future of Tokenization

Jupiter’s Approach to Tokenized Stocks & RWAs

[34:29]

• Open Marketplace Philosophy: “As the onchain super app…I think we welcome any innovation on the supply side. Any kind of financial asset that makes it tradable… as long as it’s on Solana, Jupiter becomes one of the main distribution and trading venues.” [35:09]
• Tokenized Equities:
  • Jupiter already sees “a major share of the trading volume that actually happens on Solana around tokenized stocks.”
  • However, it’s “still minuscule compared to actual stock trading volumes on primary venues.”
• Long-term Vision:
  • True innovation is not just tokenizing existing assets but “fully moving the capital formation process on chain end to end.”
  • Quote: “Flip the script and really go through the whole underwriting, the capital formation, the going public process, fully… onchain.” [37:30]
  • Challenges like representation of dividends and voting rights are in progress and are expected to be solved in the coming years.
• Other Asset Types:
  • Institutional credit is identified as closer to a “tipping point” than equities or real estate.
  • “Stablecoins are just tokenized dollars. Commodities are already happening. Very clear that more and more asset classes will come onchain.”

Jupiter Roadmap & Future Growth

[40:40] Product Evolution and Strategic Growth Vectors

• From DEX Aggregator to Super App:
  • In 18 months, Jupiter “went from the largest DEX aggregator on Solana to the largest onchain application platform by users, trading volume, and TVL.”
  • “Largest perp DEX, largest DEX aggregator, growing our lending and borrowing protocol, launched a prediction markets venue, our stablecoin, validator operations… really a full stack company.”
• Mobile First & Mass Market Onboarding:
  • Key Growth Vector: Mobile app for onboarding the next 10x of users (“normies”) beyond sophisticated traders.
  • Focus on “making it as simple and comprehensive as possible…so someone can move part of their financial life onto the app.”
• Strategic Partnerships:
  • Institutional integrations with major players: “Coinbase, Robinhood, Anchorage, Uniswap…all integrated with Jupiter’s API to offer the best of Solana assets.”
• Expanding the Product Suite:
  • More prediction markets, further composable DeFi use cases.
  • Payment stack ("Jupiter Global"): Payment card, QR payments for real-world use, especially in emerging markets—“Pay from your onchain balances by scanning a QR code for your noodles in Vietnam.”
• Omnichain Execution:
  • Abstracting away chain distinctions for end users. “Web2 users shouldn’t care which chain they’re on—so we’ll be making steps towards omnichain.”
• Quote: “Jupiter is relentless at shipping new products. Nobody ships like Jupiter is kind of a proverb in the Solana ecosystem.” [40:40]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Onchain finance is a fundamentally better way to do finance… The world simply doesn’t know this yet.” —Xiao Xiaoju [16:30]
• “Solana is probably best thought of as a high frequency global financial coordination layer… the only chain where you can build something like Jupiter.” —Xiao Xiaoju [18:11]
• “Ultimate goal: To show users that doing things onchain can be better and you shouldn’t have to trust centralized gatekeepers.” —Xiao Xiaoju [21:00]
• “We want to combine institutional-grade safety with Solana’s high speed rails…a new generation of onchain-first stablecoins.” —Xiao Xiaoju [23:23]
• “We strategically launched JupUSD to solve this major flaw in the current stablecoin market structure… we want that value to flow back to our users.” —Xiao Xiaoju [28:05]
• “You actually continue to earn yield on your stablecoin… only possible because you’re on an onchain trading venue like Jupiter.” —Xiao Xiaoju [30:33]
• “Nobody ships like Jupiter is kind of a proverb in the Solana ecosystem.” —Xiao Xiaoju [40:40]
• “Pay for your noodles by just scanning a QR code via the Jupiter app and paying from your onchain balances—extremely powerful.” —Xiao Xiaoju [48:25]
• “The closing statement is just: use Jupiter.” —Xiao Xiaoju [51:15]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:30] Xiao Xiaoju’s professional and personal background
• [10:25] Philosophy: Why leave Wall Street for onchain finance?
• [17:34] Why Solana? Jupiter’s logic for building there
• [22:48] JupUSD: Rethinking stablecoin yield and distribution
• [26:33] How Jupiter aligns user incentives through yield structure
• [34:29] Jupiter’s RWA/tokenized asset vision and current landscape
• [40:40] Jupiter’s roadmap: product evolution, key growth strategies, and mass market focus
• [48:25] Real-world utility: payments, QR code innovation, and emerging markets
• [51:15] How to get started with Jupiter

Closing & How to Connect

• Download the App: “Available on Android and Apple stores… app download to having stablecoins in your wallet should take less than 10 seconds.”
• Follow: “X account (Twitter): @jupiterexchange; LinkedIn: Jupiter Exchange”
• Try Jupiter and give feedback.

This episode provides a comprehensive blueprint of how DeFi and tokenization—led by platforms like Jupiter—are evolving finance beyond today’s boundaries, with Solana as the technical backbone and user-focused innovation at the core.