For instance, take Borderless.Fi's Mercury RWA Token ($MER). We took a stake in a company called Mercury Technologies, Inc., a fast growing fintech startup based in San Franciso. We held it in a special-purpose vehicle, and created a token called $MER that is linked to the stake in Mercury Technologies, Inc.

In short, $MER is a tokenized representation of preferred stock in Mercury Technologies, Inc. When you purchase a token of $MER, you hold a unit of the underlying real-world asset – in this case, preferred stock in Mercury Technologies. Inc.

Investors can buy $MER on a decentralized exchange anytime and anywhere. You do not need a broker; all you need is access to the internet, a wallet and USDT. $MER can be sold anytime too. Unlike traditional private assets that do not have a secondary market, investors can sell $MER on automated market makers that offer instant liquidity at <1% fees.

Lastly, $MER operates on a fractionalization ratio of 1:10,000, where each token represents a fraction of the underlying real-world asset. In this case, when you hold one token of $MER, you hold 1/10,000th of the preferred share of Mercury Technologies, Inc.

• Before: Private markets including venture capital was only accessible for financial institutions and ultra-high net worth (UHNW)
• Now: Everyone* can access high-growth startups (venture capital).

* To buy and sell RWA Tokens, you must meet our eligibility criteria and apply to become a Verified Investor.

• Before: Most startups require check sizes of >$25,000 per investment. To build a diversified portfolio of 15-30 startups, an investor would require capital of $375,000-$750,000 to get started with startup investing.
• After: There is no minimum amount. Each RWA Token is priced at less than $1.00 per token; and investors can get started with any amounts (e.g. $1,000 or $100,000).

• Before: Investors have to wait and can only enter a position if the company raises capital and/or there is a block trade available. Once the investor holds a position, they have to wait and hold their position until the company goes public (initial public offering) or gets bought out by another company. This may take 7-10 years. During this time, there is no secondary market where the investor can sell to.
• After: Verified Investors can enter and exit anytime by buying or selling RWA Tokens on the exchange.

• Before: There are different costs depending on how the asset is purchased. For a venture capital fund, recurring management fees is ~2% per annum and carry is 20%.
• After: One-time fees of less than 1% when you buy or sell the RWA Tokens. There are no recurring fees, or carry.

• Before: Safe and secure; transactions are manually executed through standard contracting and banking systems.
• After: Also safe and secure; transactions are processed and secured by the blockchain.

Decentralized exchanges operating on the blockchain can be access from anywhere; all you require is the internet.

It takes <1 second (260ms) for tokens to be transferred in a blockchain layer 2 network such as Arbitrum. This is known in blockchain as 'Time to Finality'.

Decentralized exchanges on the blockchain operate around the clock – at night, on the weekends and public holidays. Transactions are processed automatically and do not rely on any humans.

Trading fees on decentralized exchanges are ~0.3% of trade value and a fixed fee of ~$0.01 per trade (gas fee).

Tokens are dynamic and can have smart functions. For example, Borderless.Fi embedded data about the underlying real-world asset to the RWA Tokens themselves – financial information, legal contracts, asset details. When you buy the token, you automatically receive the corresponding data and files as they are embedded on the token itself.