R3 at Solana: Combining the Institutional Yield Pillar and Onchain Capital Markets

After more than ten years dedicated to building infrastructure for the traditional markets, R3 is aiming to change its strategy. The company posed a fundamental question: how can customers fully transfer their assets into the digital world? The answer led them to a significant decision—making the Solana blockchain the cornerstone of their future.

Since June 2025, R3 has been focused on solving a critical industry challenge. How to optimize the bringing of trillions of dollars in assets onchain—not just simple conversion, but truly designing products that won’t be left behind by institutional investors? Within eight to nine months, the company saw the start of a new market direction—a focus on practical solutions rather than purely theoretical concepts.

Why Solana is the Pillar of Future Capital Markets

R3 analyzed almost all major blockchain networks to determine where their strategy should be based. The result was clear: Solana. “We believe that Solana is the best network for that future,” according to Todd McDonald, co-founder of R3, in an interview with CoinDesk.

The choice was not random. Solana is recognized as “the Nasdaq of blockchains”—a platform specializing in high-speed and high-volume transactions, perfect for capital markets rather than general digital experimentation. Its design, throughput, and architecture are all focused on meeting the needs of institutional-grade markets.

Currently, the Solana DeFi ecosystem holds over $9 billion in total value locked (TVL). This figure demonstrates rapid growth and increasing investor confidence. While Ethereum still leads the overall DeFi ecosystem due to larger onchain assets, Solana is emerging as the fastest-growing platform. The benefits are clear: higher transaction throughput, very low fees, and a rapidly expanding community of developers and users.

Solana’s model has resulted in higher onchain transaction volume and more active wallet participation, especially for applications requiring high trading frequency. This is the right landscape for professional capital markets that demand speed and efficiency.

Private Credit and Trade Finance: The Pillars of a New Yield Strategy

R3 is not focused on all asset classes. The company is strategic in its selection, targeting institutional-grade assets with high yields and strong demand. The two main pillars of the strategy are private credit and trade finance.

Private credit is the core pillar of this new approach. “You need headline yields to attract attention,” McDonald explains. Lending products with yields reaching 10% can attract significant capital from the onchain investor base. But more importantly, these products must balance three critical elements: yield, liquidity, and composability within the DeFi ecosystem—an difficult balance to achieve because private credit liquidity in traditional markets is typically quarterly or “by appointment.”

The second pillar is trade finance. Here, the potential is even greater. The demand and supply elasticity in this sector are very high. “If DeFi allocators truly rely on trade finance, the supply from the traditional world is enormous,” McDonald says. The trade finance market is comparable to one of the largest financial markets in the world, but it is often hindered by opacity and difficulty in standardization. Bringing transparency and automation through blockchain could open huge opportunities.

Liquidity Over Tokenization: The Real Barrier and Solution

Contrary to popular understanding, the success pillar is not tokenization itself. Converting real-world assets into digital tokens is important, but not enough. “The heart of DeFi is borrowing and lending,” McDonald concludes with his main insight.

The real challenge is liquidity. Currently, many tokenized real-world assets offer high yields, but they are difficult to use as collateral due to limited liquidity pools. DeFi participants are hesitant to transact with such assets because of fears of becoming stuck in illiquid positions. That’s why much capital remains outside the chain.

R3 is not trying to force demand. Instead, the company begins where onchain appetite already exists. The strategy is to collaborate with existing allocators and design products they truly want to use. This approach is more pragmatic and market-driven than trying to change investor behavior.

On the supply side, R3 needs a larger diversity of institutions willing to deploy capital onchain. Traditional investment managers, asset owners, manufacturers, and shipping companies see tokenization as a new distribution channel and a new capital formation model. The goal is not just to replicate offchain products but to redesign them so they can be truly invested in, traded, and made composable within the onchain environment.

Corda Protocol: The New Pillar of Institutional DeFi

To realize this vision, R3 has launched the Corda Protocol, a new system natively built on Solana. Launching in the first half of 2026, the protocol aims to bring professionally curated, real-world-asset-backed yield vaults that will issue liquid, redeemable vault tokens.

The design is simple yet powerful: providing stablecoin holders access to tokenized debt instruments, funds, and reinsurance-linked securities without sacrificing DeFi-style liquidity or composability. Assets obtained through Corda will be supported by a protocol-native liquidity layer, enabling seamless transfer from illiquid or limited-liquidity assets to onchain investors. This will allow assets to be used as collateral across a wide range of DeFi applications.

As a sign of strong early demand, Corda has already received over 30,000 pre-registrations. This number reflects deep market need for a solution like this.

The Future: Focus on Diversity and Scale

As DeFi investors move away from purely speculative strategies, demand for stable, diversified yields independent of cryptocurrency market movements is growing. This change creates a perfect opportunity for R3.

But it will not be easy. The main challenge is building sufficient onchain capital infrastructure. While large native DeFi players exist, overall participation remains heavy. “We need more diversity of balance sheets willing to deploy capital,” McDonald says, along with more flexible redemption mechanisms that give investors real options.

R3’s vision is clear: bring high-quality Wall Street assets onchain in a way that is truly meaningful for the DeFi ecosystem. Parallelly, bring onchain capital into traditional markets at scale. With Solana as the pillar of their strategy, private credit and trade finance as the main asset classes, and liquidity as the ultimate focus, the company has a solid foundation for the future of institutional digital finance.