The liquidity era is no longer a vision - it's reality.

April was a month of precision and acceleration. As Bitcoin’s role in DeFi continues to evolve, Yala is at the forefront, transforming idle BTC into a powerful engine for real-world yield generation. By bridging Bitcoin liquidity into the realm of Real-World Assets (RWAs), we’re unlocking new opportunities for Bitcoiners to earn.

With mainnet now just days away, the rails are set. Institutional infrastructure is solidified. Cross-chain bridges are live on testnet. RWA partnerships are forming. The future of Bitcoin liquidity is arriving on-chain—and it’s starting with Yala.

In this update, we’ll cover:

1. Yala Testnet V3 Success
2. Protocol Developments
3. Ecosystem & RWA Expansion: Enter Yala RealYield
4. Community Momentum
5. What’s Next

April in Numbers: The Final Countdown

April marked Bitcoin’s shift from passive store of value to an active yield engine. With 3.31M Yetis fueling Yala’s final testnet sprint toward mainnet, the foundation is stronger than ever.

• Total BTC Staked: 1.55M 
• Total YU Minted: $58.67B
• Total Users: 3.31M

These numbers aren’t just milestones, instead, they signal the global demand for Bitcoin liquidity and Yala is ready to deliver.

Yala Protocol Developments

In moments of transition, vision must meet precision. As Yala prepares to unlock Bitcoin’s next frontier, our engineering teams have been quietly but powerfully building the rails for institutional-grade security, capital efficiency, and deep cross-chain liquidity.

Institutional Infrastructure & Security

1. Institutional Mode & Custody Integrations: Continued our deep focus on Institution Mode, integrated with large clients to use cold wallets to realize self custody with our multi-sig and PSWSH solutions. These efforts are foundational for our custodial flexibility, preparing Yala for real-world institutional flows.
2. Backend Operations Center: Finalized the first phase of our real-time Backend Operations Center — monitoring smart contracts, bridge, token price volatility, liquidity health, and risk parameters management. Post-mainnet, this center will expand to proactively safeguard user funds and protocol integrity.
3. CEX Hedging: BTC hedging strategies are already in place and ready to be activated post-launch, ensuring stable APY and a robust risk management framework.

Mainnet Launch Preparation

• Cross-Chain Bridge: April marked a major milestone with the launch of our ETH → Solana cross-chain bridge for $YU on Testnet V3. Development is also underway to bridge YBTC to Solana, opening up a new frontier for BTC-native DeFi on high-performance chains, which fully aligns with our mission to unlock Bitcoin liquidity across ecosystems.
• Ice Berries Finalized: Our new off-chain rewards system, Ice Berries, is now locked in - streamlining incentive mechanisms as we enter the mainnet era.
• Liquidity Reserves: We’ve established key partnerships and secured liquidity pools to ensure a smooth and capital-efficient mainnet launch.
• Pre-launch Security Preparation: Multi-sig flows, private key protection, and cross-bridge safety checks have been finalized and tested, ensuring that both Pro and Institution Mode users benefit from an institutional-grade security.

Product Pipeline

• Product Design Pipeline: Our token economics design is near final. Additional collateral support is in development, enabling $YU minting with wrapped BTC and BTC-based liquid staking tokens. The YU Savings Pool has entered early design stages, expanding yield options within the Yala ecosystem.
• DeFi Marketplace: The UI for our DeFi Marketplace is underway - where $YU will fuel yield farming and various DeFi protocols utilities with decent incentives on Berries.

Enter Yala RealYield

Bitcoin is a $1.6 trillion asset - valuable, yet largely idle. In April, we announced that we will be focusing on Yala RealYield - a structured, institutional-grade marketplace designed to connect idle BTC liquidity to real-world, yield-generating opportunities.

Yala RealYield Meets Centrifuge

https://x.com/yalaorg/status/1912507665600704690 

Centrifuge enables asset managers like Anemoy to issue regulated, yield-bearing financial products on-chain.

Through this partnership, Bitcoin holders using Yala can seamlessly access yield generated by these products by converting BTC into USDC via Yala RealYield - our curated marketplace for RWA strategies with transparent, risk-adjusted profiles.

The future of Bitcoin isn’t just holding - It’s earning.

Community Growth & Initiatives

April brought powerful momentum from builders, researchers, and thought leaders.

X Spaces: Bitcoin Liquidity Series

This April, we welcomed and featured Solayer and Centrifuge this April.

We explored Solayer’s core mission, the power of InfiniSVM, and their vision for integrating Bitcoin liquidity with Solana.

And dived into Centrifuge V3's scalability and chain abstraction capabilities, activating BTC for RWA yield, and the future of multichain RWA expansion.

Four Pillars Research Report

Meanwhile, Four Pillars, a leading Korean research agency, published a detailed public report on Yala, marking a major step forward in educating the global community on our vision.

“Unlike Ethereum and Solana, only ~1% of Bitcoin’s total supply is actively used — largely due to scalability and programmability limitations.Yala addresses this gap by serving as a Bitcoin liquidity layer — turning BTC into an active, yield-generating asset.”

📖 Read the full research report here:

Finally, the Yala team is on the ground in Dubai during Token 2049, sharing our mission, connecting face-to-face with builders and institutions shaping the next era of DeFi.

What’s Next

As we move into May, Yala is entering the most pivotal chapter. Here’s what to expect:

1. Mainnet Launch: We’re launching our mainnet in early May, bringing Yala’s vision fully on-chain.
2. YU Bridge to SOL Chain: We will launch this feature in mid May, bringing Bitcoin liquidity to Solana. 
3. DeFi Marketplace Goes Live: Alongside mainnet, we’ll launch the DeFi Marketplace - a new portal where users can deploy $YU in partner DeFi protocols, earn points from Yala, and expand $YU adoption across diverse use cases on multiple chains.
4. Institutional GrowthWe continue onboarding institutional clients in Institution Mode while preparing for our upcoming Phase 2 rollout.
5. Meet the Team IRL in US 

• SVM Summit – New York
• Bitcoin 2025 – Las Vegas

From idle store of value to active yield layer, Bitcoin’s next chapter is being written. Yala is not only ready, we’re leading the way.

Stay close. Mainnet is next.

Join the Yala Community

Yala is building a liquidity layer to unlock Bitcoin’s untapped yield across DeFi and RWAs. Users can deposit BTC and access seamless liquidity, enabling efficient capital movement and yield opportunities across ecosystems, chains, and protocols.

Website | X | Telegram | Discord | LinkedIn

Yala, a liquidity layer for Bitcoin, is thrilled to unveil its strategic partnership with Plume Network, a pioneering blockchain tailored for Real World Asset Finance (RWAfi). This collaboration enables Bitcoin holders to effortlessly access tokenized fixed-income assets and secure stable yields, unlocking new dimensions of Bitcoin’s liquidity.

Plume drives RWA adoption with an EVM-compatible ecosystem hosting over 180 projects. With its end-to-end tokenization engine and network of financial partners, Plume simplifies the onboarding of assets like traditional financial instruments, carbon credits, GPUs, alternative assets, collectibles, and more, transforming them into liquid, DeFi-ready instruments. Since its inception, Plume has focused on driving a rapid adoption of RWAs, offering a seamless platform for tokenizing and distributing assets globally. 

Yala’s Bitcoin-native solution channels BTC’s immense liquidity into broader financial landscapes, allowing users to access yield opportunities across DeFi and RWAs. Through this partnership, Bitcoin holders can engage with Plume’s tokenized fixed-income assets (U.S. Treasury Bills, Corporate bonds, private credit) via Yala RealYield. This structured marketplace provides a curated selection of RWAs, each with clear terms on risk, duration, and APY, allowing users to earn consistent BTC-backed yields while preserving Bitcoin’s security. 

By integrating with Plume, Yala brings Bitcoin liquidity to stable RWA offerings, while Plume gains a fresh influx of BTC-driven capital. Plume’s composable, EVM-compatible framework ensures efficient deployment of Bitcoin liquidity into structured financial products, asset-backed lending, and decentralized investment vehicles. Yala RealYield enhances this by enabling institutional and retail users to access sustainable yield options, reinforcing Bitcoin’s role in DeFi.

Yala’s integration of Plume enables Bitcoin liquidity to flow into stable, institutional-grade financial products, driving the future of RWAfi.

Stay tuned for more updates as we approach the mainnet launch. To learn more about Yala, visit us at yala.org or follow us on X @yalaorg 💚🏔️. 

About Plume Network

Plume Network is the first full-stack RWA Chain and ecosystem purpose-built for RWAfi, enabling the rapid adoption and demand-driven integration of real world assets. With 180+ projects building on the network, Plume offers a composable, EVM-compatible environment for onboarding and managing diverse real world assets. Coupled with an end-to-end tokenization engine and a network of financial infrastructure partners, Plume simplifies asset onboarding and enables seamless DeFi integration for RWAs so anyone can tokenize real world assets, distribute them globally, and make them useful for native crypto users.

Website | X 

About Yala

Yala is building a liquidity layer to unlock Bitcoin’s untapped yield across DeFi and RWAs. Users can deposit BTC and access seamless liquidity, enabling efficient capital movement and yield opportunities across ecosystems, chains, and protocols.

Website | X

TLDR

Yala transforms Bitcoin from passive “digital gold” into a sovereign financial primitive powering global yield. Through $YU, users can earn sustainable yield via real-world assets such as U.S. Treasuries and private credit. By abstracting complexity and partnering with regulated infrastructure, Yala makes BTC a gateway to decentralized, yield-bearing capital markets. This isn’t just RWAs on Bitcoin. It’s Bitcoin unleashed.

Bitcoin’s Evolution: From Digital Gold to Yield-Bearing Asset

For over a decade, Bitcoin has served primarily as a non-sovereign store of value—powerful in principle, but inert in practice. Yala is redefining that utility.

By enabling BTC holders to collateralize their assets and mint $YU—a decentralized stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar—Yala opens the door to sustainable, real-world yield. Instead of liquidating Bitcoin to participate in DeFi or traditional markets, users retain exposure to BTC while deploying its value productively.

This is Bitcoin as it was originally envisioned: not just a speculative asset, but a functioning component of global financial infrastructure.

RWAs: The Bridge Between Traditional Finance and DeFi

Real-World Assets (RWAs) represent the tokenization of traditional financial instruments—bonds, treasuries, real estate, private credit—into on-chain formats. This enables direct, permissioned access to historically inaccessible yield products.

MakerDAO was among the earliest to integrate RWAs into its collateral base, using legal wrappers and SPVs to bring off-chain capital into DeFi. Circle’s USDC and BlackRock’s BUIDL fund extended this concept further, giving users stablecoin access to institutional yield products.

But until now, Bitcoin has remained excluded from this evolution. Not because of lack of demand, but because of a lack of infrastructure.

Yala’s RWA Framework: Bringing Bitcoin into the Real Economy

Despite Bitcoin’s $1.6 trillion market cap and growing macro relevance, BTC has been largely absent from RWA markets due to three core challenges:

• Regulatory Compliance: Bitcoin’s pseudonymity limits its direct access to KYC/AML-compliant systems.
• Volatility: BTC’s price fluctuations require stable settlement layers for yield-bearing assets.
• Fragmentation: BTC liquidity exists in silos—wrapped assets on Ethereum, Layer 2s, and bridges—each with unique trust assumptions.

Yala solves these challenges head-on. Using its MetaMint Protocol, Yala aggregates BTC liquidity across multiple wrapped standards (e.g., WBTC, tBTC, sBTC) to mint $YU. This creates a deep, composable liquidity pool centered around Bitcoin—one that is fully interoperable with on-chain RWA platforms.

Partnering with institutional-grade RWA providers, Yala abstracts the regulatory and custodial complexity while allowing users to remain decentralized. Compliance, legal wrappers, and asset custody are handled under the hood—leaving users with a seamless, permissioned on-ramp to real-world yield.

Yala RealYield: The New RWA Standard for Bitcoin

RealYield, as enabled by Yala, refers to yield derived from actual, revenue-generating real-world assets—not inflationary token incentives. Through $YU, users gain access to structured yield products such as tokenized U.S. Treasuries, private credit, and other fixed-income assets that pay out real cash flows.

Unlike many DeFi protocols where yield is subsidized by governance token emissions, Yala’s model directs income from underlying assets back to users. This means $YU holders earn predictable, sustainable returns tied to real economic activity.

• Sovereign Collateral: $YU is minted against Bitcoin, not fiat. This preserves decentralization while unlocking yield.
• User-Aligned Yield: Yield from RWAs is routed directly to users—not protocol treasuries or centralized issuers.
• Dual Exposure: BTC holders mint $YU to earn RWA yield without selling their Bitcoin. Trillions in dormant capital are now productive.
• Modular Marketplace: Users can allocate $YU across a growing menu of tokenized assets, strategies, and durations—from T-bills to private credit.
• Trusted Partnerships: Yala collaborates with regulated RWA issuers to ensure compliance, enforceability, and asset quality—without compromising on decentralization.

Additionally, Yala’s architecture allows users to layer yield strategies—staking BTC to earn protocol-level rewards, while simultaneously deploying $YU into RWA-based vaults. This dual-layered approach turns idle BTC into a productive asset without compromising decentralization.

RealYield isn’t just a financial feature—it’s a structural advantage. It aligns with Bitcoin’s ethos of transparency, security, and durability, while delivering tangible, risk-adjusted returns in today’s evolving crypto-financial landscape.

The Role of $YU: Bitcoin’s Liquidity Layer

$YU isn’t just a stablecoin—it’s a settlement and trading layer for Bitcoin in the broader RWA economy. Designed for maximum capital efficiency, it allows Bitcoin liquidity to move across chains, yield venues, and financial ecosystems.

And with features like self-custody collateral vaults and BTC-native staking through Babylon, Yala ensures that even high-net-worth Bitcoin holders can earn real yield without trust trade-offs.

This makes $YU the financial conduit for Bitcoin in the age of productive capital.

Yala is Bitcoin’s Bridge to Real Yield

The rise of RWAs marks a new frontier in decentralized finance. But without Yala, Bitcoin—the most decentralized, liquid, and widely held asset in crypto—remains sidelined.

Yala changes that. By enabling $YU, Yala gives BTC its long-awaited bridge to institutional-grade yield, regulatory-compliant assets, and multi-chain liquidity.

Bitcoin is no longer just a bet on future value—it is now a working, earning component of the on-chain financial system.

Yala is the protocol making this future possible.

Bitcoin was the beginning. Yala is what’s next.

We're excited to announce a strategic collaboration with Centrifuge, a leading platform for tokenized financial products as part of Yala RealYield. This collaboration will enable Bitcoin holders to seamlessly access yield from Real-World Assets (RWAs) tokenized by the regulated asset manager, Anemoy, across multiple ecosystems, unlocking new opportunities for Bitcoin’s liquidity.

Centrifuge empowers asset managers to tokenize, manage, and distribute funds onchain, while providing investors access to a diversified portfolio of real-world assets. Since its launch in 2017, it has become a core infrastructure platform for tokenized finance, combining onchain transparency with interoperability, capital efficiency, and institutional readiness. This aligns seamlessly with Yala’s mission to expand Bitcoin’s utility beyond simple store-of-value use cases.

At Yala, we’ve built a Bitcoin-native solution designed to channel Bitcoin’s immense liquidity into broader financial ecosystems, allowing users to unlock yield opportunities across DeFi and RWAs. With this collaboration, Bitcoin holders can access yield generated by funds tokenized via Centrifuge by bridging BTC into USDC - a currency chosen for its programmability, interoperability, and regulatory compliance - via Yala RealYield. This structured marketplace within the Yala ecosystems offers a curated range of RWA yield sources, each with distinct risk profiles, time horizons and return opportunities. Users can tap into RWA strategies generated by funds issued by Anemoy to earn stable, real-world yields while retaining Bitcoin’s security and on-chain accessibility.

“The real innovation here isn’t just connecting Bitcoin to real-world assets — it’s doing so in a way that aligns with the principles of decentralization while enabling Bitcoin to support more productive financial use cases. We're creating new pathways for capital to move across systems that were previously siloed.” – Bhaji Illuminati, CEO, Centrifuge.

This partnership brings a fresh source of Bitcoin-driven liquidity to Centrifuge’s RWA marketplace while offering Yala users exposure to institutional-grade yield sources through Yala RealYield. It empowers BTC holders to diversify their portfolios with customizable yield strategies, seamlessly integrated into DeFi. Together, Yala and Centrifuge are redefining how Bitcoin liquidity interacts with tokenized financial markets, driving its evolution in the world of RWAs.

“This collaboration marks a key milestone in bridging decentralized Bitcoin capital with regulated real-world asset markets. With Centrifuge’s leading RWA infrastructure and Yala’s BTC capital base, we’re unlocking institutional-grade yield strategies, bringing greater efficiency to Bitcoin liquidity.” - KaiTai Chang, Yala Co-founder & COO.

Stay tuned for more updates as we approach the mainnet launch. To learn more about Yala, visit us at yala.org or follow us on X @yalaorg 💚🏔️. 

About Centrifuge

Centrifuge protocol enables asset managers to tokenize, manage, and distribute tokenized funds on chain, while providing investors access to a diversified portfolio of high-quality tokenized assets. Founded in 2017 and backed by leading VCs, Centrifuge has been a driving force in the institutional adoption of tokenized assets and has championed industry initiatives including the Tokenized Asset Coalition, the Real-World Asset Summit, and the creation of widely recognized token standards.

Website | X | LinkedIn

About Anemoy

Anemoy is a web3 native asset manager established to advance Centrifuge's efforts in developing RWA products for bridging traditional finance and decentralized finance. Supporting the entire lifecycle of onchain asset management, Anemoy provides institutions with end-to-end services across compliance, asset management, and seamless integration of real-world assets into DeFi, spanning origination, tokenization, securitization, management, and distribution.   

Website | X | LinkedIn

About Yala

Yala is building a liquidity layer to unlock Bitcoin’s untapped yield across DeFi and RWAs. Users can deposit BTC and access seamless liquidity, enabling efficient capital movement and yield opportunities across ecosystems, chains, and protocols.

Website | X | Telegram | Discord | LinkedIn

The blockchain industry is undergoing a paradigm shift with the rise of Real-World Assets (RWA), and Yala is positioned at the forefront of this revolution. At Yala, our goal is to unlock Bitcoin’s liquidity, providing BTC holders with access to sustainable yield opportunities across DeFi, RWAs and more.

With this vision in mind, we are presenting Yala RealYield: a structured marketplace that consolidates all RWA-related collaborations within the Yala ecosystem.

Yala RealYield is not a standalone product. Rather, it is a dedicated platform that allows BTC holders to explore, compare, and invest in various RWA (Real-World Asset) yield sources, each offering distinct risk profiles, time horizons, and return opportunities. By enabling global, 24/7 trading, Yala empowers retail investors to diversify their portfolios with assets that were previously accessible only to the ultra-wealthy.

By integrating a diverse set of RWA providers, Yala RealYield empowers users to customize their investment strategies by selecting and combining various yield-generating assets—all while keeping their capital on-chain. Yala will also pave the way for novel use cases in collateralizing RWAs for loans within DeFi. In the long run, Yala plans to support the use of RWA assets as collateral to mint our stablecoin.

Traditional DeFi yield strategies often rely on highly volatile mechanisms, including liquidity mining, leverage-based farming, and synthetic asset exposure. While these models offer high potential returns, they also carry significant risk. With Yala RealYield, Bitcoin holders can access a stable, risk-adjusted alternative by deploying BTC liquidity into tokenized RWAs such as U.S. Treasury bills, private credit, corporate bonds, and real estate-backed assets.

Features of Yala RealYield

• A Curated RWA Marketplace: Users can browse, compare, and select from a range of yield-bearing RWAs, each with clear terms regarding risk, duration, and APY.
• Customizable Yield Strategies: Rather than committing to a single yield source, users can combine multiple RWA products to build a diversified portfolio tailored to their risk appetite and investment goals.
• Seamless Bitcoin Integration: BTC holders can bridge their liquidity into stable, institutional-grade financial products while maintaining on-chain accessibility and transparency.
• Institutional-Grade Access: All RWA providers within Yala RealYield are trusted platforms with clear compliance standards, ensuring secure and regulated exposure to real-world financial instruments.
• Compliance-First Approach: Yala will go through very rigid compliance processes to ensure that real-world assets - such as real estate - can be onboarded securely and legally. 
• Unmatched User Experience: Yala prioritizes usability to accelerate adoption:  
  • Institutional-Grade Wallet Solutions: Multi-sig custody, on-chain governance, and permissioned access cater to institutional requirements while maintaining decentralization.
  • Unified Interface: Users enjoy a single dashboard to mint, trade, and manage RWAs alongside DeFi activities - no more navigating fragmented platforms.  
• Incentivized Participation: Staking rewards on RWA and yield farming opportunities will attract both retail and institutional liquidity providers. 

A New Way to Earn Real Yield

Yala RealYield is designed for flexibility, allowing users to build custom yield strategies based on their preferences. The marketplace offers a variety of RWA yield sources, categorized by:

• Risk Profile: Users can choose from low-risk government bonds to higher-yield private credit markets.
• Time Horizon: Options range from short-term liquidity to longer-term fixed-income yields.
• APY Opportunities: Users can compare return profiles and select assets that meet their yield targets.

Yala RealYield offers structured yield packages with exposure to tokenized U.S. Treasury bills, private credit, real estate-backed assets, corporate bonds, and more.

Additionally, Yala will introduce the RWA Vault Allocation Framework, combining diverse yield sources into unified vaults with specific allocation weights. This approach mirrors traditional asset allocation frameworks, while leveraging the efficiency of Web3 and mitigating the risk of overexposure to any single asset class.

A New Era for Bitcoin Yield

Bitcoin is the largest pool of decentralized capital in the world, yet most of it remains underutilized. Yala RealYield is redefining BTC’s role in finance by bridging its liquidity into institutional-grade yield opportunities, offering a stable and secure alternative to speculative DeFi models. By combining institutional-grade compliance, lowering the entry barrier for high-value assets, fueling DeFi and RWA synergies with our stablecoin, Yala addresses the core challenges holding back the RWA industry while unlocking trillion-dollar opportunities. 

Over the coming months, we will introduce new integrations, expanded product offerings, and enhanced user tools, further strengthening Yala RealYield’s position as the leading RWA yield marketplace.

Join the Yala Community

Yala is building a liquidity layer to unlock Bitcoin’s untapped yield across DeFi and RWAs. Users can deposit BTC and access seamless liquidity, enabling efficient capital movement and yield opportunities across ecosystems, chains, and protocols.

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