CP-2 Funding Request — Gem-Backed RWA Pool Preparation ($10M)

Centrifuge Governance Proposals
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1

Hi all — I’m submitting this RFC as an early-stage proposal to explore the feasibility of onboarding a fully verified and insured gemstone-backed RWA pool onto Centrifuge. The intention is to use this RFC to gather structured feedback from the community and DAO stakeholders.

The gem portfolio is currently held and fully documented under GIA grading reports, and the purpose of this funding request is to complete the professional valuation, structuring, and compliance groundwork required before presenting a Pool Onboarding Proposal (POP).

I look forward to collaborating with the Centrifuge community to refine this proposal and understand how best to align with existing pool framework, custody requirements, valuation standards, and governance expectations.

  • Winterdier

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[RFC] CP-2 — Funding Request to Prepare Gem-Backed RWA Pool (~$10M) for Onboarding on Centrifuge

Summary

We propose creating a Centrifuge Pool backed by a curated $10M gemstone collection, represented through a Delaware SPV and supported by custody, valuation, legal enforceability, and tokenization documentation.

This RFC requests $165,000 in treasury funding to complete the preparatory work required to advance to a full Pool Onboarding Proposal (POP), including independent valuation, custody analysis, jurisdictional structuring, legal design, and governance documentation.

The gemstones are presently housed in Florida, where they have been maintained for multiple decades with documented provenance. A U.S.-based legal wrapper (Delaware SPV) provides a clear and enforceable structure for tokenization and collateralization.

Motivation

Gemstones are historically recognized as collateral and valued stores of wealth. They are:

  • Durable

  • Insurable

  • Portable

  • Non-correlated to traditional capital markets

This initiative enables Centrifuge to:

  • Expand beyond credit-linked RWAs

  • Demonstrate institutional custody/valuation pathways for alternative assets

  • Attract family office and alternative capital

  • Continue leadership in RWA tokenization diversity

Asset Overview

  • Estimated pre-certification value: ~$10,000,000

  • Documentation:

    • GIA certification (grading, authentication, identity)

    • Decades-long custody provenance in Florida

  • Independent valuation to be finalized by Gübelin Gem Lab (Switzerland)

Asset categories:

  • Rubies

  • Sapphires

Jurisdictional Structure

To ensure enforceability and regulatory clarity:

  • Custody location:
    Florida (existing multi-decade vaulting custodian arrangement)

  • SPV legal domicile will be:
    Delaware

This combination provides:

  • U.S.-based asset custody

  • U.S.-based enforceable legal wrapper

  • Proven provenance chain

  • Reduced onboarding legal complexity

Funding Request & Budget Breakdown

We request $165,000 in treasury funding.

Category Purpose Cost
Valuation & Certification Gübelin appraisal, provenance confirmation $60,000
Legal Structuring & SPV Delaware SPV, enforceability, collateral agreements $50,000
Custody & Insurance Study Florida vaulting + insurance documentation $20,000
Tokenization Architecture Pool economics + redemption mechanics $15,000
Project Delivery (Sponsor Compensation) Execution of valuation coordination, legal onboarding, custody structuring, documentation, governance reporting, POP preparation $20,000
Governance Preparation & Compliance DAO coordination, reporting standards, POP documentation $10,000
Total Funding Requested $165,000

Budget reflects responsible execution, regulatory clarity, and contingency planning.

Deliverables & Milestones

Phase 1 (Funded by this CP-2)

  • Gübelin valuation and certification package

  • Custody insurance and jurisdiction documentation (Florida)

  • SPV legal structure and collateral documentation (Delaware)

  • Tokenization and pool architecture aligned with Centrifuge

  • Governance reporting framework drafted

  • Full POP prepared with supporting materials

Phase 2 (Post-POP)

  • Community-driven POP refinement

  • On-chain pool launch

  • Liquidity sourcing

Proposed Pool Structure

1. Legal Wrapper (Delaware SPV)

  • Clear enforceability

  • Established corporate governance precedents

  • Investor protection built into contract language

2. Custody (Florida)

  • Existing multi-decade holding history

  • Insurable custodial vault

  • Documented provenance

3. Audit & Recertification

  • GIA grading

  • Gübelin valuation

  • Annual reassessment option

4. Tokenization Architecture

  • Over-collateralized

  • Redemption mechanics defined

  • Quarterly reporting to DAO

Benefits to the Centrifuge Ecosystem

  • Strengthens Centrifuge’s leadership in alternative asset onboarding

  • Attracts institutional and family office liquidity

  • Adds desirable non-correlated collateral

  • Creates reusable framework for hard-asset backed pools

  • Enhances ecosystem diversification

Risks & Mitigation

Risk Mitigation
Valuation uncertainty Gübelin independent certification + annual updates
Custody risk Existing custody history + insurance + documentation
Legal enforceability Delaware SPV with clear claim language
Liquidity Conservative tranche model + over-collateralization
Novel asset class Transparent documentation + governance reporting

Governance Alignment

This CP-2 request reflects:

  • Responsible budgeting

  • Strong jurisdictional clarity

  • High-quality documentation

  • DAO transparency standards

  • Phased execution with clear deliverables

Next Steps

  • Community feedback solicitation

  • Revised CP-2 submission

  • Execution of funded deliverables

  • POP preparation and submission

  • Community review and onboarding

Conclusion

We request $165,000 from the Centrifuge Treasury to complete valuation, custody documentation, legal enforceability design (Delaware SPV), tokenization preparation, governance documentation, and POP development necessary to responsibly onboard a $10M gem-backed RWA pool.

We welcome review, questions, and adjustments to ensure the proposal best aligns with DAO standards.

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To facilitate structured discussion, feedback on any of the below points would be valuable:

  1. Legal Structure Alignment:
    Are there preferred SPV jurisdictions that historically map best to Centrifuge pool enforceability?

  2. Custody Expectations:
    What custody documentation and insurance proof would satisfy DAO diligence for a physical asset pool?

  3. Disclosure Levels:
    For valuation/audit reports (e.g., Gübelin), should the DAO prioritize:

    • full transparency publicly,

    • or attestations + redacted summaries?

  4. POP Timing:
    Would the community prefer the POP draft to be submitted concurrently with valuation work, or only after full documentation?

  5. Token Structure Preferences:
    For an initial launch, is the DAO more comfortable with single-tranche or senior/junior tranche liquidity structures?

  6. Risk Reporting Frequency:
    Quarterly reporting is proposed — are there governance reasons to prefer semi-annual instead?

All feedback will be incorporated into the revised CP-2 submission.

2

Hi everyone,
I wanted to open the floor for comments from the community, PEG, CCG, and GCG.
Happy to clarify specifics around:

  • custody (Florida),

  • SPV (Delaware),

  • valuation (Gübelin),

  • pool structure, and

  • DAO reporting.

Let me know what additional detail would be most helpful for review at this stage.

Thanks!
Winterdier

3

From a penetrating perspective, this is essentially a funding request for preparing an over-collateralized asset pool backed by gems, because the gems themselves do not generate incremental cash flow, only having liquidation value, and the proposal does not specify the pool’s post-operation revenue mechanisms or the SPV’s specific business activities (merely as a Delaware legal wrapper). Maintaining any potential pool operations may rely on external liquidity or liquidation, rather than the asset itself—this is not a securitization of commercial real estate and cannot form a closed-loop fund pool dominated by future revenues. I suggest you directly approach offline lending institutions for pledge financing. As for the upfront fees you mentioned (totaling $165,000, including Gübelin appraisal fee of $60,000 and other details), the information is still incomplete (such as no repayment path), yet it already requires the community to bear such specific development costs—I do not think this is reasonable and should be treated as project risk rather than DAO responsibility.

4

Thank you for the thoughtful and rigorous feedback — I agree with the core framing you’ve outlined, and I appreciate the opportunity to clarify the intent and scope of this RFC.

You are correct that the gemstones themselves are non–cash-flow-generating assets and should be treated as hard collateral with liquidation value, not as revenue-producing property. This proposal is not attempting to securitize future operating income, nor to position gems as an income-producing RWA in the way commercial real estate or receivables function.

The purpose of this CP-2 request is therefore more narrowly scoped: to fund the preparation and validation of an over-collateralized RWA structure, where the underlying asset provides principal protection, while cash-flow generation would occur at the pool or borrower layer, not at the asset layer.

Concretely:

  • The SPV is not intended to be a passive holding vehicle, but a collateral-owning entity capable of entering into lending or structured credit arrangements post-validation.

  • Any pool cash flow would be generated via external borrowers, structured lending, or tranche participation, with conservative LTV assumptions (e.g., 20–40%), rather than reliance on asset appreciation.

  • The gemstones function analogously to gold or art used in private credit facilities: a principal backstop, not a yield engine.

On the funding request itself:
The $165k requested is specifically to de-risk feasibility for the DAO — covering valuation (Gübelin), custody verification, legal enforceability, and pool-architecture design — before any onboarding or liquidity deployment is proposed. No pool launch, borrowing, or capital drawdown would occur under this CP-2.

I agree that without clear repayment mechanics, moving directly to a lending pool would be premature. That is precisely why this proposal stops at pre-onboarding preparation, allowing the DAO to assess whether the resulting structure meets its standards before progressing further.

Your suggestion to pursue offline pledge-based financing is well taken — and those parallel conversations are in fact ongoing. The motivation for bringing this RFC to Centrifuge is to explore whether a transparent, over-collateralized, on-chain analogue can be responsibly structured, rather than defaulting solely to opaque bilateral lending.

More broadly, this proposal is intended to align with Centrifuge’s longer-term RWA goals. While many existing pools rely on forward cash flows (receivables, credit funds, real estate income), a validated framework for principal-backed, non-cash-flow RWAs would expand the protocol’s design space and future addressable markets. If successful, this work could provide a reusable blueprint for onboarding other hard-asset collateral (e.g., commodities, collectibles, insured physical stores of value), increasing potential TVL, protocol fee generation, and institutional relevance over time — even if this specific asset class remains conservatively scoped.

If helpful, I am happy to update the RFC to explicitly clarify:

  • that asset-level cash flow is not assumed,

  • that yield is generated at the pool / borrower layer, and

  • that the CP-2 deliverables are limited to feasibility and validation rather than any commitment to deploy capital.

Thanks again for the detailed review — this kind of scrutiny is exactly what makes sense at the RFC stage.

5

From your description, this case resembles a private equity fund, very likely featuring a clear structured layering, where the mortgagor acts as the junior tranche and enjoys higher floating returns. The most fundamental metric for evaluating such funds probably lies in assessing the thickness of the collateral—that is, its liquidation value and liquidation timeliness. This is precisely why some so-called RWA private funds are now shifting toward on-chain asset collateral: it provides a more efficient liquidation trigger to maintain low bad debt rates.In the short term, RWA has relatively low friction for bringing standardized financial products on-chain. Equity, being non-fixed-income and lacking collateral, may see an innovative explosion. As for hard assets backed purely by collateral, I believe they will likely come after the tokenization of securitized real estate and accounts receivable factoring.The above are merely my personal opinions, for reference, discussion, exchange, and mutual learning only.

6

Thank you for the perspective. I think your framing is directionally correct and helpful.

Conceptually, the structure does resemble a private credit or structured fund model, where risk is layered and the most junior exposure absorbs first loss. In any eventual lending configuration, the sponsor would indeed sit in a junior position, with senior capital protected by conservative collateral coverage.

I also agree that the core metric is collateral thickness, including not just appraised value but liquidation certainty and timeliness. This is precisely why this RFC is scoped around validation work: third-party valuation, custody continuity, enforceability, and understanding realistic liquidation pathways, rather than assuming immediate capital deployment.

Your point on on-chain collateral enabling more efficient liquidation triggers is well taken. One motivation for exploring this structure on Centrifuge is to assess whether transparent, rule-based enforcement and reporting can partially offset the slower liquidation timelines typically associated with physical assets, even if such assets remain conservatively underwritten.

I also agree that, in practice, standardized financial RWAs (receivables, securitized real estate, credit funds) are naturally the lowest-friction onboarding path and will likely dominate near-term growth. This proposal is not intended to displace those categories, but rather to explore (at a feasibility level) whether purely collateral-backed hard assets can be responsibly represented once those standards are met.

In that sense, this work is deliberately positioned as incremental and exploratory, not as a claim that hard-asset collateral should leapfrog existing RWA categories. If the conclusion is that liquidation dynamics or risk-adjusted returns are not competitive, that outcome would still be informative for the protocol.

Appreciate the thoughtful input, this is exactly the kind of discussion that helps calibrate whether and when such structures make sense within the broader RWA roadmap.

7

I’m honored to have the opportunity to continue discussing this case of bringing hard assets on-chain with you. I’ve gained a good understanding of your ideas, so I’ll build on the points you raised to further my own learning and thinking.The core challenge now seems to be enabling instant and effective liquidation of hard assets. I believe this requires a public, transparent, and highly liquid standardized market.To that end, I’ve had some speculative ideas: imagine an on-chain public market for debt/collateral recovery, where market makers provide 24/7 quotes and acquire RWA collateral. The Centrifuge protocol could then seamlessly transfer the off-chain SPV equity or collateral’s on-chain representation to the market maker upon accepting a bid via smart contract.Abstracting away unaddressed frictions, this could significantly accelerate the on-chain adoption of hard assets. Similarly, if equivalent off-chain markets already exist—or if the hard assets come with pre-arranged acquisition agreements or price-hedging derivatives—the frictions of bringing them on-chain would be even lower.Of course, neither on-chain nor off-chain structures are as simple as my speculation suggests; they would require substantial work to implement.Thank you again for your reply—it’s keeping me engaged in productive thinking!