At XRP Ledger Apex 2024, the blockchain community was abuzz with innovation and collaboration. Among the leading voices at this event were Zoniqx’s Founder and CEO, Prasanth Kalangi, who is instrumental in driving transformative advancements in real-world asset tokenization. In an insightful interview with Ripple’s David Schwartz, they delve into Zoniqx’s groundbreaking work leveraging the Ripple XRP Ledger, showcasing how Zoniqx’s robust solutions are simplifying tokenization processes and shaping the future of decentralized finance. Join us as we explore their vision, strategies, and the potential of blockchain technology to unlock new opportunities for industries worldwide.
Listen to the full conversation here.
David: Today we're embarking on an exciting Journey as we set our sights on the horizon of blockchain innovation at XRP Ledger Apex 2024. Joining me are two esteemed guests Prasanth Kalangi, CEO and Founder of Zoniqx. Prithvish, Prasanth, it's a pleasure to have you both here.
Prithvish: Hey David! Really good to be here.
Prasanth: Pleasure to speak with you David.
David: You want to tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do and a little bit about Zoniqx?
Prasanth: It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I'm the Founder and CEO of Zoniqx. I started this company in 2016 when I got an idea. The company was officially formed in 2022, but we started working in 2017. At that time there was no term called tokenization. My background has been AdTech for a long time. I was working with the Big Four Consulting firms for quite some time and here we are.
David: Which of you do you think would be best to tell everyone what you guys are working on at Zoniqx and how it contributes to the XRP Ledger ecosystem?
Prasanth: I can take a stab at it. So we are eagerly looking forward to attending Apex 2024 at XRP Ledger. This will be first attendance and since we signed up with Ripple building RWA native capabilities on XRP Ledger, Zoniqx is very excited to present this very deeply and we have already done a little bit of presentation joint session at Digital Assets Week London and we're also going to do something at Austin Consensus which is happening right around the corner, May 28th. So the Apex XRP Ledger Apex 2024 is very exciting for me personally because it really represents a convergence of a lot of bright minds, young talent, and then people who are deeply connected with Web3 and want to foster the ecosystem at a broader scale and that's the beauty of it and then there's a lot of like open source community that's also going to be there and we are very excited to discuss about what we have done with XRP Ledger with respect to RWA tokenization and the standardization across it and also the protocols that we have built and that can be really given to the community and then see what magic they can do on the top of those.
David: I'm sure most of our listeners have probably heard about the announcement of a partnership between Zoniqx and Ripple. I understand you guys are going to be harnessing the robust scalable infrastructure of the XRP Ledger and integrate it into your Tokenization Platform as a Service, tokenization lifecycle management solutions. I guess why don't you start by telling us what those buzzwords mean?
Prasanth: So basically Zoniqx has got three main products. One is a white label platform, we call it Tokenization Platform as a Service, that's a turnkey solution for anyone, who doesn’t even know about RWA, to plug it in and then have it be up and running in 48 hours, that's one product. I'll expand more on that later. The second one is a framework that we invented, we call it the Tokenized Asset Lifecycle Management (TALM). So what it does is it starts from the regulation legality framework all the way to primary token issuance to token distribution to token trading and also DeFi operations of the token. These are all purely securities, these are fully under the regulations of the jurisdiction of the underlying asset wherever this is being done. That's the second product. And the third one is a protocol, a standard which we have built that is known as ERC-7518 in the Ethereum world and in the non-Ethereum world such as XRP Ledger or any other world that is non-Ethereum, we call it DyCIST, Dynamic Compliant Interoperable Security Token. This is a lot of words, but this is a holistic approach which Zoniqx has taken, and our partnership with XRP Ledger specifically to RWA tokenization is really to plug in this entire ecosystem of Zoniqx onto XRP Ledger by building native standard on XRP Ledger using trust lines which XRP Ledger is a very mature system there and leveraging and reusing that functionality and bringing the entire RWA ecosystem on to XRP Ledger and that's the most exciting part for us.
David: Wow I have so many questions, but I'll start with one that I think would probably be of the most interest to listeners. What's a real world tangible example of something where this would just be the perfect fit?
Prasanth: I'll give you two examples. Number one, we have done billions of dollars of commercial real estate, multi-family assets, real tangible assets based in Houston, based in California, and some parts of Florida. We brought them on chain and that is right from compliance, regulation, primary token issuance on the issuer side, representing them as digital tokens on blockchain, this is an EVM chain which we used when we started and then still an EVM chain which we use. We also help them to launch their entire token issuance, embedding the wallet infrastructure, the custody infrastructure, and also the payment rails including KYC, KYB, and AML processes in place, all in one in a white label method. This is commercial real estate which we have done. And the second one which we are also doing is data center projects, green data centers. It's a California based company, they have Cisco as one of their largest customers, they've been in the industry for about 20 years and we are doing their global data centers and it's an equity based fund that's backing to the data centers, so people can invest in the fund tokens that are going to be giving yield and also equity against the data centers which is an underlying asset of the fund that has got a certain yield and distribution. So that's a second project that is an interesting example.
David: Does your platform reduce the amount of blockchain expertise that someone would need to… let's say I wanted to launch a real world asset tokenization system and maybe I wanted to launch it on more than one chain or I'm not quite sure what chain I want, I don't have a lot of blockchain expertise. I imagine that since you're providing the sort of guts, that means that I don't need to have that much blockchain because like normally I would need a very deep understanding of exactly all the blockchain mechanisms. I assume that you probably remove a lot of that burden from your customers or your users?
Prithvish: Oh yeah, absolutely! You have really struck a chord here because this is one of the key things that we do and we are very proud of how far we have come in this space. We offer a completely beginner friendly platform, you don't even need to know what a blockchain is, you don't need to know that there's multiple behind the scenes. We like to think of it as being kind of like a chainless solution. You don't even have to think about the chain level abstraction. We abstract over it and let you do what you're here to be doing, through integrations with various partners, MPC partners etc. We make it so that you don't even need a wallet to come in and sign up. You don't need to install external apps, you just sign in, we use your local digital enclave, be through Apple Sign in, face ID whatever, and a wallet gets spun up for you, it is self-custodied, and it is also recoverable, and you get access to all of this functionality.
David: And I imagine because it's a service, if there are changes in a blockchain, you know new versions of the XRP Ledger software come out, when Ethereum had migrated from proof of work to proof of stake, I imagine like if I were trying to integrate with those blockchains directly, I would have to deal with all of those things. But since you're providing a service that sort of abstracts that way I imagine I do not have to think about any of that. Do you guys do all that worry for me?
Prasanth: We do all of that, yeah. So recently Polygon just deprecated their Mumbai testnet, and our clients didn't even know about it. We were working behind the scenes, and we were ready for it and they didn't even need to know about it. So that's the beauty of this platform, the clients are really focused on their business, they leave all the rest to companies like Zoniqx, and even any upgrades on XRPL that happen, any Ethereum folks, as you said, it's completely taken care of by us and then we are integrating every day with a new partner, we integrated with the Circle, Stablecoin, we integrated with multiple wallet providers, MPC wallet providers. All this technical jargon, the clients don’t need to know at all. They focus on their core business and leave all the rest to Zoniqx.
David: The amazing thing about an in person event is just these completely spontaneous conversations or the person who sits down next to you while you're eating or after a session you go to talk to the person who gave the session and someone else is asking them a similar question, that networking opportunity, there's just nothing like it.
Prasanth: I couldn't agree more. XRP Ledger Apex 2024 is a really unique opportunity because it has got all the best and brightest minds there networking, networking, networking. Don't be shy, come and talk, there could be a lot of use cases each of us has solved, exchanging those thoughts and ideas, and brainstorming, and a casual talk right there's no harm in having that, and then come prepared, be actively engaged. I'll tell you one story, small story David, so I actually met my Co-founder Sanjeev as part of one of these blockchain conferences, Web3 conferences, and then we teamed up. So things can happen really well and that's the unique thing about Web3, and especially XRPL community is a really strong community, and a very transparent, very tight community, with open-mindedness. I think that's the key. We really can't wait to be participating, and we'll also learn a lot. I mean we are experts in RWA tokenization, but there might be something about stablecoins that we want to learn, so there's a lot of opportunity for both sides.
David: It's a little bit of a different experience for me than probably for other people. It's kind of hard for me to walk around there, but I do try to network with people too and answer people's questions and try to do a little bit of matchmaking. It's always just a lot of fun, of course Amsterdam is fantastic. Alright, let's do our listener question segment. So this is the fun part. We answer questions from our listeners, if you look on Twitter or I guess it's X now, I'm still going to call it Twitter, @RippleXdev, we let people know who we're going to have conversations with and we offer listeners the opportunity to submit some questions. So let's see what we got from the community, they've been firing in a bunch of questions. Here's one for me from @cryptar2. Who are some of the most interesting people you've met in your years of attending Apex? I have to say it's the younger people that just blow my mind. It tends to be people between the ages of like 11 and 15, people in that age group they're just, their level of excitement for things is just off the charts, and one of the things that just amazes me is just the level of technical understanding that they have because you understand kids get excited about things when they don't often know what's going on. There's definitely some kids who are just excited and their level of understanding is not really ready but there's also kids who just have deep insightful questions. I sometimes wonder whether adults have prompted them to ask… I had one kid who walked up to me at Apex last year to ask me if I was Satoshi and I said no and he had interesting solid arguments for why he thought I might be. And I'm like those are actually, your theories are consistent with the facts, that doesn't mean they're true, but they are consistent with the facts! You know the kid had clearly done his research to make sure that there wasn't any documented proof that what he was saying was not true. By the way, not Satoshi, I wish I was, I probably wouldn't be working at Ripple. We have a listener question I think also from @cryptar2 for you guys. Who are you most looking forward to catching up with at Apex 2024? Me maybe?
Prasanth: Yeah, I know. I mean I love to catch up with you and hear your jokes. Your jokes really crack me up! I'm really looking at some of the topics about scaling financial products on XRPL, seamless user experiences, that's something that’s marked for me. And then there's another interesting topic which I saw NFTs for corporate bonds, which is an interesting topic which I'm looking forward to doing. And then also just like you said, I also love to interact with younger generations, younger kids, and there's a lot of new passion and ideas they bring up, and just like open-minded networking I really want to look forward to. And there's a lot of sessions, and if possible, I want to get into a couple of them.
David: So we got another question, where would you guys like to see Apex take place next year? Please come to Istanbul. Yeah we get a lot of requests from people who would love to see us in their local… I've never been to Istanbul, I'd like Apex to be there, I would love an excuse to go to Istanbul. How do you feel about Istanbul?
Prasanth: I went to Istanbul way back when I was studying in Germany, so that's like 17 years ago. I don't know how it is now, since then I've not been there. But, selfishly, I want you guys to come to Asia because there's a lot of action coming in Asia, or maybe UAE is what I would say, maybe Hong Kong or Bangkok or Dubai. I would say these are the three choices for me. I think Apex would do really well and the people are excited to welcome you guys.
David: There have been two times when I was going to go to India. One time Covid happened, and the other time the company I was going to meet with changed their plans. Very unfortunate I got cheated out of going to India twice. Alright, my favorite segment! I always do this at the end of Block Stars. And it's kind of cruel because I hate when people do this to me. They make you make predictions, make you pull out a crystal ball, and I don't like doing it, I mean I like doing it to other people, I don't like when people do it to me because you always worry that in 10 years someone's going to pull out your prediction and it's going to be completely and totally as wrong as something could be, but it's always fun. So we ask you guys to pull out your crystal balls and I guess I'll ask broadly where do you think the blockchain industry is going to be in the next let's say four to seven years?
Prasanth: There's like two thoughts. One is like there are a number of blockchains floating around right, there's a number of Layer 1s Layer 2s coming around. I believe there's going to be consolidation happening in those. Then there's the whole argument of public, private, hybrid chains, this is also going to be ironed out a little bit. Personally, I prefer public blockchains but the space we are in is a heavily regulated space and heavily compliant space in the RWA tokenization. So there's a little bit of education we have to do, and then in 4-7 years, I believe the number of blockchains is going to shrink. That's one thing and the second thing is that it'll be going into real use cases more, and more real adoption of use cases. I know we talk about bored apes, NFTs, and all this stuff, I believe that that's really now already in the back end, the foreground is going to be occupied by real world asset tokenization, programmable money, that's going to be changing lives. Stable coins, how we settle transactions in terms of the timeliness. So that's the second aspect. There's a financial aspect, digital money, programmable money, plus real use cases of real world asset tokenization, consolidation of blockchains, and then all these other stuff will become table stakes in my opinion. Having your KYCs, AMLs, and settlements and then wallets so this is what my prediction is. I think more real use cases, less number of chains, and more confidence, more clarity on regulation.
David: I think the consolidation of blockchains is probably a pretty safe bet. I think when any technology is new people try everything and just because someone comes up with an improvement on something doesn't mean the original thing immediately dies off but probably eventually the better thing will out compete the others. And so I think you will have this consolidation where only chains that find some real use case will continue to exist. I'm conflicted about the expansion of meme coins, it is kind of zero sum, and is a transfer of money from people who are not so smart to people who are in some cases ruthless and evil, but the reality is there's a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy in this industry not just from price like some of it is from price, like if you think something's going to go up in value you're going to want to buy it, which will drive it up in value. But it's not just that, if you think some technology is going to become popular… like you guys built this entire platform for real world asset tokenization. You didn't do that because you thought real world asset tokenization was going to fail and you were trying to save it, you thought real world asset tokenization is probably going to be a big thing, we think we could do that really well. I noticed that… and this is of course completely unsurprising, both of you thought that the things that you were working on would figure prominently in the future, and that's not because you think you're going to be so important that you're going to make those industries a success, although you might, but it's probably because you picked those sectors to work on because you thought they were the interesting ones and the ones that were likely to make sense and work. If Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb, we wouldn't be watching TV by candle light, right? Someone else would have invented the light bulb. So there's this sort of self-fulfilling prophecy aspect that people will work on and build the things that they think are going to be successful and so those will become the things that will be successful. And I'm often conflicted when I look at things like meme coins and to some extent even with NFTs that are collectibles. Collectibles have real value, people enjoy them but people enjoy meme coins, but also there's a predatory aspect you know you're paying $2,000 for a machine generated picture that you don't even really own, so I am a little bit conflicted about that.
Prasanth: I have one question for you David. What is XRPL's strategy for RWA?
David: Well, putting my XRP Ledger-person hat on, the Ledger strategy is to provide the technological base to allow people to build real world assets on it, to allow them to build them at low cost, to allow them to issue them and get the sort of life cycle experiences that they want and to enable companies like you. Obviously the XRP Ledger can't take on a retail customer directly, it can't form a business relationship, and so all it can do is provide the tools that people like you need to bring people onto it. Ripple as a company has a strategy to promote trust in XRP and the utility of the XRP Ledger, and so our strategy is to find companies and to get them building and to make sure that people understand what the advantages and what the use cases are around the XRP Ledger, and form partnerships with companies like Zoniqx to make sure that for people where the technology is a good fit for the problems that they have, they don't have technical barriers. And one of the biggest challenges that I think the XRP Ledger as a system has is that there isn't that much developer expertise. Like if you want to build a project on top of an EVM chain it's very easy to find developers, and so I think the big one is just to make sure that if you have a problem that the XRP Ledger is a good solution to and you never knew the XRP Ledger even supported real world asset tokenization then you're going to use an inferior solution and that doesn't benefit anyone. Or if you like the XRP Ledger’s fit, but you can't find a developer because there just aren't enough of them, so I think the strategy is to make sure that there aren't those obstacles.
Prasanth: I agree, thank you. I just need to throw it out there, it took us nine months to build on XRP Ledger natively on RWA and it is difficult; the system is so beautifully done and you have to spend a lot of time to understand every component of it coming from an EVM background, to shift the mental gears to see how it fits, all the pieces, it is different. So to your comment that is something that I would agree with, it took us nine months to build the entire engine on XRP Ledger.
David: And that's sort of the challenge, building to any blockchain from zero you know is a heavy task. And that's why you guys are important because if everybody who wanted to launch a real world asset tokenization project and said, “hey the XRP Ledger is a good fit for me, now I got to go hire a bunch of engineers, train them, and either find people who have XRP Ledger experience or train them,” and it's going to take nine months and obviously that's a non-starter. So we're glad you guys are here.
Prasanth: Yeah, they don't need to do that anymore now. Zoniqx is there, XRP Ledger is there.
David: Yeah! So, problem solved! I want to thank my guests Prithvish Baidya and Prasanth Kalangi. It was a pleasure hosting you on Block Stars. I'm looking forward to seeing both of you in person at Apex in a few weeks.
As Zoniqx continues to make strides in real-world asset tokenization, its innovative use of the XRP Ledger underscores the transformative potential of blockchain technology. By offering accessible, scalable, and regulatory-compliant solutions, Zoniqx is not only simplifying tokenization but also paving the way for broader adoption in industries ranging from real estate to green infrastructure. The insights shared by Prasanth and Prithvish at XRP Ledger Apex 2024 highlight the endless possibilities for collaboration, innovation, and growth within the XRPL community. With such pioneering efforts, the future of blockchain technology looks brighter than ever.
Zoniqx ("Zoh-nicks") is a global fintech leader headquartered in Silicon Valley, specializing in converting real-world assets into Security Tokens. It offers an interoperable, compliant infrastructure for the RWA tokenization market, enabling global liquidity and DeFi integration through its end-to-end ecosystem of SDKs and APIs. Zoniqx pioneers on-chain, fully automated RWA deployment on public, private, and hybrid chains. To explore how Zoniqx can assist your organization in unlocking the potential of tokenized assets or to discuss potential partnerships and collaborations, please visit our contact page.