Pharos Bets on ‘RealFi’ for Mainnet Launch and Why Its CEO Thinks RWAs Need a New Kind of Blockchain

As competition among Layer 1 blockchains intensifies, real-world assets (RWAs) are emerging as a key focus area for the next phase of ecosystem development, with platforms like Solana, Aptos, NEAR Protocol, Sui, and Avalanche exploring different approaches. 

Backed by $52 million in funding and launched alongside its $PROS token, Pharos is entering a crowded market with a specific focus.  The network targets two widely cited barriers to real-world asset adoption: fragmented distribution and the lack of infrastructure that meets institutional requirements for compliance and privacy. 

For Wish Wu, Co-founder and CEO at Pharos, that framing reflects a broader gap in how blockchain infrastructure has evolved.

“The question isn’t just whether a chain can process transactions,” Wu said. “It’s whether assets, users, compliance flows, and applications can actually operate together in one environment. That’s what we were validating with the Atlantic testnet.”

Competing in a Crowded L1 Field

Pharos enters a market where competitors have already established strong positions, reflecting a broader maturation of the Layer 1 landscape. Solana has become synonymous with high-throughput execution and retail-driven DeFi and trading activity. Aptos and Sui, developed by Mysten Labs, have focused on parallel execution and next-generation developer frameworks. NEAR Protocol has emphasized usability, while Avalanche has leaned into institutional adoption through customizable subnets. their underlying assumption.

“Most blockchains today are still general-purpose systems,” Wu said. “They’re incredibly powerful, but finance is something that gets layered on afterward. We think that approach creates fragmentation.”

Instead of adapting to financial use cases, Pharos is attempting to embed them directly into the network itself through what it calls “RealFi.”

From Fragmentation to Distribution

One of the core arguments behind Pharos is that tokenized assets already exist at scale, but remain difficult to use effectively. This fragmentation has been widely cited as one of the main bottlenecks for RWA adoption, particularly as institutions require predictable compliance and interoperability before deploying capital at scale.

Tokenized treasuries, real estate, and other assets have expanded rapidly, yet distribution remains fragmented across platforms, limiting how capital can move and be deployed. At the same time, institutions require tighter control over compliance, privacy, and data management before committing meaningful capital onchain.

Pharos is positioning its infrastructure as a solution to both issues by enabling users and institutions to interact with tokenized assets within a consistent, compliance-ready framework.

Once onboarded, participants can move, lend, trade, and settle assets across applications without the operational friction that typically exists between platforms. The goal is to allow liquidity to flow more freely across a shared financial environment rather than remaining siloed.

“Pharos is not just an L1 that supports RWAs,” Wu said. “It’s an asset-native RealFi Layer 1 designed to make these assets usable, compliant, and accessible from day one.”

From Testnet Performance to Financial Systems

Ahead of mainnet, Pharos’ Atlantic testnet served as a large-scale proving ground. The network processed more than 4.3 billion transactions across 209 million wallets in under a year, suggesting early demand and a degree of system readiness. 

At a technical level, the testnet demonstrated consistent high-throughput execution alongside sub-second finality, while also validating infrastructure across wallets, bridges, and RWA-focused applications such as vaults and asset distribution systems.

For Wu, the significance was not just performance, but coordination. However, translating testnet performance into sustained mainnet activity remains a challenge that many Layer 1 networks have historically struggled to overcome.

“For institutional-grade activity, performance alone is not enough,” he said. “You need assets, applications, compliance, and liquidity working together. Otherwise, it’s not a financial system, it’s just infrastructure.”

Liquidity From Day One

One of the more notable aspects of the launch is that Pharos is not starting from zero in terms of ecosystem activity.

More than 50 applications are expected to deploy at launch, spanning asset issuance, trading, and financial services. The network also enters mainnet with early capital formation already in place through its pAlpha High Yield RWA Vault.

That vault attracted over $15 million in initial commitments and reached its full $50 million capacity within days, signaling early demand for yield-bearing real-world asset products.

This early traction suggests an  effort to avoid the cold start problem that has affected many new Layer 1 ecosystems.

Projects building on Pharos gain access to shared liquidity, interoperable infrastructure, and integrations such as Circle’s USDC and CCTP, enabling regulated capital flows across applications.

“Institutions entering the ecosystem was once just a theory. Now it is happening, and this launch turns that momentum into something the whole ecosystem can actually use,” Wu said.

Rethinking Onboarding and Access

Beyond infrastructure, Pharos is also targeting one of crypto’s most persistent challenges, onboarding.

The network integrates both OKX Wallet and Topnod Wallet, developed by Ant Group, allowing access for millions of existing users without requiring entirely new onboarding flows.

“One of the biggest barriers in this space is still access,” Wu said. “If users have to jump through multiple steps just to interact with financial products, adoption will always be limited.”

The implication is that smoother onboarding could shift behavior away from speculation and toward actual usage, something that even leading ecosystems like Solana and Aptos are still working to fully achieve in the context of RWAs.

A New Phase in the L1 Competition

The broader Layer 1 market is entering a phase where the definition of success is beginning to shift.

The first generation prioritized decentralization. The second focused on scalability. Now, platforms are increasingly being judged on their ability to support real-world financial systems.

For Wu, that evolution is inevitable.

“If RWAs are going to become a major part of global markets, the infrastructure has to evolve,” he said. “It can’t just be fast, it has to function like a financial system.”With new networks entering the market, this shift is becoming more pronounced.With mainnet now live, Pharos is betting that this is the direction the industry is heading.“The goal is not just to bring assets onchain,” Wu said. “It’s to make them usable in a way that actually works.”

Whether this approach can deliver on its promises will depend on real-world adoption, particularly from institutions that require both compliance and scalability.