ZIG Finance Shifts to RWA: A Veteran Project's Last Stand ZIG, a project that launched its token in early 2021, is now five and a half years old. Back then, many people were still new to the crypto world, making it a true veteran project. Now with a circulating market capitalization of 60 million, it recently underwent a rare narrative upgrade. 1. Upgrade: The team that previously worked on Zignaly and ZIGChain unified its brand this year under ZIGFinance. In October, it announced the gradual closure of its old investment platform, concentrating resources on the initiation, design, and distribution of financial products. From investment platforms and blockchain development to RWA, it has consistently sought change. Its core business is essentially helping asset providers raise funds: asset providers need financing, investors want returns, ZIGMarkets participates in product design, and then distributes the products through institutions and partner platforms, charging fees for design, distribution, and after-sales services. Whether it can turn things around depends on whether people are willing to buy into its new business and how much profit it can generate. 2. The Key is Licensing: The new business focus is no longer on general-purpose public blockchains, but on regulated financial products. The most crucial aspects are its licenses and partner list. ZIG's transformation clearly targets the Middle Eastern market, particularly the financing needs of companies in the Gulf region. Markets' regulated business is conducted through a licensed entity in South Africa and is regulated by the FSCA under the FAIS Act. A private credit fund in Dubai's Zamanat, with a maximum size of $100 million, has been launched, primarily providing financing for SMEs in the Gulf region. It is regulated by the DFSA and only available to qualified professional investors. 3. Partners: Nomura's LaserDigital has invested in ZIG and partners with Markets. The partnership with WLFI is through Concrete's PayFi vault, providing short-term financing for cross-border payments and remittances using USD1. 4. Tokens and Profit Buybacks: The connection between the business and ethereum (0xb2617246d0c6c0087f18703d576831899ca94f01) is mainly through profit buybacks. According to the latest model, Markets uses a portion of its revenue to buy ZIG on the open market monthly, with a long-term cumulative target of 500 million tokens. Half of the tokens enter the ecosystem pool, while the other half are voted on by validators to determine whether they will permanently exit circulation or also enter the pool. In other words, each additional product launched provides an additional opportunity to earn fees. Whether sustained buying pressure can be generated depends on actual revenue and the amount of token buybacks. Currently, there have been four public buybacks totaling 5.37M tokens. Currently, @ZIGFinance is listed on platforms such as Gate, MEXC, Bybit, KuCoin, and Bitget. 5. If a comparison must be made, Ondo comes to mind, but a closer look reveals that their businesses are different. Ondo focuses more on products, while ZIG focuses more on organizing and distributing products. Ondo issues and sells products, while ZIG provides the channels, needing to find suitable assets and willing funds to buy them. Their roles differ, and the risks they need to monitor also differ. Theoretically, ZIG can be understood as a call option for on-chain private lending in emerging markets. The key is still business scale and controlling bad debts, ultimately turning the business into sustainable revenue and token buybacks. Furthermore, I feel that production and distribution are insufficient; a closed-loop system is essential. We need to explore strategies centered around trading; high-frequency trading casinos are the real money-printing machines. Turning things around isn't easy, but taking risks is better than waiting to die.