Ascend is being built by PSG Digital Labs, the technology arm of PSG Digital, a globally licensed asset management and digital investment platform. The protocol is designed to provide the first compliant credit market infrastructure for onchain regulated RWA collateral, building on the identity-aware token standard ERC-3643. Unlike generic tokenization approaches, Ascend's infrastructure is architected from the ground up for regulated assets: enforcing eligibility and transfer controls at the asset layer. This approach enables tokenized assets to function as productive collateral in permissioned credit vaults, and connects institutional RWAs to DeFi liquidity without compromising regulatory posture.

"Ascend is solving a critical gap in the market by building credit infrastructure purpose-built for regulated, real-world assets. Their compliance-first approach aligns directly with how institutions actually operate, and that's what makes them a natural partner for the Stellar Development Foundation. This is how RWAs move from being issued onchain to being actively used across financial markets at scale."

— Jose Fernandez da Ponte, President and Chief Growth Officer of the Stellar Development Foundation

"Stellar was built to be the settlement layer for institutional finance. This partnership cements the commitment of both our organizations to build infrastructure that supports identity-aware issuance, permissioned credit mechanics, and deterministic resolution on a network that was designed for exactly this purpose."

— Dennis O'Connell, CTO of PSG Digital and Co-Founder of Ascend

A Partnership Built on Structural Alignment

The strategic rationale for this partnership is straightforward: both Ascend and the SDF are building towards a world where regulated institutional assets operate on public blockchain infrastructure with the same reliability and compliance standards as traditional finance.

The Stellar network was purpose-built for fast, low-cost settlement and real-world asset tokenization, with existing institutional relationships including Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree, and Paxos. Ascend brings to Stellar a standards-first approach to onchain credit infrastructure: compliant tokenization via the ERC-3643 standard, permissioned credit vaults with oracle-verified collateral monitoring, and a Distressed Disposal Facility (DDF) providing institutional-grade liquidation and resolution.

Together, the partnership extends Ascend's regulated asset infrastructure to the Stellar network, enabling ERC-3643-standard assets originating on Stellar to access Ascend's permissioned vault and credit framework — and in doing so, establishing a shared foundation for compliant institutional finance on public blockchains.

April 21, 2026 — T-REX Network, the multi-chain RWA orchestration layer, has partnered with Ascend to enable ERC-3643 tokenized securities and real-world assets to function as compliant collateral in onchain credit markets. Ascend is a US-based protocol designed to operate within existing regulatory frameworks, building on the strength of the ERC-3643 standard and its institutional adoption to further power the growth of onchain markets.

This partnership connects two critical layers of the tokenization stack for the first time. T-REX Network provides the compliance infrastructure, ensuring that identity, eligibility, and transfer rules travel with the asset across every chain. Ascend builds on top of that foundation, enabling those same compliant assets to enter permissioned credit vaults and access onchain liquidity under explicit compliance, transfer, and resolution controls. This partnership is further bolstered by Apex Group's recent commitment to adopt the T-REX Ledger as its default infrastructure, with a target of $100 billion in tokenized assets by June 2027 — with the assets eligible for use across integrated credit infrastructure including Ascend's credit vaults.

When an ERC-3643 asset is posted to an Ascend credit facility, eligibility is verified in real time against the T-REX Ledger before any liquidity is released, ensuring no transfer occurs outside permissioned bounds. Through existing institutional partnerships, Ascend brings a pipeline of over $8 billion in institutional-grade RWAs ready for deployment across these credit markets.

Tokenization Proved Assets Can Go Onchain. It Did Not Prove Markets Would Form Around Them.

The first wave of tokenization solved issuance. But issuance alone does not create a market. For regulated assets to truly scale with tokenization, they need to do more than exist onchain. They need to be borrowed against, generate yield, and move to wherever liquidity exists — all without breaking a single compliance rule.

Most DeFi credit infrastructure was built for crypto-native assets, which in practice means anonymous users, instant liquidations, and assets that can be priced in real time. These assumptions break down when dealing with regulated tokenized securities, which depend on identity verification, compliance rules, and orderly resolution mechanisms. The result: compliant assets exist onchain, but with nowhere to go. Issuance without liquidity is not a market.

A Complete Stack for Compliant Onchain Credit

T-REX Network is the compliance layer. Built on ERC-3643, the standard already used to tokenize more than $32 billion in assets, the T-REX Ledger acts as the single source of truth every connected chain references before settling a transaction. Compliance, identity, and transfer rules stay attached to the asset across every chain it touches.

Ascend builds the credit layer on top. Through permissioned credit vaults, oracle-verified risk data, and eligibility-aware issuance, Ascend enables ERC-3643 compliant assets to be posted as collateral and used to access onchain liquidity — while maintaining the full compliance and resolution controls that regulated markets demand. Ascend was built specifically with regulated and restricted securities in mind, building on the increasing recognition that ERC-3643 has had among regulators and institutions.

From Compliant Issuance to Productive Capital

"T-REX Ledger was built to be the compliance backbone of the multi-chain tokenization era, ensuring that regulated assets can move freely across chains without breaking a single rule. Ascend is the natural next layer. By enabling ERC-3643 assets to function as productive collateral in onchain credit markets, this partnership turns tokenization from an issuance exercise into a functioning market. That is what institutional scale actually requires."

— Joachim Lebrun, Co-Founder of the T-REX Network

"The institutions we work with don't just want compliant issuance. They want their capital to be productive. Ascend's eligibility-aware vaults and oracle-verified risk data are built precisely for that: taking ERC-3643 assets and connecting them to onchain liquidity without sacrificing a single compliance control. T-REX Network's cross-chain infrastructure, built on the institutionally trusted foundation of ERC-3643, will finally close the gap between tokenization and a functioning market."

— Dennis O'Connell, CTO of Ascend

We're confident that through enhanced support, secure offchain services, and the backing of Chainlink's vibrant community, we can accelerate awareness of Ascend, supported by PSG Digital's institutional expertise, and significantly increase institutional adoption — enabling a new class of fully onchain, composable RWAs by providing financial institutions with the infrastructure rails, compliance, and institutional-grade services that sophisticated parties require.

Ascend: The World's First Onchain Investment Banking Infrastructure

Ascend is a US-focused, end-to-end real-world asset securities and capital markets protocol that seamlessly bridges institutional issuers from origination, structuring, permissioned tokenization, and collateralization into permissionless DeFi. Built on the success of the ERC-3643 standard and PSG Digital — a leading global asset manager for digital assets — this new marquee capital markets infrastructure, launched on Ethereum and powered by Chainlink, introduces a scalable, compliance-first architecture designed to bring institutional-grade RWA issuance onchain at scale.

Ascend brings three key value offerings to the RWA ecosystem:

• Flagship yield-bearing assets. PSG and its partners are introducing flagship yield-bearing assets in collaboration with well-known institutional partners. PSG provides the investment capabilities and product structuring that enable these flagship assets.
• Real yield via the PEAK token. The PEAK token will provide real yield from the Ascend DAO Treasury, sourced from RWA fund yield, protocol fees, and tokenomics — and can be staked and redeemed for stablecoins. PEAK delivers real yield, real utility to incentivize and power the protocol, and real governance for the Ascend DAO.
• Permissioned Vaults. Ascend brings meaningful innovation to RWAs by creating the world's first Permissioned Vaults, enabling ERC-3643 tokens to be collateralized and used to generate ERC-20 stablecoins or digital twins for use in DeFi.

Ascend unifies several key challenges. It is a U.S.-based platform designed to capture emerging regulatory clarity and growing market demand in the U.S., catalyzing billions in new issuance and reshoring of assets back to U.S. markets. Ascend bridges the divide between permissioned onchain securities, such as ERC-3643 tokens and the incentives and opportunities found in DeFi via Permissioned Vaults — which will be open-sourced, follow an open standard, and be proposed as an EIP in collaboration with key partners, including Chainlink as a critical enabler. Ascend will be natively onchain, reimagining capital markets infrastructure, services, and operations for financial institutions on blockchain rails end to end.

Ascend is transforming the landscape of onchain capital markets and RWAs by bringing together a fully integrated, institutionally aligned suite of capabilities — unlocking an end-to-end solution that has never before existed.

Why We Joined Chainlink Build

Ascend would not be possible without the key innovations delivered by Chainlink. While the idea of an onchain investment banking infrastructure had been considered before, it only became feasible with the development of Chainlink technologies. The Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE), CCIP, Price Feeds, and the Chainlink Automated Compliance Engine (ACE) are the key unlocks that provide sufficiently decentralized data infrastructure to support sophisticated pricing, quantitative risk calculations, dynamic rules and compliance datasets, live data, and the complex data payloads that accompany real securities onchain.

As part of Chainlink Build, Ascend will receive key benefits, including access to new Chainlink product alpha and beta releases, among other program advantages. In exchange for these services, Ascend will allocate a percentage of its native token supply to make it available to Chainlink service providers, including stakers, over time. These mutually aligned economic incentives enable both communities to support one another.

"We're excited to join the Chainlink Build program to bring the full power of onchain capital markets infrastructure to life through Chainlink's fully realized platform."

— Dennis O'Connell, CTO of Ascend and President of the ERC-3643 Association