Neko Protocol

1. Problem Statement

• What real-world problem are you solving?

Owners of illiquid RWAs such as real estate, unpaid invoices or private equity have issues accessing capital. TradFi offers limited options to use these as collateral, because they ask for high fees, lengthy processes and rejection due to risk management. Also, these no place to lend RWAs directly to people who seek asset-backed returns. This locks up trillons of dollars in asset value and restricts liquidity for real-estate or SME holders. Also, this limits investors access to diversified, real-world yield opportunities.

• For whom is this a problem (which users, organizations, or communities)?

This is a problem for SMEs, as some requiere liquidity and can’t have access to it due to high collateral requirements or lack of credit history. Also, individual RWA owners are affected because they hold illiquid real estate ($280 million market) or tokenized stocks/private equity. Now, they can’t borrow against it because of bank processes and high rates. Also, investors looking for stable yields are affected by low yield offers like government bonds (2-4% APY) or bank savings (<1% APY), etc.

• Why is this problem urgent or important now?

We need immediate action because the opportunity is there as the SME Financing market ($5.2 trillion) is growing by 5-7% annually. Also, more than 90% of all real estate market and invoices are illiquid, only 10% is used as collateral. Finally, the investors are shifting from low-yield bonds to DeFi for more than $100 billion annually. And this is expected to frow to more than $500 billion by 2030.

2. Target User and User Need

• Who is your primary user?

RWAs holders, SMEs, institutions.

• What is their core need or pain point?

They need liquidity but they can't provide their RWAs as collateral on blockchain. That's why they opt into bank loans that are highly inefficient and expensive. Also, their RWAs are just static and are NOT generating any yield.

• How do they currently solve this (workarounds, existing tools, manual processes)?

They opt to bank loans when they need liquidity, or they invest in low yield offers like government bonds (2-4% APY) or bank savings (<1% APY), etc. This makes no sense as they could gain MUCH more using our solution.

3. Solution Overview

3.1 Main Idea

• One paragraph describing your solution in plain language.

The liquidity layer and DeFi protocol for RWAs.

Neko is a liquidity layer that lets users borrow against tokenized RWAs, or lend capital against them, creating real yield backed by real assets.