BitGo Aims to Boost RWA Tokenization Through Brassica Acquisition

Cryptocurrency financial services company BitGo has acquired Brassica, a company specializing in investment infrastructure for alternative assets, as part of a strategic move to revitalize the stale tokenization space.
Brassica offers infrastructure services for private securities and alternative investments, including custodial services, record keeping, and multi-asset transfer agent services. The acquisition is designed to bridge the gap between traditional finance and digital assets, a space in which BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said there is currently “almost no overlap.”
Belshe stressed that the acquisition's goal is to digitize the alternative asset industry, supporting both traditional private securities and blockchain-based assets. 
“We aim to create an infrastructure that allows alternative assets to transact at the same scale as public equities,” Belshe said.
Brassica CEO Yangro Lee emphasized the uniqueness of different alternative assets, pointing out that each asset class, from bitcoin to real estate to company stocks, has its own distinctive characteristics. “The world needs a diversity of assets and categories,” Lee said, emphasizing the broad applicability of tokenization.
While the deal's financial terms were not disclosed, its strategic implications are significant. Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization - the issuance of digital representations of assets on blockchain - has become a hot topic in the blockchain space. In December 2022, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink called it “the next generation for markets.” BlackRock, for example, used JPMorgan Chase's tokenized collateral network to tokenize shares of one of its money market funds, demonstrating a practical application of the technology.
Belshe acknowledged the technological feasibility of offering blockchain securities but emphasized a compliance challenge within the current financial system. “The hardest part is to make it all compliant and fit into the existing system,” he said.
In 2013, BitGo launched its trust company in 2018 to provide qualified custody services for digital assets. In August, the company raised $100 million in a Series C funding round, reaching a valuation of $1.75 billion. BitGo Trust is expanding its services, including a recent partnership with bitcoin asset management platform Onramp to roll out its asset custody product to multiple institutions.
Brassica, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a transfer agent, offers software-centric solutions via APIs, allowing investment platforms, broker-dealers, and asset managers to integrate their services seamlessly. Last year, the trust subsidiary received a trust charter from the Wyoming State Banking Board.
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Belshe believes that once the back-end infrastructure is in place, tokenization of securities across asset classes will be a “small leap.” He expects a significant shift toward tokenization over the next five years.