Kadena Launches $50 Million Incentive Program, Focusing on the RWA Track

Founded in 2016, the public blockchain Kadena recently announced the launch of an incentive program worth up to $50 million, aimed at regaining market attention through the currently popular RWA sector. This series of new developments has sparked widespread interest in the industry. This article will delve into Kadena's recent strategic initiatives, development history, and its unique technical architecture, as well as explore whether this large-scale incentive program can bring new development opportunities and its potential in the RWA field.

Unique Technological Background and Development History

Kadena was co-founded in 2016 by Stuart Popejoy and Will Martino, both of whom have experience working for financial giants. Stuart Popejoy previously led the blockchain excellence center of a large bank, responsible for the development of core distributed ledger infrastructure. Will Martino served as the chief engineer for a project and held the position of technical director on the cryptocurrency advisory committee of a regulatory body. They were involved in developing the infrastructure for the first version of a digital stablecoin used in interbank circulation.

This blockchain practice experience derived from traditional finance gives Kadena an "enterprise-grade" or "institutional-grade" design philosophy from the very beginning.

Kadena's core technological innovation lies in its unique Chainweb architecture, which is a scalable, multi-chain parallel proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism. Chainweb is not a single blockchain but a network composed of multiple independent, concurrently operating peer chains that are interconnected through a "weaving" method. Each chain mines independently and is capable of processing transactions in parallel. This design approach is significantly different from other types of PoW chains on the market, which is why Kadena positions itself as the only programmable L1.

Under this design architecture, Kadena theoretically has a very high throughput. In 2020, with the expansion of 20 chains, Kadena claimed that its theoretical TPS reached 480,000, far exceeding that of other public chains during the same period.

With its unique background and technological advantages, Kadena once became a star among public chains since its establishment. In 2021, its token reached a peak price of $27, increasing more than 100 times from the early 2020 price of $0.2, with its market value once approaching $4 billion. Additionally, the Kadena network quickly expanded to 20 chains at its launch, becoming the fastest POW public chain at that time.

Details of the $50 Million Incentive Program

On May 20, 2025, Kadena announced the launch of a $50 million incentive program aimed at promoting the development of Chainweb EVM, RWA tokenization, and AI-driven blockchain solutions.

According to official information, $25 million of the total $50 million fund pool will be specifically used to support compliant RWA tokenization projects. The remaining $25 million will be used to support projects built on the Kadena multi-chain EVM-compatible network (Chainweb EVM) and AI integration projects. This funding is non-equity support, meaning the funded projects do not need to give up equity.

The first RWA field beneficiary of Kadena's new incentive program is CurveBlock, a UK company that received $400,000 in funding in June 2025. Established in 2018, CurveBlock is a UK proptech startup focused on sustainable real estate investment. In terms of background, CurveBlock is the first real estate company accepted into the UK Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS)). This also means that CurveBlock's ability to become the first beneficiary of Kadena is closely tied to compliance.

In addition to providing financial support, Kadena has also committed to offering technical assistance, project development advice, marketing, and promotion.

RWA is a popular track in the market in recent years, and many established public chains are actively seeking transformation through this narrative. In addition to launching incentive programs, Kadena has recently developed an RWA token standard based on its native smart contract language Pact, which references Ethereum's EIP-3643. This standard aims to enforce on-chain permissions and regulatory controls, supporting compliant asset issuance, trading, and redemption.

Review and Challenges of Historical Incentive Programs

It is worth noting that this is not Kadena's first large-scale incentive program. In 2022, facing challenges of overall market downturn and reduced attention, Kadena launched an incentive program with a total amount of up to $100 million, aimed at funding the development and adoption of projects in the Kadena ecosystem, such as gaming, metaverse, NFTs, Web3, DeFi, and DAOs.

However, based on the data performance, the 100 million USD incentive program in 2022 did not significantly enhance Kadena's market attention and community activity. Its price remains on a downward trend, with the TVL on the network dropping to several hundred thousand dollars at its lowest point in 2023. As of June 13, 2025, its TVL was only 940,000 USD, and the market value of stablecoins was approximately 180,000 USD.

The $50 million incentive program this time is very similar to the program in 2022 in terms of market cycles, both being launched after the first peak of a bull market. However, the current market trends still show uncertainty, and if a market trend similar to that of 2022 occurs, Kadena's incentive measures may face challenges.

In addition, unlike other public chains that directly incentivize users, Kadena's incentives are more geared towards project parties. In the absence of a user base, project parties may face greater investment risks when choosing Kadena solely for uncertain incentives. Some promotional programs launched by Kadena aimed at users offer relatively limited incentives, which may struggle to attract a large number of participants.

Despite the popularity of the RWA narrative and the impressive scale of the $50 million incentive, Kadena may need to consider how to gain market and community recognition in a more appealing way to ensure that this incentive program can achieve substantial results.