TL;DR
- COTI and Aureus.money signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to bring compliant privacy to real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.
- Aureus is building an institutional-grade, Hedera-native finance stack starting with AUg-a 1:1 gold-backed settlement token.
- COTI's Garbled Circuits technology will protect on-chain flows from front-running, MEV, and surveillance without sacrificing compliance.
- The partnership sets a new technical standard for RWA markets aiming to bridge TradFi and DeFi.
Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is one of the most promising but underdeveloped narratives in crypto. The challenge? Most blockchains either expose too much (sacrificing user confidentiality) or rely on black-box privacy models that regulators can't accept. Enter COTI x Aureus, a collaboration aiming to solve that once and for all.
On 16th July 2025, COTI announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Aureus.money, an RWA infrastructure platform regulated under Swiss law and built on Hedera. The partnership marks an important step in creating a financial stack that is privacy-first, compliant by design, and ready for institutions.
Aureus has one goal: to unlock illiquid traditional assets-think gold, real estate, private equity-and make them usable in DeFi without violating security regulations or leaking sensitive user data.
This is where COTI's role becomes pivotal.
What Is Aureus.money?
Aureus is a full-stack RWA platform regulated in Switzerland and tailored for enterprise-grade blockchain adoption. Its primary mission is to tokenize traditional high-value assets-like real estate, gold, and private equity-and make them tradeable and composable on-chain.
Its engine runs on a gold-backed settlement token called AUg, pegged 1:1 to real-world gold and fully ISO 20022 compliant. This token is designed to settle trades, collateralize DeFi positions, and eventually serve as a unit of account for Aureus's upcoming Adaptive Lending Protocol (AALP).
AUg will be the first institutional-grade gold token to integrate with Bancor's Carbon DeFi platform, making it immediately available to DeFi users via an AUg/USDC pair-a launch that gives COTI users first-mover access to tokenized gold. This architecture also includes a Real-World Bridge-a compliance-forward pipeline that transforms off-chain assets into fully legal, digitized securities on Hedera.
But scaling RWAs isn't just about token design. It's about data protection. And that's where COTI comes in.
Why Privacy is the RWA Bottleneck
The RWA market is projected to surpass $16 trillion by 2030 (Boston Consulting Group), but onboarding these assets on-chain introduces new attack surfaces:
- Front-running sensitive allocations
- Exposing proprietary deal flows
- Tracking high-net-worth wallets in real-time
- Spoofing liquidation positions and manipulating orderbooks
Institutions won't tolerate this level of visibility. Regulators won't tolerate complete anonymity either. That's why COTI's Privacy-on-Demand model is so crucial.
COTI's Role: Selective Privacy Meets Compliant Infrastructure
COTI is integrating its Garbled Circuits-a next-gen cryptographic primitive-into the heart of Aureus's Cold Chain module and financial layer. This tech encrypts not just user data but the computation itself, making it impossible for external parties (even node operators) to know who did what, when.
Here's what COTI enables within Aureus:
- Front-running protection: All transactions are privately executed by default
- Institutional confidentiality: Sensitive deal data stays protected
- Regulatory compliance: Selective disclosure ensures auditors or partners can access records if needed
- No black-box privacy: Everything is cryptographically provable, yet confidential
And all of it is integrated on Hedera, making it suitable for high-throughput environments with enterprise-grade reliability.
Why This Could Be a Huge Deal
The Aureus x COTI partnership sets a new template for how blockchain infrastructure can meet real-world regulatory and user needs.
- Aureus gets a privacy stack that respects compliance laws
- COTI proves real-world viability for its Garbled Circuits
- Hedera strengthens its RWA play with modular, flexible privacy
- Institutions gain a blueprint for private on-chain finance
From private equity funds to tokenized real estate and gold-based DeFi, this collaboration opens the door for trillions in traditionally illiquid capital to enter Web3-safely and compliantly.
Final Thought
Privacy, regulation, liquidity-normally, you pick two. The COTI and Aureus partnership shows it's now possible to have all three. By embedding privacy at the infrastructure level rather than slapping it on later, Aureus is doing what most RWA platforms haven't dared to try: giving institutions a real reason to go on-chain.
It's a blueprint for building the future of finance-quietly, securely, and with full compliance in mind.
