DeFi's Next Wave: Crypto Markets, RWAs, and the Road Ahead for Meta Pool with Lucio Tato

Lucio Tato on RWAs, institutional entry, and Meta Pool’s vision for chain-agnostic staking. Explore how simplicity will onboard the next billion

As Real World Assets (RWAs) blur TradFi-DeFi lines, staking protocols must choose between compliance compromises and innovation.

In this interview, Lucio Tato, co-founder of Meta Pool, outlines Meta Pool’s "light-touch" RWA strategy, prioritizing chain-agnostic simplicity for onboarding billions while leveraging intent-based architectures to future-proof multi-chain accessibility.

RWAs (Real World Assets) are booming, does Meta Pool see a role in staking tokenized treasuries or yield-bearing assets like T-Bills?

Meta Pool sees RWAs as a key growth area, but we want to maintain our DAO independency in Web3, and that implies only light connections to the meatspace jurisdictions. We’re exploring integrating RWA staking, but by helping launch regulated projects that can manage regulated RWA assets and then integrate the assets as yielding assets in Meta Pool.

How does Meta Pool view the interplay between liquid staking and DeFi protocols offering leverage or derivatives on staked assets?

We are offering users flexibility while prioritizing security and transparency. With our mpSOL option, we’re using leveraged staking while keeping complexity low and security high for the user. We believe that it must be simplified to protect the user. It is too easy to lose a lot of assets when you use leverage without a full understanding of the risks.

Are you exploring integrations with Layer 2s or zero-knowledge tech to scale staking operations more efficiently?

Yes in the case of Ethereum. We’re exploring integrations with Linea, Base and Arbitrum

What’s Meta Pool’s thesis on multichain staking vs. consolidation around Ethereum and a few dominant chains?

We believe the world will be multu-chain. We’re exploring integrations with near-intents, that can simplify even more for the user to move assets between multiple chains.

As institutional players enter crypto, how does Meta Pool plan to stay relevant or compliant in that landscape?

We are user-oriented and compliant to the Web3 space and code. In order to serve institutional players and regulated spaces, our approach is to incubate or provide grants to projects designed for that particular space.

What’s the long-term vision for Meta Pool, are you aiming to become a cross-chain staking aggregator, a DAO powerhouse, or something else?

We want to become the entry door for the billions of people that have not onboarded crypto already. We want to present a self-custodial, chain-agnostic, simple and safe application so the first experience for the new users is simple financial freedom and not a chaotic memecoin launch or very complex interfaces.