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

Founded in 2016, the public blockchain Kadena recently announced an incentive program worth up to $50 million, seemingly aimed at regaining market attention through the currently popular RWA track. This move has sparked widespread discussion in the industry. This article will delve into Kadena's latest strategies, development history, and technical architecture, exploring whether this large-scale incentive program can bring new development opportunities and its potential in the RWA field.

"Programmable POW" Public Chain Created by Financial Elites

Kadena was co-founded by Stuart Popejoy and Will Martino in 2016. Both founders previously worked at a large financial institution, where before founding Kadena, Stuart Popejoy led the institution's blockchain excellence center, responsible for developing core distributed ledger infrastructure. Will Martino served as the chief engineer of an open-source blockchain project and was the technical lead on a cryptocurrency advisory committee for a regulatory agency. They participated in developing the infrastructure for the first version of a digital stablecoin for interbank circulation.

This blockchain practice experience, rooted in traditional finance, gives Kadena an "enterprise-level" or "institutional-level" 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 rather a network composed of multiple independent peer chains that are interconnected through a "weaving" method, operating simultaneously. Each chain mines independently and is capable of processing transactions in parallel. This design approach also differs significantly from other types of PoW chains on the market, thus positioning Kadena as the only programmable L1.

In this design architecture, there is theoretically a very high throughput. In 2020, under the expansion of 20 chains, Kadena claimed that the theoretical TPS reached 480,000. This data value far exceeds that of other public chains at the same time, including a certain high-performance public chain known for its speed.

With the halo of its financial background and technological advantages, Kadena became a star among public chains since its establishment. In 2021, its token reached a peak price of $27, which was more than 100 times higher than the $0.2 at the beginning of 2020, with a market capitalization nearing $4 billion at one point. Moreover, the Kadena network quickly expanded to 20 chains shortly after its launch, becoming the fastest POW public chain at that time.

High-stakes RWA: Can 50 million in incentives break the deadlock?

However, Kadena's brilliance faded away with the end of the bull market in 2021. Since 2021, its price has plummeted significantly, and its market value has dropped to around $150 million. Its official blog has not been updated since 2023, and there has been little news about Kadena on social media.

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. This news has also brought the market's attention back to this established public chain.

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 that the funded projects do not need to give up equity.

The first RWA sector beneficiary of Kadena's new incentive program is the UK-based company CurveBlock, which received a funding of $400,000 in June 2025. Founded 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's Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS)). This also means that the reason CurveBlock could become the first beneficiary of Kadena is closely related to compliance.

In addition, Kadena proposed that besides providing financial support, it will also offer technical assistance, project development advice, marketing, and promotion.

However, Kadena has not specified how much funding each supported enterprise will receive, nor has it disclosed the specific criteria for funding. As of now, the only publicly known supported enterprise is CurveBlock.

RWA is a popular sector in the market in recent years, and many established public chains are actively seeking transformation through this narrative. For example, a well-known public chain has also been expanding in this direction recently. In addition to launching incentive programs, Kadena has also 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.

Previous 100 million USD incentive failed, funding plan becomes a difficult issue

It is worth noting that the $50 million incentive program launched by Kadena is not the first of its kind. In 2022, during a phase of overall market decline and decreased attention, Kadena also launched an incentive program totaling up to $100 million to fund the development and adoption of projects in the Kadena ecosystem, including gaming, the metaverse, NFTs, Web3, DeFi, and DAOs.

According to Kadena's official annual review at the end of 2022, the $100 million incentive program received "overwhelming attention and hundreds of applications," with "a total of 9 projects being funded in the first batch," some of which have already "achieved extraordinary results." Looking through the subsequent quarterly summaries, it can be seen that the program has gradually announced some projects, but ultimately no overall description of the incentive program was found, and no specific funding amounts were mentioned at the time of each funded project announcement.

From the performance of the data, the $100 million incentive program has not been able to enhance Kadena's market attention and community activity. On one hand, its price continues to decline, while on the other hand, the only visible TVL-related data on the network has dropped to several hundred thousand dollars at its lowest point in 2023. As of June 13, its TVL was only $940,000, with the stablecoin market cap at approximately $180,000.

Returning to the current $50 million incentive program, the market cycle launched is extremely similar to that of 2022. Both occurred after the first peak of a bull market. However, we currently cannot predict whether the subsequent market cycle trend will replicate the overall bear market of 2021-2022 or open up a new, larger market cycle. Nevertheless, to some extent, if Kadena's incentive measures encounter a market trend similar to that of 2022, it may face another challenge.

In addition, unlike other public chains that directly incentivize users, Kadena's incentives are more aimed at project parties. In the absence of user volume, project parties may face greater investment risks by choosing Kadena solely for uncertain incentives. Moreover, looking closely at some of the user-oriented promotional programs launched by Kadena, the content of the incentives requires at least 4 weeks of promotion, followed by a lottery, where 50 lucky winners can receive 40 KDA each. Based on the current price of KDA at $0.48, a user's promotion over a month may not even yield a reward of $20, making the cost-effectiveness of such incentives seem somewhat lacking.

Therefore, although the narrative of RWA is popular and the $50 million incentive is substantial, it seems that what Kadena needs to consider at this moment is how to gain market and community recognition in a more sincere manner. Otherwise, this $50 million incentive may face significant challenges again.