Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTJackson Alton HinkleFri, July 31, 2026 at 9:45 PM GMT+2 2 min read1inch, a leading decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, just announced the launch of it's new shared liquidity protocol, Aqua. It promises to improve efficiency and unlock liquidity for users across networks.Sergej Kunz, co-founder and CEO at 1inch, joined TheStreet Roundtable to talk about the launch and describe where those efficiency gains are actually being made.Related: American crypto exchange owner warns of 'Chinese walls' after $19B market crashRWAs need liquidityKunz frames Aqua's efficiency as a new model of liquidity provisioning built for the tokenized-asset wave."RWAs are coming into DeFi, and RWAs need our infrastructure to be able to have proper liquidity in our space," he said.A recent study, commissioned by 1inch, found that roughly 80% of liquidity on decentralized exchanges sits idle at any given time. That equates to around $1.6 billion that isn't earning anything.For thin and newer markets such as tokenized RWAs, that inefficiency can be fatal.The killer use-caseTokenized equities have exploded globally despite not being available to U.S. investors yet. For users outside the U.S., there are already 100s of tokenized stocks available for purchase through Robinhood, Kraken, Ondo, and more."You can just buy all the top ten RWAs from Backed's xStocks, Robinhood or whatever, and make trading positions among them," Kunz said. "You could, theoretically, set up a trading pair for SpaceX and Apple stock. And then you have SpaceX–Tesla, and then Tesla–Apple, and then Microsoft. It's a construct that allows you to benefit from the volume that comes from the movement of the RWAs."More news:Zircuit co-founder Jan Gorzny says the tech blockers to institutional DeFi are goneCoinbase Q2 earnings miss Wall Street estimates