rTokens Go DeFi, Dividends Find Their Owners — Merkl Has the Memo

Reality, the tokenization platform within Bitget’s rToken ecosystem, has partnered with Merkl to route stablecoin dividends to eligible rToken holders whose assets are deployed across decentralized finance protocols. The integration addresses a tokenization challenge: dividend eligibility can be difficult to verify when assets are held in smart contracts rather than directly in investors’ wallets.

Merkl’s reward forwarding technology will identify the beneficial owners of rTokens deposited with supported lending platforms, liquidity pools and staking contracts. The system can trace assets through multiple layers of smart contracts and use protocol-specific fees to determine eligible dividend distributions, allowing Reality to distribute rewards based on the holder’s underlying ownership rather than the location of the rToken on-chain.

Users and developers can check whether a contract is compatible with the system through Merkl Studio’s Forwarder Scan tool. Reality will continue handling the issuance of rTokens and dividends on the crypto exchange.

“The challenge with assets held in DeFi is knowing who sits behind each position,” stated Merkl co-founder and CEO Pablo Veyrat. He then added, “Our forwarder technology traces ownership through nested smart contracts and tells Reality exactly who holds what, so dividends can reach the right people wherever their tokens are deployed.”