On June 1, Travis John, head of institutional business at XDC Network, stated that the global trade finance market is approximately $15 trillion. However, the industry still heavily relies on paper documents, manual reviews, and multiple intermediaries, leading to long settlement cycles, high financing costs, and risks of fraud. XDC Network aims to digitize trade financing, cross-border settlements, and collateral management by putting trade documents like invoices and bills of lading on-chain, helping businesses reduce financing costs and improve settlement efficiency. XDC claims that some small and medium-sized enterprises could see short-term trade financing rates drop from about 30% through traditional channels to around 10%. Currently, trade finance is an important niche in the realm of real-world assets (RWA) and on-chain private credit, yet only about $700 million in trade finance assets have been tokenized globally, indicating that penetration is still in its early stages. The development of compliant stablecoins after the passage of the GENIUS Act in 2025 is expected to further promote the implementation of on-chain trade settlement applications. Additionally, XDC plans to acquire the trade finance platform Contour Network, supported by over 100 financial institutions including HSBC, Citibank, and Standard Chartered, in 2025, with plans to integrate stablecoin settlement capabilities into the existing trade finance network.