Sei Network recorded its highest-ever daily active address count and welcomed its first permissionless tokenized U.S. Treasury product during the week of January 26, 2026, as Ondo Finance deployed USDY on the chain. The same week saw a governance vote approve a network upgrade on the path to a major performance overhaul, and Circle activated a new cross-chain stablecoin transfer service covering Sei among 14 networks.

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USDY Arrives With Immediate DeFi Integration

Ondo Finance launched USDY on Sei on January 28, marking the product's tenth blockchain deployment. USDY is a tokenized note backed by short-term U.S. Treasuries and bank demand deposits, custodied by Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Across all chains, the product holds approximately $1.21 billion in total value locked, making it the largest single tokenized Treasury product by that measure, according to RWA.xyz. The launch arrived just days after the broader tokenized Treasury sector crossed $10 billion in total value on January 24, 2026, while the global real-world asset market exceeded $24 billion over the prior 12 months. The Sei-specific deployment reached roughly $52.1 million, with a current yield of 3.49% APY and $389.7 million in 30-day transfer volume; all RWA.xyz figures reflect data as of early March 2026 and are updated daily.

Four protocols integrated USDY on launch day: Saphyre (token swaps), Takara Lend and Yei Finance (lending platforms accepting USDY as collateral), and LayerZero (cross-chain bridging).

Ian De Bode, President of Ondo Finance, said the Sei deployment "broadens global access to tokenized U.S. Treasuries." Justin Barlow, Executive Director of the Sei Development Foundation, said the integration gives users "access to a high-quality, Treasury bills backed asset." The Ondo ecosystem has drawn notable institutional and political attention: in February 2025, World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance project with ties to the Trump family, purchased approximately $470,000 in ONDO tokens and subsequently entered a strategic collaboration with Ondo aimed at expanding real-world asset tokenization.

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Why This Matters Outside the U.S.

USDY is explicitly available in 173 countries, excluding U.S. persons. That scope is directly relevant to users across South Asia and Africa. A 3.49% dollar yield typically sits above what most local bank accounts offer in Nigeria, Pakistan, or Bangladesh, particularly given ongoing currency depreciation in those markets. Chainalysis ranked India and Pakistan among the top five countries globally for crypto adoption in its 2025 index, identifying South Asia as the fastest-growing adoption region. Nigeria alone accounts for roughly 45% of Africa's peer-to-peer crypto transaction volume.

The yield opportunity gains added context when paired with stablecoin payment infrastructure. According to Chatham House, conventional transfers from the United States to Pakistan cost over 3.5% of transaction value, while stablecoin-based transfers reduce that cost to near zero. USDY adds a yield layer on top of those savings. Pakistan has also moved to formalize its crypto sector, establishing the Pakistan Crypto Council in March 2025 and announcing plans for a dedicated regulatory body, the Pakistan Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (PVARA).

Several friction points limit near-term accessibility, however. New USDY mints carry a 40 to 50 day holding period before they can be transferred, limiting the token's usefulness for short-term needs like remittances and distinguishing it from a standard stablecoin. KYC requirements through Ondo's official interface may also exclude informally employed users, a substantial segment in both regions. Beyond those individual access barriers, Chatham House has flagged a broader macroeconomic concern: widespread adoption of USD-denominated stablecoins can accelerate currency substitution in African economies, complicating central bank monetary policy. Separately, CoinTelegraph has reported that developing economies are expected to drive real-world asset tokenization in 2026 primarily through real estate and commodities rather than Treasuries, suggesting that appetite for Treasury-backed yield instruments may remain concentrated among more sophisticated or diaspora-connected users in the near term.

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Governance Approves v6.3, First Step Toward Sei Giga

A governance proposal to upgrade Sei to version 6.3 passed during the same week. The upgrade introduces an EVM-only (Ethereum Virtual Machine) staking precompile and formally marks Sei's move away from Cosmos-based architecture. The chain is dropping Cosmos compatibility entirely as it works toward "Sei Giga," a ground-up rebuild targeting 200,000 transactions per second and sub-400 millisecond block finality. The Giga design centers on a new EVM execution client the team claims runs at 40 times the efficiency of a standard EVM environment. The architecture also incorporates a novel "autobahn consensus" multi-proposer mechanism targeting 50 times the throughput and 70 times faster block production versus current benchmarks, according to Blockonomi.

The Sei Network account on X said simply: "The road to Giga continues. v6.3 mainnet upgrade goes live next week."

For developers building in South Asia and Africa, the EVM-only transition simplifies tooling. Builders already working in Solidity can now target Sei without learning CosmWasm, the separate smart contract framework used in Cosmos chains.

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Circle Adds Sei to CCTP Forwarding

Also on January 28, Circle activated its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) cross-chain forwarding service on mainnet, with Sei included among 14 supported chains. CCTP is a burn-and-mint protocol that enables developers to move USDC between blockchains; the new forwarding layer automates execution on the destination chain and removes the need for recipients to hold native gas tokens on the receiving network. Circle plans to extend the service across all CCTP-supported routes by mid-2026 and to integrate it with Circle's Bridge Kit and Circle Gateway in the first half of 2026.

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User Records and App Activity

Sei reached 1.2 million daily active addresses during the week, an all-time high, alongside 2.2 million returning users. The Sei blog attributed much of that traffic to two applications: Match Fighters and Kindred AI. Kindred AI (ticker: KIN), an AI companion platform featuring more than 30 licensed IP characters, crossed 100,000 daily active addresses before its token launched on Binance Alpha on January 30, with simultaneous listings on MEXC and KuCoin. Sei's native DEX (decentralized exchange) also rebranded from DragonSwap to Saphyre, expanding from a single automated market maker into a multi-surface trading platform with a dedicated mobile app.

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Forward Context

Sei has processed over 5 billion cumulative transactions, according to BanklessTimes. The chain's total value locked stood at approximately $700 million in late January, up roughly 700% year over year from around $85 million. The chain has already onboarded RWA products from BlackRock, Brevan Howard, Hamilton Lane, and Apollo; the USDY deployment represents the first permissionless tokenized Treasury product on the network. Analysts suggest that whether the growing institutional footprint translates into meaningful retail adoption in high-growth markets will depend as much on onboarding friction and local regulatory conditions as on the underlying infrastructure. The v6.3 upgrade is one of several planned milestones ahead of the full Sei Giga rollout, targeted for mid-2026.