Why XDC focuses on trade finance
Trade finance moves trillions of dollars a year on paper documents such as bills of lading, invoices and letters of credit. XDC positions itself as a blockchain for this market and for real-world asset tokenization: xdc.org describes it as supporting “trade finance, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, and enterprise applications”.
According to XDC's MiCA white paper, XinFin was the first layer-1 blockchain to join the International Trade and Forfaiting Association (ITFA), in 2020, and XDC was the first layer-1 selected for the Trade Finance Distribution Initiative (TFDi) (XDC MiCA white paper).
XDC trade finance projects
TradeFinex
Built by TradeFinex Tech Ltd in Abu Dhabi, it is a flagship XDC app for tokenizing trade finance instruments (MiCA white paper).
Contour
A digital letters-of-credit network originally backed by banks, it was acquired by XDC Ventures in October 2025 to relaunch it with stablecoin settlement (CoinDesk).
Native USDC
It went live on XDC on 17 September 2025, giving trade apps a dollar settlement asset (xdc.org).
The legal shift to digital trade documents
UNCITRAL's Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) lets digital documents carry the same legal weight as paper. The UK adopted the idea in the Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023, in force since 20 September 2023 (legislation.gov.uk), and other jurisdictions such as Singapore have similar laws. Blockchains like XDC aim to provide the records these laws allow.