This article was published by Aquarius Capital in conjunction with Klein Labs

Introduction

Since 2024, Real-World Assets (RWA) have reemerged as one of the core narratives in the crypto market. From s

tablecoins to U.S. Treasuries, and even experimental stocks and non-standard assets, the on-chain transformation of real-world assets is transitioning from a validation phase to an expansion phase. This shift is driven not only by technological maturity but also by a clearer global regulatory environment and the proactive embrace of blockchain infrastructure by traditional finance. This wave of RWA enthusiasm is not accidental. It is the result of multiple converging factors:Macro Context: Sustained high global interest rates have prompted institutional capital to reassess on-chain yield instruments.

• Policy Evolution: Major regulatory bodies in the U.S. and Europe are gradually establishing frameworks for “regulated tokenized assets,” expanding the compliance space for projects.

• Technological Advancements: Infrastructure such as on-chain settlement, KYC modules, institutional wallets, and permission management is becoming increasingly mature.

• DeFi Integration: RWAs are no longer just “wrapped” off-chain assets but are becoming integral components of on-chain financial systems, offering liquidity, composability, and programmability.

Data shows that as of August 2025, the total on-chain RWA market size (excluding stablecoins) has reached over $25 billion, while the stablecoin market has surpassed $250 billion in value. RWAs are now seen as a critical interface for bridging Web3 and Web2 finance, as well as a key track for driving mainstream adoption of on-chain finance.

The traditional financial system relies on centralized registries and multiple layers of intermediaries, which inherently create structural inefficiencies and act as bottlenecks to asset circulation and financial inclusion:

• Limited Liquidity: Real-world assets like real estate, private equity, and long-term bonds face high transaction thresholds (e.g., million-dollar minimum investments), long holding periods (years or even decades), and limited circulation channels, locking up significant capital and hindering efficient allocation.

• Cumbersome Settlement and Custody Processes: Asset issuance, trading, and clearing depend on brokers, clearinghouses, and custodian banks, resulting in complex, time-consuming processes (e.g., cross-border bond settlement takes 3-5 days), which increase transaction costs and operational risks.

• Insufficient Data Transparency: Asset valuations rely on fragmented offline data (e.g., property appraisal reports, corporate financials), and transaction records are scattered across different institutional systems, making real-time synchronization and cross-verification difficult, leading to delayed pricing and inefficient portfolio management.

• High Participation Barriers: Premium assets (e.g., private equity, high-end art) are typically accessible only to institutions or high-net-worth individuals, excluding retail investors due to capital or compliance restrictions, exacerbating financial market inequality.

Blockchain, as a decentralized distributed ledger system, restructures asset recording and transaction logic through “disintermediation,” addressing the pain points of traditional finance at a technological level. Its core advantages and the value of real-world asset tokenization are as follows:

Underlying Support of Blockchain Technology

• Decentralized Resilience: Asset ownership records are maintained by a network of nodes, eliminating reliance on a single centralized entity, reducing risks of data tampering or system failures, and enhancing the system’s fault tolerance.

• Immutability and Traceability: On-chain transactions, once confirmed, are permanently recorded and can be traced back via timestamps, providing an immutable “digital certificate” for asset ownership transfers, reducing fraud and disputes.

Specific Value of Tokenization

• Liquidity Innovation: Through “fractional ownership,” high-value assets are split into smaller tokens (e.g., a $10 million property divided into 1,000 $10,000 tokens), combined with 24/7 decentralized markets and automated market makers (AMMs), significantly lowering investment thresholds and enhancing transaction flexibility.

• Process Automation and Disintermediation: Smart contracts automate asset issuance, dividend distribution, and maturity redemption, replacing manual intermediary operations. Oracles integrate off-chain data (e.g., property valuations, corporate revenue), enabling automated triggers for complex scenarios like insurance claims, significantly reducing operational costs.

• Compliance and Audit Upgrades: On-chain KYC/AML rules automatically verify investor qualifications, and all transaction data is recorded in real-time, facilitating efficient regulatory and audit checks, potentially reducing compliance costs by 30%-50%.

• Atomic Settlement and Risk Elimination: Smart contracts enable “simultaneous asset and fund delivery” through atomic settlement, eliminating counterparty risks from asynchronous delivery in traditional transactions and reducing settlement times from T+3 to seconds.

• Global Circulation and DeFi Synergy: Tokenized assets transcend geographical restrictions, circulating seamlessly on global blockchain networks. They can also serve as collateral in DeFi protocols like lending and liquidity mining, enabling “one asset, multiple uses” and unlocking higher capital efficiency.

Overall, RWAs represent a Pareto improvement for traditional finance, leveraging technological innovation to optimize efficiency.

Proven Success: The Stablecoin Experience

As the “entry point” for on-chain real-world assets, stablecoins have fully validated the feasibility of blockchain technology in bridging off-chain value with on-chain ecosystems:

• Model Prototype: Stablecoins like USDT and USDC achieve a 1:1 peg to off-chain dollar reserves, marking the first standardized mapping of fiat assets to blockchain tokens and serving as the initial practice of “real-world asset tokenization.”

• Market Validation: As of August 2025, the stablecoin market has surpassed $256.8 billion, dominating the RWA market and demonstrating the scalability of on-chain real-world assets.

• Inspirational Value: The successful operation of stablecoins validates the security, transparency, and efficiency of the “off-chain asset to on-chain token” mapping, providing technical standards and compliance frameworks for tokenizing more complex RWAs (e.g., real estate, bonds).

Through blockchain technology, real-world assets break free from the limitations of traditional finance, transitioning from “static holding” to “dynamic circulation” and from “exclusive to the few” to “accessible to all,” marking a paradigm upgrade.

The essence of RWA is to transform valuable real-world assets into programmable digital certificates on the blockchain, creating a closed loop of “off-chain value to on-chain liquidity.” The core operational pathway consists of four key steps:

a) Off-Chain Asset Identification and Custody

• Asset Identification and Due Diligence: Third-party institutions (law firms, accounting firms, valuation agencies) verify the legality, ownership, and value of assets. For example, real estate requires title deed verification, rental income rights need confirmed lease contracts, and gold must be stored in LBMA-certified vaults with regular audits. For accounts receivable, the authenticity of claims is confirmed by core enterprises and recorded on the blockchain.

• Custody Models and Practices:

  • Centralized Custody

    • Advantages: High compliance, suitable for financial assets (e.g., government bonds, corporate bonds). For instance, MakerDAO’s bonds are custodied by banks, with on-chain contracts recording collateral status and quarterly data updates.

    • Risks: Potential for asset misappropriation by custodians. In 2024, a Singapore real estate project faced issues when property ownership changes were not synced on-chain, rendering NFTs “ownerless,” highlighting delays in centralized custody information.

  • Decentralized Custody

    • Technical Implementation: Governed by DAOs and executed via smart contracts for profit distribution. For example, DeFi protocol Goldfinch tokenizes loan assets, with smart contracts managing repayments and default handling.

    • Challenges: Lack of legal support; code vulnerabilities may lead to asset losses. Some projects experiment with zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) to verify ownership consistency, but large-scale adoption is pending.

  • Hybrid Custody

    • Balanced Approach: Off-chain assets are held by trusted third parties, while on-chain data is validated by nodes. For example, in Huamin Data’s RWA consortium chain, institutional nodes (banks, trusts) handle asset custody, regulatory nodes (30% of the network) set compliance standards, and industrial nodes (e.g., ports) provide logistics data.

    • Case Study: Toucan Protocol’s carbon credit tokenization involves custody by environmental organizations, with on-chain records of transactions and retirements ensuring transparency.

b) Legal Structure Establishment

Legal structures like Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) or trust agreements ensure that on-chain token holders have legal ownership or profit rights, creating an enforceable legal bridge with off-chain judicial systems to ensure “tokens = rights certificates.” Regulatory differences across regions lead to distinct legal structure designs:

• United States: Centers on “SPV isolation + securities compliance.” A common structure involves registering an LLC in Delaware as an SPV to hold underlying assets (e.g., U.S. Treasuries, equity). Token holders indirectly own asset rights through LLC equity shares. Compliance with SEC frameworks is required—tokens representing bonds or equity must meet Reg D (for accredited investors) or Reg S (for non-U.S. investors) exemptions. For profit-right splits, “Tokenized Notes” clarify creditor-debtor relationships to avoid classification as unregistered securities.

• Europe: Relies on the MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) framework, using “trusts or EU-approved SPVs.” For example, a Luxembourg-registered SICAV (variable capital investment company) acts as an SPV to hold assets and issue “Asset-Referenced Tokens (ARTs).” The token-asset linkage is enforced through smart contract terms and legal agreements. MiCA mandates disclosure of custody details, profit distribution rules, and regular audits by EU regulators to ensure legally binding ties between on-chain tokens and off-chain rights across the EU.

c) Tokenized Issuance

Off-chain assets are minted into tokens (typically ERC-20) as carriers for on-chain circulation and composability:

• 1:1 Full Mapping: Each token represents full rights to the underlying asset. For example, Paxos Gold (PAXG) ties 1 token to 1 ounce of physical gold, redeemable at any time, with token value fully synced to gold prices. Similarly, tokenized U.S. Treasuries like $OUSG correspond 1:1 to short-term Treasury ETF shares, including principal and interest.

• Partial Rights Mapping: Tokens represent specific rights (e.g., profit streams, dividends) without full ownership. For instance, in real estate tokenization, a project may issue “rental income tokens,” granting holders a share of rental profits without property ownership or disposal rights. In corporate bond tokenization, “interest tokens” correspond only to bond interest, with principal retained by the original holder. This model suits fractionalizing high-value assets to lower investment barriers.

d) On-Chain Integration and Circulation

Tokens enter the DeFi ecosystem, enabling use in collateralized lending, market-making, re-staking, and structured asset design, with permission management and on-chain KYC systems ensuring compliant participation and the core tool for compliant circulation, operating on “on-chain identity verification + dynamic permission control”:

• Core Functionality: Smart contracts integrate with third-party identity verification providers (e.g., Civic, KYC-Chain). Users submit identity data (passports, proof of address, asset proof), and upon verification, a “KYC credential” (a hash of the verification result, not the data itself) is generated.

• Permission Control: Smart contracts restrict transaction permissions based on KYC credentials—e.g., only “accredited investors” (assets over $1 million) can participate in private credit token trading, or non-U.S. investors (Reg S) are limited to specific redemption windows for U.S. Treasury tokens.

• Privacy Protection: Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) verify user eligibility without revealing specific identity details, balancing compliance and privacy. For example, a KYC credential may only indicate “passed EU AML verification” without disclosing names or addresses.

Through this four-step closed-loop design, RWAs transform from “real-world assets” to “on-chain programmable assets,” retaining the value foundation of traditional assets while gaining blockchain’s efficient circulation and composability.

Real-World Assets (RWAs) are migrating to the blockchain at an unprecedented pace, spanning from core traditional financial instruments to broader real economy sectors. From standardized financial tools like government bonds, corporate bonds, and stocks to tangible assets like real estate, gold, and crude oil, and even non-standardized rights such as private equity, intellectual property, and supply chain receivables, nearly all value-generating or ownership-based real-world assets are being explored for tokenization on blockchain networks.

The RWA ecosystem has formed seven major asset categories: stablecoins, tokenized U.S. Treasuries, tokenized global bonds, tokenized private credit, tokenized commodities, institutional alternative funds, and tokenized stocks. As of August 2025, the on-chain RWA market size (excluding stablecoins) is $25.22 billion, with stablecoins dominating at $256.82 billion and tokenized U.S. Treasuries at $6.80 billion.

Although stablecoins are not typical “off-chain assets,” their core pegging mechanisms are mostly based on off-chain fiat or bond reserves, making them the largest segment within the broader RWA category.

• Representative Assets: USDT, USDC, FDUSD, PYUSD, EURC

• Tokenization Drivers: Payment composability, on-chain financial infrastructure, and fiat settlement alternatives.

• Future Directions: Exploration of local currency stablecoins (e.g., KRW, JPY) to serve native crypto ecosystems and reduce USD dependency; traditional banks piloting tokenized deposits to enhance transaction efficiency and use-case adaptability; multiple countries advancing CBDC pilot programs (e.g., Hong Kong’s “e-HKD”) to accumulate technical and policy experience for formal issuance.

U.S. Treasuries have become the most prominent tokenized assets, accounting for over 60% of RWA market value, introducing low-risk yield curves to DeFi.

• Representative Protocols: Ondo, Backed, OpenEden, Matrixdock, Swarm

• Tokenization Drivers:

  • Market Demand: As crypto-native yields decline, there is a need for stable, composable “risk-free rate benchmarks.”

  • Technological Push: Infrastructure like on-chain wrappers, KYC whitelists, and cross-chain bridges is maturing.

  • Compliance Structure: Legal frameworks such as SPVs, tokenized notes, and BVI funds enable asset transparency and regulatory compliance.

• Typical Product Structures:

  • $OUSG (Ondo): Tracks short-term U.S. Treasury ETFs, paying daily interest.

Beyond U.S. Treasuries, government and corporate bonds from Europe, Asia, and other regions are also being tokenized.

• Representative Protocols: Backed, Obligate, Swarm

• Tokenization Drivers: Expanding regional and currency coverage; supporting non-USD stablecoin issuance (e.g., EURC); forming global yield curves.

• Challenges: Complex cross-border legal structures and inconsistent KYC standards.

Connects off-chain assets like SME loans, real estate loans, working capital financing, and other real-yield assets.

• Representative Protocols: Maple, Centrifuge, Goldfinch, Credix, Clearpool

• Tokenization Drivers: Creating real yield sources for on-chain capital; enhancing credit transparency and composability.

• Typical Structure:

  • SPVs manage underlying assets, DeFi provides capital liquidity, and investors access on-chain yields.

  • Chainlink Proof of Reserve/Attestation enhances data credibility.

• Key Trade-offs: Transparency vs. privacy protection; yield vs. risk control quality.

Tokenization of physical assets like gold, carbon credits, and energy.

• Representative Protocols: Tether Gold (XAUT), Pax Gold (PAXG), Toucan, KlimaDAO

• Tokenization Drivers: Providing commodity exposure to on-chain investors; combining physical custody with on-chain trading.

• Trending Directions: Green finance, carbon markets, and sustainability use cases.

On-chain issuance of private equity, hedge funds, and ETF shares.

• Representative Protocols: Securitize, ADDX, RedSwan, InvestX

• Tokenization Drivers: Enhancing share liquidity, lowering entry barriers, and expanding access to global accredited investors.

• Constraints: High compliance barriers, limited to Reg D/Reg S investors.

Tokenized or synthetic representations of off-chain stock assets.

• Representative Protocols: Backed (xStock), Securitize, Robinhood, Synthetix

• Tokenization Drivers: Supporting on-chain trading strategies, cross-chain arbitrage, and fractional share investing.

• Development Stage: Early experimentation, with compliance pathways still under exploration.

Among RWA asset types, bonds are the gold standard for adaptability. Their highly standardized nature—whether U.S. Treasuries, corporate bonds, or personal debt—relies on clear contractual frameworks and redemption mechanisms, providing an efficient pathway for large-scale tokenization. In contrast, physical assets have diverse forms and complex ownership verification, while bonds’ standardized attributes ensure a more predictable and seamless on-chain mapping process. Additionally, bond yields offer relatively predictable returns, and the efficiency of on-chain fund interactions with off-chain yield realization surpasses other asset classes, rapidly forming a “chain-to-off-chain” value loop that aligns with RWA’s core goals of digitization and efficiency.

Tokenized U.S. Treasuries have become the “traffic gateway” for on-chain assetization, not only due to their strong financial attributes but also because they address critical gaps and demands in the current crypto market. Key factors include:

• Supply Side:

  • U.S. Treasuries are theoretically default-free, making them the most trusted foundational asset globally.

  • ETFs and note markets already have mature secondary markets with high liquidity.

  • Compared to equities or credit, tokenized Treasuries have clearer, more stable legal structures (e.g., BVI fund + token wrapper).

• Demand Side:

  • Since the 2021 liquidity peak, many DeFi yield models have collapsed, entering a “yield-less” cycle.

  • Investors are turning to composable real-yield assets, with tokenized Treasuries as the natural choice.

  • Demand for an “on-chain interest rate anchor” is rising, especially with the emergence of rate protocols like LayerZero, EigenLayer, and Pendle.

• Technical Side:

  • Standardized asset-wrapping structures are maturing.

  • Typical Structures:

    • **Tokenized Note **: Linked to underlying ETFs, settling interest daily.

    • **Real-Time Redeemable Stablecoin **: Instantly redeemable with strong composability.

    • Supporting tools like oracles, audits, Proof of Reserve, and token-ETF NAV tracking are well-developed.

• Compliance Side:

  • Most Treasury protocols use Reg D/Reg S pathways, limiting access to accredited investors.

  • Financing structures are clear, with manageable tax and regulatory risks.

  • Suitable for institutional participation, bridging TradFi and DeFi.

Real-World Assets (RWAs) are transitioning from a narrative phase to structural growth, with market participants, asset types, technical architectures, and regulatory pathways entering substantive evolution. This section systematically reviews the current state and evolving landscape of the on-chain RWA market across four dimensions: asset trends, participant ecosystem, regional regulation, and institutional adoption.

RWAs are demonstrating strong growth momentum globally. In the first half of 2025, the total value of on-chain RWA assets exceeded $23.3 billion, a nearly 380% increase from early 2024, making it the second-fastest-growing track in the crypto space. Numerous institutions are entering the market, with Wall Street firms accelerating efforts, Tether launching an RWA tokenization platform, Visa exploring asset tokenization, and BlackRock issuing tokenized funds, driving the market toward normalization and scalability. Different RWA asset types are progressing within their respective tracks: U.S. Treasuries lead growth with stability and maturity, private credit expands under high-yield incentives while improving risk controls, commodity tokenization broadens applications, and equity tokenization pushes to overcome regulatory constraints.

• U.S. Treasury Market (T-Bills): The dominant growth engine driven by structural yields.

  • As of August 2025, tokenized U.S. Treasury assets exceeded $68 billion, with over 200% year-on-year growth, making it the largest RWA sub-category after stablecoins.

  • Major platforms like Ondo, Superstate, Backed, and Franklin Templeton have enabled distributed mapping of Treasury ETFs and money market funds on-chain.

  • For institutions, Treasury RWAs provide on-chain risk-free yield infrastructure; for DeFi protocols, they serve as yield sources for stablecoins and DAO reserves, building an “on-chain central bank” model.

  • Treasury products are highly mature in compliance, clearing, and legal structuring, making them the RWA type with the greatest scalability potential.

• Private Credit: High yields with high risks.

  • Protocols like Maple, Centrifuge, Goldfinch, TrueFi, and Clearpool explore SME loans, revenue-sharing, and consumer finance.

  • Characterized by high yields (8–18%) but significant risk control challenges, relying on off-chain due diligence and asset custody. Some projects are transitioning to institutional services.

  • In 2024, Goldfinch and Centrifuge expanded new credit pilots in Africa and Asia, enhancing financial inclusion.

• Commodity Tokenization: Mapping gold and energy assets on-chain.

  • Projects like Paxos Gold (PAXG), Tether Gold (XAUT), Meld, and 1GCX map precious metal reserves via tokens.

  • Gold is the preferred commodity for tokenization due to its clear reserve logic and stable value, often used as stablecoin collateral.

  • Energy commodities (e.g., carbon credits, spot oil) face higher regulatory barriers and remain in the experimental phase.

• Equity Tokenization: Early breakthroughs limited by regulation.

  • Tokenized equity market size is approximately $362 million, accounting for 1.4% of RWAs, led by Exodus Movement (EXOD, 83% share).

  • Platforms like Securitize, Plume, Backed, and Swarm focus on compliant equity mapping for U.S. and European listed companies and startups.

  • Key challenges include secondary market trading compliance and KYC management, with some projects using permissioned chains or restricted address whitelists to address these.

Looking Ahead，RWAs are expected to become a multi-trillion-dollar market. Citibank believes that nearly any valuable asset can be tokenized, with the tokenized private asset market reaching $4 trillion by 2030. BlackRock predicts that the RWA tokenization market could hit $16 trillion by 2030 (including private chain assets), accounting for 1% to 10% of global asset management. On the technical front, as blockchain technology evolves—such as further optimization of smart contracts and the development of cross-chain technology—it will enhance the efficiency and security of asset tokenization while reducing operational costs. Real-time asset data collection via IoT, AI-optimized valuation models, and zero-knowledge proof technology for improved privacy protection will provide technical support for RWA development. Application scenarios will also continue to expand, with accelerated tokenization in emerging fields like carbon assets, data assets, and intellectual property. On the global policy front, if countries can further refine regulatory frameworks and form relatively unified standards, it will greatly promote the global circulation and development of RWAs. RWAs will become the core link connecting traditional economies with Web3, profoundly reshaping the global asset allocation landscape.

Trend Observation: The Ethereum ecosystem remains the primary hub for RWA assets, particularly suitable for highly compliant assets like funds and bonds; meanwhile, credit-based RWAs are starting to migrate to low-cost, high-throughput chains.

Some regions in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai) are at the forefront of RWA regulatory design and innovation promotion, gradually becoming hubs for capital and project aggregation.

Institutional participation in RWAs is shifting from “observation and pilot projects” to “substantial deployment.” According to market tracking, the current major institutional players include:

Institutional roles are becoming increasingly diversified, expanding from “issuers” to “clearing service providers,” “custody platforms,” and “secondary trading facilitators.” RWAs will serve as a direct bridge connecting Web3 with TradFi.

The following focuses on key RWA tracks—U.S. Treasuries, private credit, commodities, and equities—selecting representative projects to analyze their token models, investor structures, product mechanisms, and profit logic:

Ondo Finance is a platform focused on tokenizing traditional financial assets, particularly U.S. Treasuries, aiming to introduce low-risk yield assets to the crypto market and provide investors with stable, composable income sources. It builds a compliant bridge between traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi), enabling tokenized Treasuries to be traded and utilized on-chain.

• Token Model: Issues ERC-20 tokens pegged to off-chain U.S. Treasury ETFs (e.g., $OUSG corresponds to short-term Treasury ETFs), with a 1:1 mapping to the underlying asset value, automatically settling interest daily.

• Investor Structure: Primarily institutions (family offices, asset managers) and accredited investors via Reg D/S compliance pathways; retail users can indirectly participate through DeFi protocols.

• Product Mechanism: Constructs an “on-chain fund” structure where an SPV holds Treasury assets, and smart contracts manage subscription, redemption, and interest distribution, supporting on-chain collateralized lending (e.g., integration with Aave, Compound).

• Profit Logic:

  • Underlying Asset Yield: $OUSG and similar tokens derive base returns from the interest income of underlying Treasury assets. With low risk and relatively stable interest, these yields are distributed to token holders after deducting platform management fees (e.g., 0.15%–0.3%).

  • DeFi Ecosystem Yield: When $OUSG tokens are used in DeFi ecosystems, additional returns are generated, such as using $OUSG as collateral in lending protocols to borrow other assets, which can then be invested in liquidity mining or other DeFi applications for yield, or participating in liquidity pools to earn trading fees.

Maple Finance is a multi-chain DeFi platform focused on institutional-grade on-chain lending and RWA investments, operating on Ethereum, Solana, and Base chains. Its core clients include hedge funds, DAOs, and crypto trading firms. By simplifying traditional finance’s complex processes, it offers undercollateralized loans, tokenized U.S. Treasuries, and trade receivable pools. As of June 2025, its assets under management (AUM) exceeded $2.4 billion, making it a representative private credit platform amid the trend of institutional entry.

• Token Model:

  • Core Token: SYRUP (ERC-20 standard), with a total supply of 118 million tokens and approximately 111 million in circulation, nearly fully circulated, reducing potential sell pressure.

  • Core Functions:

    • Staking Mechanism: SYRUP holders can stake tokens to become “risk sharers,” absorbing losses in case of loan defaults while sharing platform rewards (e.g., fee splits) in the absence of defaults.

    • Value Capture: The platform charges 0.5%–2% fees per loan, with 20% used to buy back SYRUP and distribute to stakers, forming token value support.

• Investor Structure: Institutional lenders (hedge funds, crypto VCs) provide large capital, DeFi treasuries (e.g., early participation by Alameda Research) supplement liquidity, and borrowers undergo off-chain due diligence (KYC, credit rating).

• Product Mechanism: Employs a “decentralized credit pool” model where smart contracts match borrowing needs (e.g., SME working capital, crypto mining loans) with capital supply, automatically executing repayments and default liquidations (verified by Chainlink oracles for off-chain repayment data).

• Profit Logic:

  • Base Yield: Lenders earn interest from loans, with returns tied to product risk (e.g., High Yield products targeting riskier assets offer higher returns than Blue Chip).

  • Platform Fee Sharing: Stakers earn a share of platform fees (20% of fees used for SYRUP buybacks and distribution) while bearing default risk compensation responsibilities.

  • Ecosystem Synergy: Institutional borrowers access low-cost liquidity for crypto trading, arbitrage, etc., indirectly driving platform lending demand, forming a “borrowing-lending-profit sharing” closed loop.

Paxos Gold, issued by the compliant fintech company Paxos, is a tokenized gold product aimed at enabling on-chain circulation and efficient management of physical gold through blockchain technology. Its core value lies in combining gold’s store-of-value attributes with blockchain’s programmability, allowing investors to participate in gold investments without storage or transportation costs, while supporting 24/7 global trading and DeFi ecosystem synergy.

• Token Model:

  • Core Token: $PAXG (ERC-20 standard), strictly adhering to a 1:1 pegging rule, with each token corresponding to 1 ounce of LBMA-certified physical gold, stored and secured by top-tier custodians like Brink’s.

  • Issuance and Burning Mechanism: When users purchase $PAXG, Paxos acquires equivalent physical gold; upon redemption, tokens are burned to release corresponding gold, ensuring the total on-chain token supply matches off-chain gold reserves, eliminating over-issuance risks.

• Investor Structure: Retail investors (via crypto exchanges or wallets), institutions (asset managers allocating gold exposure), and DeFi protocols (using $PAXG as collateral for stablecoin issuance reserves).

• Product Mechanism: Smart contracts link to custodians’ gold reserve proofs (verified via Chainlink Proof of Reserve oracles), supporting instant redemption of physical gold (subject to minimum thresholds and fees) and free trading on DEXs like Uniswap.

• Profit Logic: Long-term gold value appreciation (inflation hedge) + liquidity yields from on-chain trading/collateral (e.g., staking $PAXG to mint $DAI for DeFi yield farming); Paxos charges redemption, custody, and trading service fees to cover gold storage, auditing, and technical maintenance, forming a sustainable operational loop.

xStocks, launched by Swiss fintech Backed Finance, is a U.S. stock tokenization platform on the Solana blockchain, converting stocks like Tesla (TSLAx) into on-chain tradable tokens. Its core goal is to break traditional stock market time zone restrictions and liquidity barriers while integrating with DeFi for stock asset programmability. As of July 2025, its tokens are listed on exchanges like Bybit, Kraken, and DEXs like Raydium, becoming a leading case for “24/7 trading + on-chain reuse” in equity tokenization.

• Token Model:

  • Core Token: Issued on Solana’s SPL standard (e.g., $TSLAx corresponds to Tesla stock), with a 1:1 peg to underlying stocks, each token backed by 1 share held by compliant institutions (e.g., Alpaca Securities in the U.S., InCore Bank in Switzerland).

  • Pricing Mechanism: Real-time U.S. stock prices synced via Chainlink oracles; during traditional market closures (e.g., weekends, holidays), the last closing price serves as a reference, with trading prices determined by on-chain supply and demand, exhibiting “prediction market” characteristics.

• Investor Structure: No strict accredited investor restrictions (subject to exchange KYC), covering retail investors (via Bybit, Kraken, or Solana wallets) and small asset managers (allocating fractional U.S. stock exposure).

• Product Mechanism:

  • Issuance and Custody: Backed pre-purchases underlying stocks, custodied by compliant brokers and banks, minting corresponding tokens on Solana at a 1:1 ratio; upon redemption, tokens are burned to release off-chain stocks, with reserve transparency ensured via Proof of Reserve.

  • Rights Handling: No shareholder voting or meeting participation rights, but dividend yields are distributed via “token airdrops”—Backed issues additional tokens proportional to stock dividends, indirectly passing economic benefits.

  • On-Chain Circulation: Supports 24/7 trading (breaking traditional stock market time limits), tradable on centralized exchanges (Bybit, Kraken) and decentralized platforms (Raydium, Jupiter), with cross-chain potential (future plans for cross-chain bridges).

• Profit Logic: Underlying stock appreciation and dividend yields + liquidity premiums from on-chain trading (fractional trading, 24/7 markets); Backed charges token issuance, custody, and trading channel fees to cover compliance and technical costs.

Plume Network is a full-stack blockchain platform focused on Real-World Assets (RWAs), aiming to bridge traditional finance and crypto by efficiently tokenizing various real-world assets and integrating them with the DeFi ecosystem, addressing challenges like compliance, liquidity, and user experience in asset tokenization.

• Token Model:

  • Core Token: $PLUME (ERC-20 standard), with a total supply of 10 billion tokens, 59% allocated for community incentives and ecosystem building. Token functions include paying on-chain fees, participating in governance voting, staking for profit sharing, and serving as a settlement medium for ecosystem asset trading.

  • Incentive Design: Users configuring RWA assets (e.g., real estate tokens, credit vouchers) earn base yields (10%–20% annualized) plus additional $PLUME rewards, tied to asset holding periods and staking amounts, enhancing ecosystem stickiness.

• Investor Structure: Institutional backers like Brevan Howard Digital and Haun Ventures invest and pilot asset tokenization; retail and crypto-native users participate via Passport wallets, targeting investors seeking “traditional assets + crypto yields,” emphasizing compliance and cross-chain opportunities.

• Product Mechanism:

  • Asset Classification Management: Covers collectibles (e.g., sneakers, Pokémon cards, watches, wine, art), alternative assets (private credit, real estate, green energy projects), and financial instruments (stocks, corporate bonds), catering to diverse risk preferences and investment needs.

  • Suite Support System:

    • Arc: Tokenization issuance system, enabling assets to be tokenized as NFTs, tokens, or composite assets, optimizing issuance structures and liquidity.

    • Nexus: RWA-specific oracle, ensuring accurate synchronization of on-chain and off-chain asset data, providing a reliable data foundation for trading and yield calculations.

    • Passport: Aggregated asset management tool, a smart wallet integrating various token standards and DeFi composability, enabling users to participate in RWA operations and DeFi applications like yield farming.

    • SkyLink: Cross-chain bridge, using mirrored YieldTokens to provide permissionless access to institutional-grade RWA yields, breaking inter-chain barriers and expanding asset circulation.

  • Compliance Assurance: Relies on regional partners to flexibly switch licenses to meet local regulatory requirements, providing end-to-end compliance solutions from development to operations, ensuring the security and legality of asset tokenization. For example, the supported ERC-3643 standard uses the ONCHAINID decentralized identity system to ensure only compliant users can hold tokens, maintaining regulatory compliance.

• Profit Logic:

  • User Yields: Users participating in platform asset projects earn yields from the assets themselves (e.g., stable returns from green energy projects) and share platform trading fees by staking $PLUME, while also capturing capital gains from asset price fluctuations. In collectibles, users can engage in sweeping, collateralized lending, and synthetic trading to seize profit opportunities from price changes.

  • Platform Revenue: Plume generates income from asset issuance fees, trading fees, and institutional service fees, covering operational costs and achieving profitability, forming a sustainable business model. As the ecosystem grows, $PLUME token demand and value are expected to rise, providing additional token appreciation benefits.

The explosive growth of RWAs is not without obstacles, as it represents a collision and compromise between “traditional asset logic” and “blockchain decentralization philosophy.” The following addresses core contradictions across five dimensions, revealing the industry’s unavoidable “structural challenges”:

• Regulatory Arbitrage’s Double-Edged Sword: Many RWA projects adopt an “offshore registration + onshore operation” model (e.g., BVI-registered companies serving U.S. users), seemingly compliant with Reg D/S frameworks but harboring risks of “jurisdictional conflicts.” For instance, the EU’s MiCA classifies Treasury tokens as “asset-referenced tokens,” while the U.S. SEC may deem them “securities.” Cross-regional transaction disputes could leave investors in a “no recourse” dilemma.

• Gray Area of Ownership Definition: SPV structures claim “tokens = rights certificates,” but the legal linkage between on-chain token transfers and off-chain asset ownership transfers remains a gap. If a real estate token holder faces a debt lawsuit, can a court directly freeze the corresponding off-chain property rights? No global judicial precedent currently supports this, rendering RWAs a “self-proven compliant digital IOU” due to this “legal disconnect.”

• Data Manipulation Risks: While oracles like Chainlink claim “decentralization,” their off-chain data (e.g., corporate bond ratings, real estate valuations) rely on centralized entities like S&P or JLL. If a private credit protocol colludes with a rating agency to falsify default rate data, on-chain smart contracts would execute liquidations based on false information, creating “digitally endorsed systemic fraud.”

• Trade-off Between Dynamic Valuation Timeliness and Accuracy: Standardized assets (e.g., Treasuries) achieve precise pricing through high-frequency data updates, but non-standard assets (e.g., private equity) have longer valuation cycles, causing on-chain token prices to lag behind actual asset values. This “mismatch” may trigger arbitrage or liquidation risks.

• Liquidity Stratification: Standardized assets like Treasuries and gold have high market acceptance and decent trading depth on DEXs and CEXs, but non-standard assets like private credit and equities have thin secondary trading, relying on protocol-specific redemption mechanisms, which deviates from blockchain’s goal of “enhancing asset liquidity.”

• Cross-Chain and Cross-Ecosystem Composability Challenges: While cross-chain bridges and Layer2 solutions aim to address asset circulation across chains, issues like asset custody, transaction costs, and potential security risks in cross-chain processes may undermine RWA-DeFi synergy efficiency. For example, transferring Treasury tokens from one chain to another for lending may incur trust costs that offset composability benefits.

• Inability of On-Chain Risk Controls to Fully Cover Off-Chain Risks: Smart contracts manage on-chain risks through parameters like collateral ratios and liquidation thresholds, but they can only passively respond to off-chain defaults (e.g., corporate bond issuer bankruptcy, real estate collateral damage), lacking proactive intervention mechanisms. This “risk control disconnect” may lead to investor losses.

• Systemic Risk Transmission Concerns: RWAs’ strong ties to traditional financial markets (e.g., Treasury RWAs affected by interest rate policies) and DeFi’s leverage mechanisms may amplify these connections. Whether RWA token price volatility could trigger on-chain liquidity crises via collateralized lending during traditional market fluctuations requires longer-term market validation.

• Gap Between Blockchain Performance and RWA Scalability Needs: Throughput and gas fee issues on chains like Ethereum pose barriers to large-scale institutional participation in RWA transactions. While Layer2 and new chains offer performance breakthroughs, their ecosystem maturity and security have not yet fully gained institutional trust.

• Hybrid Trust Model: Despite emphasizing “disintermediation,” RWAs rely on centralized roles like custodians (e.g., gold storage, bond custody banks) and auditors (e.g., reserve verification). This “technical decentralization + centralized trust” hybrid model is a pragmatic choice for the current stage, but whether it will evolve into “blockchain-empowered traditional finance” remains unclear.

The development of RWAs is essentially a cross-system integration experiment, with challenges stemming from both technical implementation constraints and the deeper reconciliation of financial logic with technological philosophy. Resolving these issues may require the co-evolution of industry, regulation, and technology, rather than breakthroughs in a single dimension, with the ultimate form still subject to ongoing market exploration and validation.

https://www.rwa.xyz/

https://blockweeks.com/article/146524

https://blockweeks.com/view/136681

RWA Institutional Development Forecast:

https://xueqiu.com/4866021334/344660706

https://cointelegraph.com/news/killer-use-case-citi-says-trillions-in-assets-could-be-tokenized-by-2030

On-Chain KYC

https://basebiance.com/on-chain-kyc-solution/

https://learnblockchain.cn/article/15919

https://coinness.com/zh/news/73381

https://coinness.com/zh/news/69453

https://coinness.com/zh/news/55978

https://www.etoday.co.kr/news/view/2495239

https://coinreaders.com/178915