From U.S. Treasuries to Real Estate: What Works (and What Doesn’t) in RWA Tokenization
Tokenized real-world belongings (RWAs) have turn out to be crypto’s favourite bridge to the tangible financial system — from on-chain U.S. Treasuries to property-backed securities and personal credit score swimming pools. But behind the thrill lies a urgent query: what’s really working, and what nonetheless isn’t?
At the panel hosted by KuCoin’s Tika Lum, 5 veterans from throughout finance and Web3 — from Hashed to Spartan Group — explored how RWA tokenization is evolving, who’s driving it, and what it’ll take to attain world scale.
Why RWA Is Finally Having Its Moment
“RWAs aren’t a meme coin,” mentioned Kristal Gruevski, Founder and General Counsel at Zivoe, setting the tone early. “We’re fixing real-world issues with actual underlying worth.”
She pointed to the rise of institutional curiosity because the catalyst. “Businesses are realizing they will develop faster, safer, and smarter by means of blockchain. Traditional finance has an excessive amount of flash money — capital that sits idle. Tokenization lets that cash work effectively and transparently.”
Julian Kwan, CEO of Investax, added that the sector has matured past speculative token gross sales. “In 2018, folks thought tokenization meant simply elevating cash as a result of it was ‘on-chain,’” he mentioned. “Now, we now have actual product-market match. Fixed-income merchandise — like tokenized T-bills — have confirmed demand, as a result of they serve an apparent goal for stablecoin holders.”
Meanwhile, Ajit Tripathi of Avail traced RWA’s origins again to conventional banking infrastructure. “Goldman Sachs did tokenization lengthy earlier than blockchains — they simply known as it SEC DB,” he defined. “It represented monetary devices as objects linked to reside market knowledge, eliminating reconciliation points throughout techniques. Blockchain does the identical — it unifies info, and all markets are info markets.”
What Problems RWA Actually Solves
For all of the hype, the panelists agreed that RWA’s actual power lies in addressing long-standing inefficiencies in finance — not reinventing the wheel.
“Transparency, accessibility, liquidity — the entire above,” mentioned Gruevski. “Imagine being in the Philippines or Korea and gaining publicity to U.S. institutional-grade belongings. That’s highly effective. Blockchain turns that right into a risk.”
Tripathi took a extra technical angle: “The largest difficulty in monetary techniques is reconciliation — fragmented info throughout a number of ledgers. Tokenization solves that by making a single supply of fact. Everything else — transparency, decrease prices, decreased threat — flows from there.”
Ryan Kim, Co-founder of Hashed, noticed scalability as the important thing unlock. “Traditionally, to launch a hedge fund, you increase from LPs one after the other. Now you possibly can protocolize it — publish your technique, open a sensible contract, and let capital stream from anybody globally. RWA opens the gates for funds to increase at DeFi pace.”
Casper Johansen of Spartan Group related the dots to institutional habits: “Adoption follows cash. Wall Street desires sooner settlement, greater leverage, and extra tradable markets. RWA works when it helps them do this — not simply when it sounds good in a whitepaper.”
Institutions vs. Retail: Who’s Driving the Shift?
When requested whether or not RWA adoption can be led by establishments or retail, the consensus was clear: each — however for various causes.
“Institutional gamers carry liquidity and validation,” mentioned Gruevski. “Retail brings the democratization that retains it decentralized.”
Kwan famous that crypto-native funds are main demand for tokenized treasuries, whereas exchanges chase inventory and personal fairness tokenization. “It is determined by the asset class,” he mentioned. “Treasuries are institutionally pushed. Stocks and collectibles entice retail. The crossover is the place issues get attention-grabbing.”
Tripathi warned, nevertheless, that not all tokenized belongings are created equal. “If you place trash on the blockchain, it’s nonetheless trash,” he mentioned bluntly. “Tokenization isn’t alchemy. We want high-quality belongings — treasuries, gold, perhaps even bitcoin — not illiquid non-public fairness that simply desires exit liquidity.”
Kim introduced in an surprising twist: mental property as an rising RWA frontier. “Korea has world-class IP — from Ok-dramas to gaming to music. These are high-revenue belongings that simply lack a capital market. When IP meets tokenization, that’s when the subsequent massive RWA wave will come.”
The Barriers That Still Remain
Despite the passion, panelists have been sensible about what’s holding RWA tokenization again.
“Regulation remains to be the most important friction,” mentioned Kim. “Even when governments open institutional accounts, most banks nonetheless can’t maintain digital belongings. There’s no clear rulebook — that’s slowing adoption.”
Kwan agreed that whereas infrastructure and compliance have matured, scale and liquidity stay challenges. “We’ve solved custody, KYC, and asset high quality. Now we simply want extra consumers,” he mentioned. “Plugging into exchanges with tens of millions of customers is how RWA actually scales.”
Tripathi put it bluntly: “We simply want one banger — a Google or OpenAI to checklist natively on-chain. Once that occurs, every thing else follows.”
What Comes Next: Credit, Commodities, and Beyond
Looking forward, the panelists predicted that credit score and high-volume markets will dominate tokenization in the subsequent three to 5 years.
“Consumer credit score is the most important untapped alternative,” mentioned Gruevski. “Everyone wants cash — whether or not it’s an excellent day or a foul day. Tokenizing that stream adjustments the world’s largest asset class.”
Kwan expects hybrid fashions to thrive: “The belongings that win will likely be multi-use — collateral, yield, and liquidity all in one. That’s the place DeFi meets CeFi.”
Tripathi urged warning amid optimism. “We want to give folks one thing to make investments in and one thing to wager on — that’s the fact of finance,” he mentioned. “Just don’t construct the subsequent monetary disaster on-chain.”
Johansen noticed potential in FX and commodities, the place even minor effectivity features have huge results. “One foundation level issues while you’re speaking trillions of {dollars} a day,” he mentioned. “Tokenization will begin the place the numbers are largest.”
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