RWA: Building a Global Public Ledger for Real Assets

Recently, the RWA sector has shown a vigorous development trend. Many institutions and projects are actively pursuing innovative attempts in asset types and infrastructure. Currently, the RWA market size has reached $36.5 billion, with a year-on-year growth of about 60%. The involved fields include private credit, U.S. Treasury bonds, commodities, real estate, and stock securities, among which Hong Kong mainly focuses on new energy assets.

Despite the many challenges faced by RWA, such as compliance implementation and global liquidity issues, the involvement of traditional financial giants and the proactive exploration by governments around the world are expected to promote RWA to truly address the hollowing and scaling issues in blockchain finance. As a blockchain financial derivative of the traditional asset world, RWA precisely compensates for the shortcomings in value capture within the blockchain world, becoming an important bridge for the encryption of traditional finance and the traditionalization of cryptocurrencies.

To some extent, RWA can act as the guardian of this "parallel world." The true goal of RWA is to seamlessly connect traditional finance and decentralized finance, reshaping traditional finance while bringing real-world opportunities on-chain. We look forward to RWA bringing global borderless asset investment and financial expressions. In the future, we may be able to purchase Nasdaq stocks during the day in Hong Kong, deposit funds into a Russian bank in the early morning, and the next day invest in Dubai real estate together with hundreds of investors we have never met.

RWA is expected to build a public ledger world based on real assets, a greater boundaryless world!

Recent Market Trends and Key Events

market-related dynamics

1. Market Size Trend

As of April 21, 2025, the total market value of the RWA market has reached 36.5 billion USD, increasing by 0.7% within 24 hours. There are over 185 RWA-related cryptocurrencies, with a total market value exceeding 10.62 billion USD, showing a year-on-year growth of 61%.

Traditional financial giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity are beginning to pay attention to the RWA sector, exploring the possibilities of asset tokenization. BlackRock is seeking regulatory approval for the tokenization of bonds and stocks, while JPMorgan has launched an internal tokenization platform. It is expected that the scale of this sector will exceed one trillion in the next five years.

2. Promoting Regulatory Compliance

A certain project has obtained the VASP license from Dubai VARA, marking positive progress in regulatory compliance for the RWA project. This project is the first DeFi platform to receive such a license, allowing ecosystem participants to build permissioned applications in an unlicensed environment. This dual model helps to balance regulatory requirements and innovation development.

Recently, the project has reached a cooperation with a well-known real estate developer, planning to tokenize at least $1 billion in assets and use it for investment through fractional ownership.

3. Stellar Blockchain Cooperation Expansion

Stellar blockchain has announced partnerships with multiple institutions. The COO of the Stellar Development Foundation stated that they plan to put $3 billion worth of real-world assets on-chain by the end of 2025, which is more than a tenfold increase from $290 million by the end of 2024.

4. Integration of RWA products by crypto payment companies

A certain cryptocurrency payment company announced that its products will integrate real-world assets by collaborating with mainstream RWA providers to introduce high-quality traditional financial assets such as U.S. Treasury bonds and blue-chip stocks, supporting users in multiple regions to purchase using fiat currency. This business is committed to building a compliant channel connecting traditional finance and DeFi.

5. Launch of the Innovative Yield Market Platform

A certain Bitcoin liquidity protocol has launched an innovative product, the first structured yield market platform based on Bitcoin that integrates RWA. This platform aggregates a diverse range of RWA providers, offering users flexible investment options. The platform aims to allocate BTC liquidity to tokenized high-yield RWA, providing Bitcoin holders with institutional-grade stable income channels.

6. The RWA summit is about to be held.

The RWA REAL UP Dubai Summit 2025, jointly organized by multiple Web3.0 partners, will be held on April 30 in Dubai.

Technology Innovation Dynamic Tracking

1. A certain network has launched an interoperable blockchain operating system that supports multi-chain applications, enhancing the liquidity of RWA across different blockchains. The multi-chain approach is expected to achieve liquidity and interoperability of RWA assets among different assets.

2. A certain company has launched an innovative feature based on ERC-4626 vault technology, enhancing the liquidity and composability of RWA in DeFi. This feature allows institutional investors to hold RWA while obtaining liquidity in DeFi and continuing to earn returns from the underlying assets.

Project financing related updates

1. Plume raised $20 million in funding to build the RWA financial ecosystem.

2. Tether announced an investment in Quantoz, planning to launch a stablecoin that complies with MiCAR regulatory standards and expand tokenization capabilities.

Hong Kong and China's RWA development events

1. A certain public blockchain collaborates with a digital technology company to promote the development of RWA in Hong Kong. Both parties participate in China's first renewable energy battery exchange RWA project, utilizing blockchain technology to build a secure and transparent digital infrastructure.

2. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has launched the "Digital Bond Grant Scheme" to encourage the capital market to adopt tokenization technology. The HKMA has also initiated the "Project Ensemble" sandbox project to support institutions in experimenting with tokenization applications.

3. The Web3 Festival 2025 will be held in Hong Kong, with RWA tokenization becoming a focal topic. The conference discussed HKMA's "Project Ensemble" initiative, exploring innovative market infrastructure. A stable regulatory environment and diversified products attract a large number of investors, but retail investor participation remains limited.

4. China Pacific Insurance Investment Management Company launched a tokenized US dollar money market fund on a certain blockchain, raising 100 million USD on its first day. The fund is only available to professional and institutional investors, and CPIC plans to continue tokenizing more traditional assets.

Industry Observation and Reflection

The main challenges in the current development of the RWA industry

1. Regulatory uncertainty: Differences in regulations across countries lead to a lack of a unified framework, affecting global promotion and increasing compliance costs.

2. Adoption barriers: a broader user base needs to accept usage; currently, it is mainly dominated by institutions, and retail participation and awareness are insufficient.

3. Sustainability and Volatility: Tokenization may lead to excessive speculation, affecting the prices of originally stable assets and causing market instability.

4. Technical challenges: Smart contract vulnerabilities and scalability issues may affect security and reliability.

5. Liquidity Issues: Some RWA tokens may still face liquidity shortages after being tokenized, especially under unfavorable market conditions.

6. Investor confidence: Lack of transparency, security, and regulatory compliance may weaken confidence.

Observation and Reflection

1. Centralized supervision before on-chain and decentralized circulation after on-chain are the ultimate expressions of RWA. Taking Hong Kong as an example, a three-tier collaborative mechanism of Mainland-China-Hong Kong-Singapore has been established.

2. Activating the vitality of the RWA secondary market is key to the industry's take-off. The distributed digital identity (DID) system will become an important strategic watershed, helping to break down the barriers between institutional and retail markets.

3. RWA can not only tokenize traditional finance but also traditionalize cryptocurrencies. The two go hand in hand, jointly promoting value release, on-chain liquidity, and the transformation of cryptocurrencies into good money.