Author: Jakob Kronbichler, Co-founder and CEO of Clearpool and Ozean
The on-chain reality of Real World Assets (RWA) is no longer just a concept—its market recognition is continuously increasing.
Stablecoins are the most powerful example. They have become the main force in on-chain transaction volume, surpassing the total transfer amount of Visa and Mastercard by 7.7% last year. Tokenized assets, represented by U.S. Treasury bonds, are also attracting institutional investors seeking yield.
The significance of stablecoins lies not only in the success of tokenization but also in their evolution into financial infrastructure. They are not just digital dollars; they are programmable currencies that provide a foundation for other applications.
It is this platform attribute that allows stablecoins to stand out, while most RWA projects struggle. Most tokenized assets are merely designed as digital "mirrors," rather than becoming core components of the financial system.
Everything can be tokenized, but that does not mean it has actual value.
Browsing the RWA data dashboard, you will see the total locked value continuously growing, an increasing number of issuers, and rising attention. However, this value is mostly concentrated in a few wallets, with very limited integration into the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.
This is not liquidity; it is stagnant capital.
Early RWA models focused only on the packaging of asset custody or settlement, failing to address how to make assets truly usable within the DeFi framework. Legal attributes further exacerbate the problem, limiting the ways assets can flow and the scenarios in which they can be applied.
Stablecoins succeed because they address underlying infrastructure issues, not just digital representation. Stablecoins enable instant settlement, eliminate the need for pre-funding in cross-border transfers, and can be seamlessly integrated into automated systems. In contrast, most RWAs remain merely digital certificates, struggling to become truly usable functional modules within the financial system.
However, this situation is changing. The new generation of products places greater emphasis on compliance and DeFi compatibility. When tokenized assets are born for integration, rather than merely "existing," practical applications can follow.
Integration is far more than a technical challenge.
The biggest obstacle to RWA development is legal compliance. When a tokenized Treasury bond is recognized as a security off-chain, its on-chain attributes remain the same. This directly limits the types of protocols it can access and the range of users.
Currently, the industry generally adopts a "permissioned DeFi" model: requiring wallets to complete KYC verification, using whitelist mechanisms, and allowing permissioned access. However, this approach stifles composability and fragments liquidity, which is precisely the most valuable characteristic of DeFi.
Although token packaging can enhance asset accessibility, it cannot fundamentally resolve regulatory attribute issues. The legal structure must be clarified as a priority.
The U.S. Senate has passed the GENIUS Act, establishing a federal framework for stablecoins backed 1:1 by Treasury bonds. This is the clearest signal to date that compliant, auditable digital assets are moving from the margins to the core of institutional finance.
This shift will drive RWA from static representations to usable, scalable financial tools.
One of the most attractive value propositions of RWA is liquidity: 24/7 access, faster settlement, and real-time transparency. However, most transactions of tokenized assets currently resemble private placements, with low trading volumes, large bid-ask spreads, and limited secondary market activity.
The lag in liquidity is due to regulated assets not being able to circulate freely in DeFi. The lack of interoperability leads to fragmented markets and prominent information silos.
Stablecoins demonstrate that liquidity stems from composability. When currencies like the Euro and Singapore Dollar exist in programmable token form, the fund management process shifts from multiple steps to instant cross-border transactions. Most asset tokenization projects miss opportunities because they are designed as endpoints rather than interoperable components.
The solution is not to issue more tokens but to build a set of infrastructure that is compliant and transparent, catering to institutional needs at both ends of the bridge.
From an institutional perspective, existing systems may be cumbersome, but they are compliant and fundamentally usable. Without essential improvements in efficiency, cost, or compliance, migrating to blockchain is hard to accept. However, when RWA infrastructure is tailored to institutional workflows, everything will change.
Only when compliance is not just an afterthought but deeply integrated from the architectural level; only when liquidity connections, institutional-grade custody, and reporting are seamlessly linked rather than simply pieced together, will institutions truly embrace on-chain solutions.
This is the key to making on-chain solutions meaningful.
The original intention of RWA was to bridge the gap between DeFi and traditional finance, but many RWAs currently find themselves stuck between the two.
As institutions gradually approach on-chain integration, DeFi protocols face the challenge of adjusting infrastructure to support assets with real-world constraints.
The most commonly used assets in DeFi remain native assets: stablecoins, Ether (ETH), and liquid staking tokens (LSTs). Tokenized RWA assets remain highly isolated, unable to participate in lending markets, collateral pools, or yield strategies.
Legal restrictions regarding asset classification and user access mean that certain protocols cannot support these assets, at least not without significant modifications.
This situation is changing. We see new underlying components being designed to enable RWA to achieve composability in a controlled environment, enhancing usability without sacrificing compliance.
This evolution is crucial: it will allow RWA to have real functional significance within the DeFi ecosystem, rather than remaining on the margins.
The first institutions are formulating their asset tokenization strategies. The divide between success and failure lies in platform thinking: building infrastructure that others can further develop upon, rather than merely digitizing assets.
Just as every company needed a mobile strategy in 2010 and a cloud strategy in 2015, institutions today must formulate asset tokenization plans.
Those who can seize this shift early will be able to design systems capable of participating in and potentially dominating the emerging tokenized economy.
In contrast, companies that choose to wait and see will only be able to build their businesses on others' platforms, limited by restricted control, flexibility, and growth potential.
Author: Jakob Kronbichler, Co-founder and CEO of Clearpool and Ozean.
Related: Peter Schiff calls for selling and buying silver as Bitcoin (BTC) hits new highs
Original: “RWAs Should Be Core Modules of DeFi, Yet They Have Become 'Mirror' Islands”
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
