I thought for a long time whether to write this article. I have projects in the RWA direction, and writing this feels a bit like slapping myself in the face. But this question really deserves a direct answer.

On-chain government bonds exceed $4B+, and have tripled in a year. BlackRock's BUIDL fund has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in a single quarter. Franklin Templeton and HSBC are also entering the market. The TVL of RWA is one of the few data points that are still increasing in this bear market.

But when you look at the tokens of these projects — almost all of them are in the red, particularly those that have fallen significantly. Some have dropped over 90% from their peak.

Why?

Some might say: retail investors can’t get in. This answer is partially correct but is already outdated. There are projects in the market that are addressing this issue — register and retail users can also participate in RWA returns. The door to user access has been opened. But the token prices are still falling.

I believe many RWA projects did not understand the essence of the project from the very beginning.

The RWA product + TOKEN require a collaborative token economic model, but it was designed incorrectly.

The most common death formula for all RWA-related TVL category projects looks like this:

User deposits TVL to gain RWA returns → simultaneously issues tokens as additional rewards → users continuously sell tokens → tokens drop → continue to issue more tokens for subsidies → no one dares to buy tokens

The essence of this logic is: tokens have become a subsidy tool, not a value carrier.

If you think about the logic of business this way, then the only action for those holding tokens is — to sell. No one needs to buy tokens because buying them doesn’t offer any additional benefits. If you want RWA returns, just deposit assets; there’s no need to hold tokens at all. This creates a market that only has selling pressure, with no buying interest.

Many DeFi projects have failed here. They offer TVL for returns, then provide airdrops, then offer token rewards. Round after round. No one buys; only people sell. The number of tokens on the project team's balance increases, the price continues to drop, and ultimately it falls into liquidity exhaustion.

The RWA track is now repeating this mistake.

So what should be done?

Since I do strategic consulting for growth strategies, the essence of the problem boils down to the business of RWA itself.

RWA projects should concentrate resources on one thing — finding truly good RWA assets.

Not designing increasingly complicated token incentive systems.

What are good RWA assets? Four criteria:

1. Attractive APY. The yield must be compelling to users, competitive with TradFi, and should not be lower than bank wealth management products.
2. Consensus. The assets themselves should have market recognition, government bonds, credit products backed by reputable institutions, easily understandable and trustworthy for users.
3. Stability. They should not be high-risk, high-return speculative products; the core value proposition of RWA is stable real returns.
4. Safety. Risk control on the asset side must be reliable, and the underlying assets should not have issues.

When the underlying assets are good enough, users will naturally come to earn returns. At this point, the role of tokens should be: holding tokens unlocks better assets, higher return ratios, and prioritized allocations.

Demand is transferred from the asset side to the token side, forming a genuine reason to buy. Instead of the opposite — using token subsidies to attract users only to find that no one wants to hold tokens.

The narrative of RWA is real, the data is real, and institutions are entering the market, that is also real.

But no matter how strong the narrative, it cannot support a token model that has inherent design flaws.

The next RWA project that truly succeeds, I predict, will be the one that first solidifies its asset side before discussing token value. It will not rely on token rewards to pull TVL but will depend on TVL to support the token. If you reverse the order, no narrative or market guru can save you.

Good assets attract users, and users support tokens. Doing the reverse just means using tokens to subsidize a product that no one genuinely wants.

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