RWA has become a little girl who can be dressed up as one wishes.
The term RWA has recently been everywhere. From international financial forums to industry startup groups, everyone is talking about "asset tokenization" and "real-world mapping". It seems that if someone doesn't say a few words about RWA, they are a bit out of touch with the trends in the industry.
However, the more intense the excitement, the more we need to calm down and clarify: what problems can RWA really solve, and what foundational conditions are required for its implementation.
Many people say that RWA is the "on-chain reconstruction" of real-world assets, and Lawyer Honglin does not oppose this statement. However, the premise of "reconstruction" is to truly break the original information barriers and settlement processes.
In many RWA projects I have encountered, so-called "asset tokenization" is actually just rewriting data that originally exists in Excel, ERP, or custodial systems onto the blockchain. However, the entire process remains the same: asset generation, value confirmation, income calculation, investment distribution—these are still gradually handled by the project's offline operations team, with the blockchain simply serving as an "enhanced report."
In this case, saying it "used blockchain" is indeed correct; but to say it "changed the logic of financial operations" is a bit far-fetched.
What you call "asset mapping" is actually no different from drawing a balance sheet in Excel. You can't just replace the asset-related information from a paper contract with a JSON file written on the blockchain and then claim that you have achieved "tokenization of real-world assets."
You can use the chain to record assets, but you cannot use the chain to drive finance. Without breaking through this point, RWA will always remain at version 0.1.
Two criteria for distinguishing the authenticity of RWA
Many people believe that the core of RWA lies in "certification"—the assets have origins, and there is registration on the blockchain. However, in reality, trustworthy data is only a fundamental prerequisite. What truly determines whether RWA has financial value is whether it can achieve credible settlement, meaning whether the flow of funds mechanism on the blockchain can operate.
Therefore, the value of RWA is divided into two layers: one is trustworthy data, and the other is trustworthy settlement.
First layer: Trusted data refers to whether the real-world asset's status changes can be recorded on the blockchain. This may seem very "technical," but it is essentially a transformation of business processes. External interfaces such as sensors, custodians, and oracles must be able to push information to the blockchain in real-time, automatically, and objectively when asset changes occur. This is the first threshold for RWA. Projects that can truly be called RWA must achieve "as soon as an event occurs, the blockchain knows," rather than having the operations department upload "reports" at the end of each month.
In many RWA cases packaged in the news that we are aware of, many projects still rely on manual operations: various asset information is stored in a folder, and at the end of the month, someone clicks the mouse to generate an on-chain summary. This "post-upload" is essentially just "on-chain bookkeeping," which is far from the concept of "native trust" of blockchain.
Second Layer: Trustworthy settlement is where the true value of RWA lies. In other words, whether the distribution of profits, the return of principal, the handling of defaults, and the carryover of fees can be executed automatically, remain immutable, and are publicly transparent. To achieve this, there must be a currency unit on the chain, which means the participation of stablecoins.
Many projects ignore this point: the data is there, the contract logic is there, but when it comes to the settlement process, you have to rely on the financial lady to make the payment manually, or "simulate" the flow of funds through a third-party platform. In this design, the on-chain token is just a symbol that "looks like an asset", but it is not an actual enforceable financial right.
So we say that there are two fundamental criteria for measuring whether a project is a legitimate RWA.
First, can your data stream automatically go on-chain without relying on human effort?
You said you are working on new energy charging piles, is the energy level of the pile, power on/off, and fault log written directly to the chain from the sensor? You mentioned you are doing accounts receivable financing, can the buyer's ERP system push the hash to the chain as soon as the invoice is issued? You said you sell real estate rental income rights, does the rental flow have a custodial bank API for real-time feedback?
If these actions still have to be collected and manually entered by the operation team, then the data "on the chain" is a false proposition. You are not letting the system make judgments, but relying on "people patting their heads" to make judgments, and in the end, it is still the centralized process, but the tool of "writing the ledger" has been replaced by the blockchain. has changed to a more fancy account book, but it is still human flesh, and there is no shortage of reputation risk and tampering risk.
Second, can your funds flow be settled on-chain?
You said you issued a Token for the revenue from new energy charging piles. Once those charging fees enter the custodial account, are they split into N portions of stablecoins and sent directly to the investors' addresses by the smart contract? You mentioned that you are doing accounts receivable financing; when a payment from the buyer is received, can the contract immediately repay the principal according to the payment term, accrue interest, and deduct service fees? You said you sell the rental income rights of real estate; the moment the tenant clicks "confirm payment," does the blockchain simultaneously transfer the rental stablecoins to the Token holders and automatically deposit the penalty and maintenance fees into the risk pool?
If these actions still require the finance lady to verify each transaction and manually transfer funds, then "on-chain settlement" is just a pipe dream. Funds circulate in the background and then return to manual online banking, turning Tokens into experience vouchers - visible but not redeemable.
Real RWA should allow money to flow like data: verifiable stablecoin reserves, public distribution formulas, and contract addresses that can be checked at any time. Otherwise, no matter how fancy you describe the rights to income, investors will ultimately still have to queue for loans, and financial efficiency will not see a qualitative improvement.
This is not the future we want.
RWA without stablecoins is just playing tricks.
What we want is a truly functional structure: natively on-chain, capable of automatic operation and real-time settlement. Once the data is generated, it is automatically written to the chain and cannot be altered; once the funds are triggered, they automatically reach their destination without human intervention.
RWA is not a nicer-looking table, but a new operating logic: data must be trustworthy at the source, and funds must be settled on-chain.
To achieve these two points, one needs blockchain technology as the underlying information layer, and the other requires stablecoins as the value carrier.
Many people talk about stablecoins, often saying that they can improve the efficiency of cross-border payments, reduce costs, and replace banks. However, what truly determines their value in RWA is not these macro advantages, but rather their ability to make money truly "move" in the blockchain world. It’s not about waiting for monthly or maturity settlements, but about being programmable, callable, and being able to execute payments directly based on on-chain data.
The biggest significance of stablecoins is that they allow money to be programmed for the first time, enabling the execution of rules.
You can specify when it will make payments, to whom, how much to pay, and even what on-chain events must occur before the payment is made. It is not funds that wait for someone to click a button to move; instead, it flows automatically like data.
With the application of stablecoins in RWA, the entire lifecycle of assets—from generation, profit distribution, to exit and recovery—can run on the chain in the form of smart contracts. Otherwise, no matter how many institutions participate or how many audit endorsements there are, it is merely another form of a centralized platform.
That’s why we say: RWA without stablecoin applications are just a sham.
The content is for reference only, not a solicitation or offer. No investment, tax, or legal advice provided. See Disclaimer for more risks disclosure.
Opinion: RWA without stablecoins are just playing tricks.
Written by: Liu Honglin
RWA has become a little girl who can be dressed up as one wishes.
The term RWA has recently been everywhere. From international financial forums to industry startup groups, everyone is talking about "asset tokenization" and "real-world mapping". It seems that if someone doesn't say a few words about RWA, they are a bit out of touch with the trends in the industry.
However, the more intense the excitement, the more we need to calm down and clarify: what problems can RWA really solve, and what foundational conditions are required for its implementation.
Many people say that RWA is the "on-chain reconstruction" of real-world assets, and Lawyer Honglin does not oppose this statement. However, the premise of "reconstruction" is to truly break the original information barriers and settlement processes.
In many RWA projects I have encountered, so-called "asset tokenization" is actually just rewriting data that originally exists in Excel, ERP, or custodial systems onto the blockchain. However, the entire process remains the same: asset generation, value confirmation, income calculation, investment distribution—these are still gradually handled by the project's offline operations team, with the blockchain simply serving as an "enhanced report."
In this case, saying it "used blockchain" is indeed correct; but to say it "changed the logic of financial operations" is a bit far-fetched.
What you call "asset mapping" is actually no different from drawing a balance sheet in Excel. You can't just replace the asset-related information from a paper contract with a JSON file written on the blockchain and then claim that you have achieved "tokenization of real-world assets."
You can use the chain to record assets, but you cannot use the chain to drive finance. Without breaking through this point, RWA will always remain at version 0.1.
Two criteria for distinguishing the authenticity of RWA
Many people believe that the core of RWA lies in "certification"—the assets have origins, and there is registration on the blockchain. However, in reality, trustworthy data is only a fundamental prerequisite. What truly determines whether RWA has financial value is whether it can achieve credible settlement, meaning whether the flow of funds mechanism on the blockchain can operate.
Therefore, the value of RWA is divided into two layers: one is trustworthy data, and the other is trustworthy settlement.
First layer: Trusted data refers to whether the real-world asset's status changes can be recorded on the blockchain. This may seem very "technical," but it is essentially a transformation of business processes. External interfaces such as sensors, custodians, and oracles must be able to push information to the blockchain in real-time, automatically, and objectively when asset changes occur. This is the first threshold for RWA. Projects that can truly be called RWA must achieve "as soon as an event occurs, the blockchain knows," rather than having the operations department upload "reports" at the end of each month.
In many RWA cases packaged in the news that we are aware of, many projects still rely on manual operations: various asset information is stored in a folder, and at the end of the month, someone clicks the mouse to generate an on-chain summary. This "post-upload" is essentially just "on-chain bookkeeping," which is far from the concept of "native trust" of blockchain.
Second Layer: Trustworthy settlement is where the true value of RWA lies. In other words, whether the distribution of profits, the return of principal, the handling of defaults, and the carryover of fees can be executed automatically, remain immutable, and are publicly transparent. To achieve this, there must be a currency unit on the chain, which means the participation of stablecoins.
Many projects ignore this point: the data is there, the contract logic is there, but when it comes to the settlement process, you have to rely on the financial lady to make the payment manually, or "simulate" the flow of funds through a third-party platform. In this design, the on-chain token is just a symbol that "looks like an asset", but it is not an actual enforceable financial right.
So we say that there are two fundamental criteria for measuring whether a project is a legitimate RWA.
First, can your data stream automatically go on-chain without relying on human effort?
You said you are working on new energy charging piles, is the energy level of the pile, power on/off, and fault log written directly to the chain from the sensor? You mentioned you are doing accounts receivable financing, can the buyer's ERP system push the hash to the chain as soon as the invoice is issued? You said you sell real estate rental income rights, does the rental flow have a custodial bank API for real-time feedback?
If these actions still have to be collected and manually entered by the operation team, then the data "on the chain" is a false proposition. You are not letting the system make judgments, but relying on "people patting their heads" to make judgments, and in the end, it is still the centralized process, but the tool of "writing the ledger" has been replaced by the blockchain. has changed to a more fancy account book, but it is still human flesh, and there is no shortage of reputation risk and tampering risk.
Second, can your funds flow be settled on-chain?
You said you issued a Token for the revenue from new energy charging piles. Once those charging fees enter the custodial account, are they split into N portions of stablecoins and sent directly to the investors' addresses by the smart contract? You mentioned that you are doing accounts receivable financing; when a payment from the buyer is received, can the contract immediately repay the principal according to the payment term, accrue interest, and deduct service fees? You said you sell the rental income rights of real estate; the moment the tenant clicks "confirm payment," does the blockchain simultaneously transfer the rental stablecoins to the Token holders and automatically deposit the penalty and maintenance fees into the risk pool?
If these actions still require the finance lady to verify each transaction and manually transfer funds, then "on-chain settlement" is just a pipe dream. Funds circulate in the background and then return to manual online banking, turning Tokens into experience vouchers - visible but not redeemable.
Real RWA should allow money to flow like data: verifiable stablecoin reserves, public distribution formulas, and contract addresses that can be checked at any time. Otherwise, no matter how fancy you describe the rights to income, investors will ultimately still have to queue for loans, and financial efficiency will not see a qualitative improvement.
This is not the future we want.
RWA without stablecoins is just playing tricks.
What we want is a truly functional structure: natively on-chain, capable of automatic operation and real-time settlement. Once the data is generated, it is automatically written to the chain and cannot be altered; once the funds are triggered, they automatically reach their destination without human intervention.
RWA is not a nicer-looking table, but a new operating logic: data must be trustworthy at the source, and funds must be settled on-chain.
To achieve these two points, one needs blockchain technology as the underlying information layer, and the other requires stablecoins as the value carrier.
Many people talk about stablecoins, often saying that they can improve the efficiency of cross-border payments, reduce costs, and replace banks. However, what truly determines their value in RWA is not these macro advantages, but rather their ability to make money truly "move" in the blockchain world. It’s not about waiting for monthly or maturity settlements, but about being programmable, callable, and being able to execute payments directly based on on-chain data.
The biggest significance of stablecoins is that they allow money to be programmed for the first time, enabling the execution of rules.
You can specify when it will make payments, to whom, how much to pay, and even what on-chain events must occur before the payment is made. It is not funds that wait for someone to click a button to move; instead, it flows automatically like data.
With the application of stablecoins in RWA, the entire lifecycle of assets—from generation, profit distribution, to exit and recovery—can run on the chain in the form of smart contracts. Otherwise, no matter how many institutions participate or how many audit endorsements there are, it is merely another form of a centralized platform.
That’s why we say: RWA without stablecoin applications are just a sham.