Introduction

Recently, RWAs (Real World Assets) have become the darlings of capital markets. Announcements from listed companies in real estate, renewable energy, and innovative pharmaceuticals have caused stock prices to surge, stirring investor sentiment. But what exactly is the magic of RWA, and what opportunities and challenges does it represent?

Development History of RWA

The concept of RWA can be traced back to 2017–2018, during the ICO boom, when some attempts at Security Token Offerings (STOs) emerged. For example, certain startups issued tokens representing company equity or fund shares. However, due to the lack of secondary markets and regulatory barriers, these early attempts had a limited impact. From 2019 to 2020, with the rise of DeFi, projects like MakerDAO began focusing on RWA. In 2020, Maker first accepted off-chain assets (such as commercial paper) as collateral, introducing them into its DAI stablecoin ecosystem, a key milestone for RWA. Around the same time, Centrifuge launched the Tinlake protocol, partnering with Maker to provide on-chain financing channels for SME accounts receivable. Entering 2021, the prosperity of the cryptocurrency market led to an increase in the demand for unsecured lending. Maple and TrueFi successively launched, providing credit loans to trading institutions and also investing some funds off-chain. (While these loans were primarily crypto-focused, they laid the foundation for future RWA lending.) Starting in 2022, rising global interest rates and declining native crypto yields intensified demand for stable on-chain returns, making RWA a hot narrative. Especially after the U.S. Federal Reserve raised rates, low-risk, high-yield assets like U.S. Treasuries regained appeal, and numerous projects began tokenizing Treasuries and other government bonds. 2023 was dubbed “RWA Year Zero,” marked by the entry of traditional financial giants: major asset managers from the U.S. and Germany (e.g., BlackRock, Franklin Templeton) launched tokenized fund products; payment companies like Visa explored on-chain Treasuries for stablecoin settlements; and regulatory clarity around RWA gradually emerged. These factors propelled RWA from concept validation to expansion.

Concept and Asset Classification of RWA

Real World Assets (RWA) generally refer to the transformation of tangible or intangible assets in the real world into tradable digital tokens through blockchain technology, achieving the digitization and tokenization of assets. The coverage of RWA is extremely broad, ranging from traditional financial assets to various fields of the real economy. Specifically, it includes debt instruments such as government bonds and corporate bonds, equity assets such as stocks, physical assets such as real estate and gold, non-standardized rights and interests such as private equity, intellectual property, and supply chain receivables. Virtually any asset type with value or ownership rights is exploring the possibility of going on-chain.

It should be noted that narrow RWA typically does not include tokens pegged to fiat currencies such as stablecoins. Although the reserve mechanism of stablecoins is also supported by off-chain fiat currencies or bonds and falls within the broad category of RWA, they are generally classified separately as stablecoins. The RWA discussed in this article will mainly focus on the tokenization of real-world assets other than stablecoins, such as government bonds, real estate, private debt, private equity, accounts receivable, artwork, and other categories.

According to asset nature, the current on-chain RWA can mainly be divided into the following categories:

• Government Bonds and Public Debt: Highly standardized bond assets are the preferred RWA targets, among which U.S. Treasuries are the most prominent. U.S. Treasuries carry virtually no default risk (in theory) and enjoy high liquidity. The tokenization legal structure is clear and mature, typically using an offshore fund + token wrapper model to meet regulatory requirements. In addition to Treasuries, sovereign bonds, and corporate bonds in Europe and Asia are also beginning to move on-chain, for example, through BVI funds or Luxembourg SICAV structures to issue tokenized notes.
• Private Credit (Private Debt): Includes SME loans, trade receivables financing, consumer finance debt, and real estate mortgages. Tokenization of these assets can provide real yield sources for DeFi capital, but due to the varied qualifications of underlying borrowers, the risks are relatively higher. Typically, SPVs are established to hold the underlying assets, while DeFi protocols provide liquidity, and investors earn on-chain interest income. Representative projects include Maple, Centrifuge, Goldfinch, Credix, and Clearpool, which aim to connect off-chain SME loans, mortgage loans, and other real assets, while introducing Chainlink oracle-based proof-of-asset mechanisms to enhance data reliability.
• Commodities and Bulk Assets: These primarily include gold, carbon credits, oil, and other commodities. Gold, due to its stable value and clear reserve logic, is the most common commodity RWA. Examples include Paxos Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT), issued 1:1 against physical gold reserves. Carbon credits, crude oil, and other energy-related assets face higher regulatory thresholds and are currently mostly at the pilot stage.
• Equity and Fund Shares: Includes private equity, publicly listed company stocks, and various private fund shares issued on-chain. Representative platforms include Securitize, ADDX, and Swarm, which compliantly convert corporate equity or fund participation certificates into on-chain tradable tokens. These assets are subject to heavy securities regulation, with secondary market transactions strictly requiring KYC whitelist checks. Some projects adopt permissioned chains to restrict circulation. Equity-based RWA is currently very small in scale (about $362 million as of end-June 2025, less than 2% of the total RWA market). It lacks liquidity, which is the result of both regulatory and market factors.
• Real Estate: Real estate is characterized by high value and low liquidity, with traditional transactions typically involving high thresholds and long cycles. RWA provides a new path for fractionalized real estate investment. For example, SPVs can hold properties and issue tokenized rights, allowing small investors to share in rental income or property appreciation proportionally. However, real estate tokenization faces complex property rights confirmation and legal synchronization challenges: how to align on-chain token transfers with off-chain property registrations remains unresolved. In one Singapore real estate project, an NFT became an “ownerless asset” because an offline title change was not reflected on-chain in time, exposing the risk of lagging off-chain information. As a result, most real estate RWAs currently focus on revenue-right tokens (e.g., rental income rights), where holders do not directly own the property itself but receive proportional income distributions.
• Alternative Collectibles and Art: Includes art, collectible cards, premium wines, watches, and other non-traditional assets. These assets typically lack active public market pricing. The main goals of tokenization are lowering investment thresholds and improving circulation efficiency. For example, some early platforms issued fractionalized NFTs of famous artworks, allowing multiple investors to co-own them. However, due to the subjectivity of art valuation and extremely low liquidity, this segment of RWA remains a niche experiment with limited scale and influence. That said, with platforms like BenFen introducing one-click issuance capabilities, the future tokenization threshold for art and collectibles may be significantly reduced.

Review of Mainstream RWA Projects

In recent years, multiple models of RWA projects have emerged. Below are the main representative projects categorized by asset type, with a brief description of each project’s core mechanism:

• Government Bond RWA Projects: Typical representatives include Ondo Finance, Superstate, Backed Finance, etc.

Ondo is a platform focused on bringing traditional financial assets on-chain. It pioneered the short-term U.S. Treasury ETF token OUSG, which is backed by real bond assets held by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). Ondo issues corresponding ERC-20 tokens pegged 1:1 to the underlying ETF value, with interest automatically settled daily.

Superstate, founded by the creator of Compound, takes a fully compliant fund route. Its product USTB directly invests in short-term U.S. Treasuries and issues on-chain shares via a registered fund structure. The management fee is only 0.15%. USTB is open only to accredited investors as defined by U.S. regulation, and investors can either self-custody their tokenized shares or store them with qualified custodians such as Anchorage or BitGo.

Backed Finance provides the xStocks framework to tokenize securities such as U.S. and European equities. For example, Backed’s TSLAx token is pegged 1:1 to Tesla stock, with the real shares held by a regulated custodian and redeemable 1:1 at any time. These tokens support 24/7 trading, breaking traditional stock market time zone limits. Dividends are distributed to token holders through additional token airdrops. The only limitation is that its settlement model is semi-closed (similar to Synthetix), which means user profits cannot be fully settled on a 24/7 basis.

Overall, government bond and securities-based RWA projects share a common emphasis on compliance. They usually establish offshore SPVs or regulated funds to ensure that the legal relationship between tokens and underlying assets is solid and transparent.

• Credit Loan RWA Projects: This field has seen the rise of protocols such as Maple Finance, Goldfinch, TrueFi, Centrifuge, Credix, and Clearpool.

Maple Finance positions itself as a multi-chain, institutional-grade lending platform, serving borrowers such as hedge funds, trading firms, and DAOs. By incorporating off-chain due diligence and borrower credit scoring, Maple enables automated on-chain matching for unsecured/undercollateralized loans. Its product line has also expanded into tokenized U.S. Treasuries and trade receivables pools. As of June 2025, Maple’s assets under management (AUM) exceeded $2.4 billion.

Goldfinch focuses on credit lending in emerging markets, enabling crypto investors to provide loan capital to fintech institutions in developing countries in exchange for high-yield interest. Goldfinch adopts a dual-pool model: retail capital goes into the senior pool for stable returns (historical annual yields of ~7–10%), while a community-selected junior pool allocates a portion of capital to absorb higher risk in exchange for higher interest rates. This model leverages community consensus and token incentives for risk pricing, partially realizing unsecured lending.

TrueFi initially focused on unsecured lending to crypto-native institutions but has since been transitioning toward institutional-grade RWA services, gradually introducing on-chain financing channels for traditional assets.

Centrifuge positions itself as RWA infrastructure. Through its Tinlake protocol, real-world assets (e.g., receivables, mortgages) are tokenized into NFTs, which are then split into senior DROP and junior TIN tranches for investors to subscribe to. Centrifuge has become the leading platform for on-chain receivables financing.

Overall, credit-focused RWA projects use a hybrid structure of off-chain SPVs + on-chain liquidity pools to bring assets such as SME loans into DeFi. Investors on these platforms can earn relatively high yields (typically 8–18% APY), but they must bear higher credit risk and rely on off-chain audits and legal mechanisms to safeguard investments.

• Other Categories of RWA Projects: In the commodities sector, projects such as Paxos Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT) tokenize physical gold under custody.

PAXG represents one ounce of London Good Delivery gold per token, with custody provided by top-tier institutions such as Brink’s. Holders can redeem physical gold for a fee. Tokens like PAXG allow investors to gain gold exposure without bearing storage costs, while also enabling 24/7 on-chain trading or use as collateral in DeFi lending.

In institutional fund and equity tokenization, beyond platforms like Securitize and Backed, there are emerging projects such as Swarm Markets, which introduce European securities on-chain, and ADDX, which provides a private fund token subscription platform in Singapore. These platforms are generally constrained by regulation and are often limited to accredited investors.

Overall, the RWA projects that have achieved real adoption and scale remain concentrated in bonds and credit markets, while other categories are mostly still in early exploratory stages. It is also worth noting that beyond individual projects, the evolution of underlying blockchain infrastructure is equally critical. For example, in its 2025 upgrade, BenFen became the first to support one-click RWA issuance, providing a standardized framework for tokenizing various assets such as bonds, equities, and real estate, thereby forming a complementary relationship with application-layer projects.

Blue Ocean or Red Ocean: How Far Can RWA Go?

Although the scale of on-chain RWA has surged explosively in the past two years, how far can it go in the future? According to data from Binance Research and RWA.xyz, the total volume of on-chain RWA was less than $200 million in 2020. By the end of 2023, it had surpassed $1 billion; by mid-2024, it exceeded $12 billion (excluding stablecoins). Entering 2025, with institutional capital flowing in, the scale continued to skyrocket. In the first half of 2025, the global total value of on-chain RWA exceeded $23.3 billion, representing nearly 380% growth compared to early 2024.

As of August 2025, the RWA market capitalization stood at approximately $25.22 billion. Among these, tokenized U.S. Treasuries are the largest single category, with a market cap of around $6.8 billion, accounting for about 27% of the total RWA. If calculated more broadly to include stablecoins under the RWA umbrella, then there is an additional $256.8 billion represented by stablecoins. However, as noted earlier, our main focus here is on non-stablecoin RWAs. Beyond Treasuries, the second-largest segment within RWAs is private credit, including various on-chain lending pools, whose share is steadily increasing.

For example, lending pools managed by Maple, Goldfinch, and Centrifuge have collectively reached several hundred million dollars. However, given the longer maturities and lower liquidity of credit assets, their share of the overall RWA market cap remains relatively limited (around 10%). Other categories, such as tokenized equities and commodities, remain small in scale: tokenized equities amount to only about $360 million, while commodity tokens such as gold circulate at just a few hundred million dollars. Clearly, within the non-stablecoin RWA landscape, U.S. Treasuries and private credit serve as dual growth engines: Treasury RWAs provide a low-risk yield “base layer” for DeFi, while private credit RWAs attract risk-seeking capital with higher returns. Together, they have fueled the rapid expansion of on-chain RWAs over the past year.

Against this backdrop, breakthroughs at the infrastructure layer are particularly critical. Following a major upgrade, the stablecoin payment chain BenFen officially enabled one-click RWA issuance and tokenization, aligning this process with its unified framework for stablecoin issuance. With features such as one-click stablecoin issuance and gas fee sponsorship, BenFen is evolving into a one-stop hub for stablecoin and RWA issuance, as well as a global gateway for payments and asset circulation.

Looking ahead, as technology matures and regulation advances, RWA is poised to become another pillar sector in crypto after stablecoins. Conceptually, asset classes that were once considered “red oceans” can be repackaged via blockchain into a new “blue ocean.” This tool is set to become a rising star of modern finance. Public chains like BenFen, which combine one-click issuance capabilities for both stablecoins and RWAs, will play a critical role in this transformation.(Source: blocktempo.com).

Regulatory Attitudes and Compliance Frameworks Across Key Jurisdictions

Since RWA involves bringing traditional financial assets on-chain, it inevitably faces the constraints of securities and financial regulations in different jurisdictions. Regulatory stances toward RWA and tokenization vary widely. In summary:

• United States: The U.S. adopts a cautious stance toward RWA, with its regulatory framework grounded in existing securities laws. Most projects operate through SPV isolation + private securities compliance structures. Token issuances must follow SEC oversight, often taking routes such as Reg D (private placement to accredited investors) or Reg S (offshore issuance), to avoid public registration requirements. This means that RWA tokens issued in the U.S. are largely limited to accredited investors, while retail investors cannot directly participate. Overall, regulators such as the SEC and CFTC take a conservative view, treating such tokens as securities that must comply with disclosure and investor protection rules. As a result, U.S. RWA innovation is mainly concentrated in institutional markets, with many projects choosing to pilot overseas before entering the U.S.
• European Union: The EU takes a more proactive approach. The MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation), passed in 2023, directly addresses RWA by defining tokens pegged to real-world assets as “asset-referenced tokens (ARTs)” and bringing them under regulation. In practice, EU-based RWA projects often use trust or EU-recognized SPV structures, such as establishing a variable capital investment company (SICAV) as the SPV to hold underlying assets and issue tokens. MiCA compliance requires issuers to disclose details such as asset custody and profit distribution rules. Overall, the EU’s approach is to integrate RWA into the existing financial regulatory framework, reducing legal uncertainty through harmonized rules.

• Singapore: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) launched Project Guardian in 2022, partnering with financial institutions to test on-chain settlement and tokenization of government bonds and FX. Under MAS’s digital asset framework, stablecoins and security tokens fall within regulatory sandboxes, encouraging RWA experimentation in a controlled environment. Overall, Singapore’s regulatory stance is relatively accommodative, providing policy support such as tax incentives and regulatory sandbox opportunities.
• Hong Kong: Hong Kong has already allowed licensed brokerages to apply for pilot programs in tokenized securities issuance and trading, restricted to professional investors. In general, Hong Kong takes a highly supportive attitude toward RWA, leveraging government endorsement to attract projects while emphasizing compliance first, innovation second.
• United Arab Emirates (UAE): Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) has introduced one of the world’s first comprehensive frameworks for RWA tokenization, covering issuance, custody, and trading, providing legal certainty for tokenized assets. While VARA rules do not yet cover all asset types, they reflect Dubai’s ambition to become a global RWA hub. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi’s ADGM launched a tokenization pilot sandbox in 2023, inviting fintech firms to test RWA products such as debt and fund shares. On the application side, Dubai’s Land Department has announced plans to explore real estate tokenization, integrating property registration with blockchain, while the UAE’s carbon exchange is considering blockchain-based carbon credit trading. Overall, the UAE adopts a public-private collaboration + regulatory sandbox approach, encouraging both domestic and foreign institutions to develop RWA businesses locally. Its favorable tax regime and clear crypto regulations have attracted numerous project teams. As regulation matures, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are well-positioned to become the RWA issuance and trading hubs of the Middle East.

Cost and Yield Comparison of On-Chain Issuance in Different Countries and Asset Types

The economic model of RWA projects involves multiple layers of costs and returns, including the yield of underlying assets, custody and audit expenses, protocol fees, and investor-level returns. Regulatory environments in different countries and different asset classes will all have an impact on issuance costs and yield outcomes. Below, we compare major asset categories with supporting data and case studies:

• Treasury Bonds and Government Debt: The yield of the underlying assets of this type of RWA depends on the macro interest rate. Taking U.S. Treasury bonds as an example, the current one-year U.S. Treasury bond interest rate is approximately 5%. Therefore, tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds (such as Ondo’s OUSG and Superstate’s USTB) can provide an annualized risk-free rate of nearly 5%, becoming the “interest rate anchor” for the funds on the blockchain. The main cost of issuing such products lies in the fund management fee and compliance expenses. For example, Ondo’s OUSG adopts an ETF cross-chain packaging structure and charges an annual management fee of approximately 0.15% — 0.3% to cover operational costs, including bank custody, legal compliance, and other expenses. Superstate’s USTB is a registered fund and has a lower management fee of only 0.15%. In addition, a custody fee is paid to bank custodians such as Anchorage, but by directly holding Treasury bonds rather than nesting ETFs, it reduces the number of fee levels. In terms of compliance costs, the issuance of such products in the United States requires compliance with regulatory exemptions, and the legal service fees are relatively high; while issuing Treasury bond tokens in places like Switzerland and Singapore, due to high regulatory acceptance, the approval process is relatively simplified. Overall, the yield of Treasury RWA is relatively low but stable, and the management fee accounts for a relatively small proportion of the cost structure.

• Private Credit: The private loan assets on the blockchain usually offer higher returns than traditional rates to compensate for the higher credit and liquidity risks. Take Maple and Goldfinch as examples. Their lending pools target small and medium-sized enterprises or emerging markets, with historical annualized interest rates ranging from 8% to 15%. The specific returns vary depending on the borrower’s qualifications: Quality borrowers (those with collateral or stable cash flow) may have loan interest rates of 8–10%, while riskier borrowers (such as startups without collateral loans) may have rates of 15% or higher. Investors in these loan pools can receive corresponding interest income, but they also need to bear the risk of default and a longer lock-up period. To enhance investment attractiveness, many platforms adopt a yield grading mechanism: For investors in the senior pool of Goldfinch, they receive a fixed interest rate, while secondary participants receive the remaining high returns but bear losses first. The cost of issuing such assets mainly lies in due diligence and risk management. Before issuing the loan projects, third-party auditors and lawyers need to conduct off-chain due diligence. The platform will also extract a certain percentage from the loan interest as protocol fees: Maple charges a 0.5% — 2% handling fee per loan. These fees are partially passed on to the borrowers and partially reflected in the discount of the investors’ returns. Compared to traditional finance, on-chain credit has reduced matching and management costs (smart contracts automatically execute repayments and distribution). Still, it requires manual and legal intervention in credit assessment and collection, so the overall cost is not low. Additionally, the compliance requirements for on-chain lending in different jurisdictions have a significant impact: In the United States, this type of public lending is likely to be regarded as securities or investment products, requiring registration or exemption (with high compliance costs); while in places like Singapore, issuing tokenized debt with limited participation numbers through licensed legal entities can be conducted within a sandbox, with relatively simplified procedures. Therefore, some projects choose to establish funds in friendly regions such as Singapore and Switzerland to issue loan certificates, and then raise funds globally to reduce regulatory friction.

• Real Estate and Other Physical Assets: Real estate tokens typically correspond to rental income or real estate creditors’ rights, and their yields are influenced by the local real estate rental and sale market. Generally, the rental returns of high-quality properties in developed markets range from 3% to 5%, while in developing markets, they may reach over 8%. If the property rights and interests are fragmented and listed on the blockchain, the basic income that investors obtain is the net income after deducting property management and taxes from the rent. This part of the income is relatively stable, but it is much lower than credit assets. However, considering the potential appreciation of real estate, the long-term total return will be higher. The main cost of issuing real estate rights and interests on the blockchain lies in the establishment of legal structures and continuous management. Various fees, such as appraisers, custodian banks, and notarized legal documents, need to be paid. In Hong Kong and Singapore, the government is exploring ways to reduce these costs: For example, in the digital green bond project supported by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, blockchain simplifies the settlement process and saves some intermediary fees. Similarly, the returns of RWA, such as artworks and collectibles, mainly come from the appreciation of the assets themselves rather than continuous income. The price discovery of such assets is difficult, and the lack of transparency in valuation leads to a large price difference in trading. The issuers usually charge custody, insurance, and transaction commissions. For instance, an art platform charges 2% of the token holder’s custody fee annually. In contrast, although gold tokenized assets have no interest, their liquidity and trading activity are higher than those of other RWA categories because the gold market is globally connected and has high price transparency. According to statistics, the monthly transaction volume on the blockchain of PAXG and XAUT gold tokens is much higher than that of most credit or equity tokens. Therefore, different RWA assets show a trade-off between returns and liquidity: assets with high returns often have poor liquidity, while assets with good liquidity (such as gold) have low or even zero returns, and require DeFi compound strategies to increase returns.

• Geographic Differences and Cost Comparisons: Regional differences and cost comparison: From a national perspective, the regulatory environment directly affects the issuance cost and pricing of RWA. In the United States, strict compliance requirements have driven up legal and operational costs. Many projects can only be issued to high-net-worth clients, resulting in restricted liquidity and relatively higher financing costs (borrowers need to pay higher interest rates to attract limited funds). Conversely, in RWA-friendly jurisdictions such as Singapore and Switzerland, compliance costs are lower. Issuers can reach global investors at a lower cost, thus having room to finance at a lower interest rate or transfer more returns to investors. This is why some RWA products cannot be offered to retail investors in the United States but can be circumvented by being issued overseas and then purchased by American institutions.

Overall, the on-chain issuance cost of RWA consists of two major components: technical cost and compliance cost. At the technical level, blockchains are exerting a scale effect to reduce labor and time costs, while compliance costs depend on the regulatory friendliness of the jurisdiction.

Core Issues Currently Faced by the RWA Market

Although RWA is highly anticipated, it still encounters a series of challenges in practice and requires the joint efforts of the industry and regulation to solve:

• Legal Compliance Problems: The on-chain implementation of real assets involves complex legal relationships. The current legal framework lags behind technological development, and many key issues lack judicial precedents. For example, how can on-chain tokens correspond one-to-one with off-chain asset ownership? How can the rights of token holders be recognized in courts? As mentioned earlier, in the SPV structure, tokens are regarded as SPV equity certificates, but the legal gap that chain transfer does not equal offline transfer still exists. Different jurisdictions may have different characterizations of the same RWA token, resulting in a lack of legal protection for cross-border transactions. This legal uncertainty has always left compliance risks for RWA projects, as a lawyer pointed out that many RWA tokens are more like “self-proven legal digital IOUs”.

• Authenticity and Credit Risk of Off-Chain Assets: The value basis of RWA lies off-chain, making the verification of the authenticity and credit status of off-chain assets extremely crucial. Currently, the industry mainly relies on third-party institutions (such as accounting firms and assessors) to issue certificates, which are then uploaded onto the chain through oracles. However, the intermediaries themselves may make mistakes or engage in fraud, and chain-based investors still need to “trust” them. For example, a certain RWA lending project once exposed the issue of false financial reports provided by the borrowing enterprises, and the due diligence party failed to detect it in time, causing losses to the investors. Additionally, assets such as real estate also involve difficulties in updating and synchronization: if the underlying asset conditions change (such as loss of collateral or transfer of property rights), how to quickly reflect this on the chain still lacks a perfect mechanism. Although Chainlink and others have launched Proof of Reserve schemes to verify asset reserves regularly, the credit risk of complex assets cannot be solely resolved by technology; it still requires off-chain legal means for protection, such as guarantees, insurance, and default disposal, etc., along with corresponding arrangements. All these will increase the operational difficulty and cost of the project.
• Insufficient market liquidity: RWA assets generally have the problem of liquidity shortage. The reasons are first that the investor scope is limited: many RWA tokens can only be sold to qualified investors or addresses on the whitelist, naturally shrinking the secondary market size. Secondly, there is a lack of active trading venues and market makers, and most tokens are traded coldly on decentralized exchanges, with large bid-ask spreads and low transaction frequencies. Research shows that most RWA tokens have a very long holding period and a very low turnover rate, and most investors adopt the strategy of “buy and hold for the long term”. This not only reflects that RWA investments are biased towards the medium and long term, but also means that liquidity is insufficient to support active trading. When investors need to liquidate, they may face the problem of no one willing to take them over or having to sell at a significant discount. The lack of liquidity also brings pricing difficulties: due to the lack of continuous trading, the fair value of the assets is not transparent, further dampening the willingness to trade. To alleviate these problems, the market is beginning to explore the introduction of professional market makers and incentive mechanisms. For example, some platforms offer additional token incentives to LPs who provide liquidity or seek centralized brokers to match transactions for RWA tokens. However, overall, before RWA can attract a larger scale of investors (including ordinary individuals), the liquidity bottleneck will still exist in the short term.

• Valuation Pricing and Oracle Issues: Many traditional financial assets do not have real-time prices. For instance, unlisted equities and real estate valuations are often lagging and lack a unified standard. When these assets are put on the blockchain, pricing the tokens becomes a challenge. The current main approach is for the issuer to regularly announce the net asset value (NAV) or refer to the assessed price, and then have the oracle feed the price onto the blockchain. However, the data sources and frequencies of oracles are uncertain, making it difficult for investors to verify the accuracy of the prices. Some assets, due to their strong uniqueness and subjective valuation models, result in large price expectations differences between buyers and sellers, making transactions difficult to reach. Even assets like US bonds, which are transparent in the market, also have technical risks such as oracle delays or failures. If the oracle quote is inaccurate (for example, due to attacks or data source disconnection), it may cause market chaos or even liquidation risks. Moreover, the rise of derivatives and combinational play styles (such as collateralizing RWA tokens to borrow stablecoins and then participating in other DeFi) places higher requirements on price accuracy. If valuation deviations accumulate, it may lead to systemic risks.

Introduction to BenFen Chain’s One-Click RWA Issuance Capability

As an exploration solution to address these challenges, BenFen Chain recently launched the “one-click RWA issuance” feature, aiming to simplify the process of listing real assets on the blockchain. BenFen Chain was originally positioned as a stablecoin payment public chain, emphasizing high performance and low-cost transactions. In the major version upgrade in August 2025, the official announced support for one-click issuance and listing of RWA (real-world assets), thereby upgrading its positioning to a “stablecoin + RWA infrastructure public chain”. This function is consistent with the original one-click stablecoin issuance framework, enabling issuers to issue compliant RWA tokens through a standardized process.

In terms of technical path, BenFen Chain optimized the underlying Move virtual machine and cross-chain engine, maintaining a transaction processing speed of tens of thousands per second and sub-second confirmation time, while providing underlying support for asset listing and compliance custody. The chain is internally equipped with smart contract templates and standard business processes: the issuer only needs to submit asset information and compliance materials according to the guidelines to map real assets (such as real estate, bonds, stocks, etc.) into on-chain tokens. The system automatically integrates custody, auditing, KYC, and other security measures to ensure the reliability and security of the mapping between off-chain assets and on-chain tokens. For example, suppose a user wants to issue a commercial real estate bond token on BenFen Chain. In that case, they only need to upload property assessment reports, bank proof of custody, etc., and the smart contract will lock these file hashes and generate the token. Only qualified investor addresses that have passed KYC can subscribe and trade this token, thus strictly implementing regulatory requirements on the blockchain. The entire process is highly automated, significantly simplifying the previously months-long asset securitization process — the official claims that the previously high-barrier and cumbersome RWA listing can now be completed through simple operations. This means that issuers can significantly reduce technical difficulty and time cost, and quickly obtain on-chain liquidity and global settlement capabilities.

In terms of potential advantages, this blockchain is dedicated to creating a “stablecoin financial operating system”, where the one-click RWA issuance and the one-click stablecoin issuance share the same underlying infrastructure. This chain supports the direct use of stablecoins for paying gas fees and even introduces a gas fee proxy payment sponsorship mechanism, further reducing the cost for users to use the public chain. For issuers, not only is the work of independently developing smart contracts and setting up KYC systems eliminated, but this blockchain also provides a compliant custody solution: it can be connected to licensed custody institutions to store the underlying assets and record the custody vouchers on the chain, enhancing regulatory transparency. At the same time, with high TPS and cross-chain capabilities, the RWA tokens on this blockchain can be easily bridged to other mainstream networks, expanding the potential investor base. These designs make the BenFen blockchain suitable for various asset types, including real estate, bonds, equity, commodities, etc., as long as legal and compliant asset proofs can be provided, they can be mapped to token issuance on the chain. For example, a real estate company can issue project income bonds through this blockchain, and global investors can easily subscribe after completing KYC; at the same time, the distribution of the funds and subsequent rental income is also automatically executed by the chain contract, reducing the risk of human operation.

Conclusion

The narrative of RWA is grand and inspiring, but its path is not without obstacles. It is at the crossroads of the “blue ocean” and the “red ocean”, with both the vast expanse of a trillion-dollar market and numerous dark reefs of laws, risks, and liquidity ahead. The core issues currently faced by the RWA market lie in legal compliance, asset authenticity verification, and insufficient liquidity, among others.

The “one-click RWA issuance” function launched by BenFen Chain is an important exploration solution to address these challenges. Through standardized processes and features such as compliant custody, it provides practical and feasible solutions to these problems. As an important explorer of RWA infrastructure, BenFen Chain is laying a solid technical foundation for the blockchain of real assets, promoting RWA from a concept to a large-scale application. In the future, as technical solutions continue to mature and the regulatory environment gradually improves, infrastructure providers such as BenFen Chain will help RWA truly become an important bridge connecting traditional finance and the crypto world.