What Are Real-World Assets (RWAs)?

Real-world assets, often referred to as RWAs, are financial assets that originate outside of crypto but are represented and used onchain.

They include assets like:

• Private credit
• Real estate debt
• Treasuries and fixed income
• Other cash-flow-generating instruments

RWAs are not new. These markets already exist and operate at massive scale in traditional finance. What's new is how they're starting to function inside onchain markets.

From traditional finance to onchain markets

In traditional finance, RWAs are typically:

• Slow to access
• Restricted by geography and minimum investment sizes
• Dependent on intermediaries
• Difficult to integrate with other financial products

Onchain markets offer a different model.

By representing RWAs onchain, these assets can move with the same speed, transparency, and composability as native crypto assets.

What going onchain actually changes

Bringing RWAs onchain doesn't change the underlying asset. What it changes is how that asset behaves.

Onchain RWAs can be:

• Settled instantly
• Traded more easily
• Integrated into DeFi protocols
• Combined with other onchain assets

This turns traditionally static investments into programmable financial building blocks.

Tokenization is only the starting point

Most conversations around RWAs stop at tokenization.

Tokenization answers a basic question: how do we represent a real-world asset onchain?

But representation alone isn't enough.

Without liquidity, utility, and integration, tokenized assets remain isolated. They exist onchain, but they don't meaningfully participate in the broader ecosystem.

RWAs only reach their potential when they are designed to work within DeFi, not alongside it.

Why RWAs matter for crypto

Crypto has largely been driven by speculation and narrative cycles.

RWAs introduce something different:

• Real cash flows
• Returns that are less correlated to crypto market cycles
• Products that remain relevant in both risk-on and risk-off environments

They expand what onchain markets can support beyond trading alone.

Why RWAs matter for DeFi

For DeFi to mature, it needs assets people want to hold for reasons beyond price appreciation.

RWAs bring:

• Predictable yield
• Capital efficiency
• Real economic activity

When integrated properly, RWAs allow DeFi to support lending, portfolios, and financial products that resemble functioning markets — not just trading venues.

From representation to infrastructure

Real-world assets don't become important because they're tokenized.

They become important when they behave like native onchain assets. Liquid. Usable. Integrated into the rest of the system.

When that happens, DeFi stops being a closed loop of speculation and starts connecting to real economic activity.