This article organizes the content of a speech given by Cobo Lily Z. King at the RWA event on June 10, 2025, at JunHe Law Offices in Hong Kong. The speech was directed to several brokerage funds, stablecoin institutions, and family offices.
Larry Fink, the Chairman and CEO of BlackRock, once said, "Every asset—every stock, bond, and fund—can be tokenized, which will lead to an investment revolution." This statement was made in BlackRock’s annual letter to investors on March 31st, signaling that tokenization will drive a financial transformation. Unlike previous years, this year’s letter emphasized the potential of tokenization and the democratization of finance, whereas last year's letter did not mention digital assets or stablecoins.
Why discuss Real-World Assets (RWA) now? Some believe it's because DeFi yields on-chain are underperforming, so people are looking for returns in the real world. Currently, RWA has become a hot market trend, and many major figures have joined, believing it is the core of future finance.
Today, the world is facing geopolitical uncertainty, trade wars, capital controls, and fragmentation of the global financial system, prompting global capital to seek faster, cheaper, and more open channels. Meanwhile, policies surrounding digital assets are catching up. Both U.S. political parties are promoting stablecoin and tokenization policies, and tokenization in Asia is no longer an experimental field—digital assets have risen to the level of national strategy. Technology is also gradually maturing. In the past 12 to 18 months, significant progress has been made: transaction fees on Tron, Solana, Base, and various Layer 2 chains are nearly zero, stablecoin on-chain transaction confirmation time is sub-second, and digital wallet user experiences are improving rapidly—such as gas fee abstraction, one-click approvals, and institutional-level custodial services.
Advantages of RWA:
- Efficiency: Traditional finance, such as bonds and private credit, has slow and expensive settlement cycles. In contrast, RWA on-chain can achieve:
- Instant settlement—T+0, not T+2 or longer.
- 24/7 liquidity—no market close times or time zone limitations.
- Built-in auditability—real-time and transparent ledger.
- Reach New Markets: Tokenized assets can reach investors that traditional channels cannot, particularly in emerging markets or non-traditional investor groups. For example:
- Tokenized government bonds from Ondo, Matrixdock, and Plume are being purchased by DAOs, crypto treasuries, and stablecoin holders in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
- Programmability: This is a fundamental strength of tokenized assets, as business logic can be embedded directly into the asset itself:
- Compliance transfer rules
- Embedded yield payments
- Automated rebalancing
- Even governance rights.
Market Data:
As of June 9, the total value of tokenized RWAs on public blockchains has reached nearly $23.4 billion. This is just a portion of the assets on-chain, including U.S. Treasury bonds, corporate credit, real estate, various funds, and even commodities. The $23.4 billion accounts for about 10% of the stablecoin market and 0.7% of the total Crypto market, ranking 10th or 11th in total market value among all tokens.
Key Observations:
- Private Credit Surpasses Treasury Bonds: The largest product, Figure’s $12 billion, has moved institutional-level home loans onto the blockchain, streamlining ownership and yield transfer.
- Tokenized Government Bonds Are Trending: BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, with $2.9 billion, is leading the way in tokenized government bonds.
- Commodities Are Ahead of Government Bonds in Tokenization: Commodity tokenization has seen early adoption with an advantage.
- Real Estate Funds: Real estate tokenization is gaining traction, with projects like Dubai's luxury real estate moving onto the blockchain for fractionalized ownership.
Global Practices:
Some leading RWA projects have started scaling globally. Large institutions like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have launched tokenized U.S. government bonds and credit funds on blockchain, showing significant demand for this new financial infrastructure.
RWA’s Challenges and Opportunities:
Despite increasing attention on RWA in the global market, it still faces challenges such as insufficient liquidity and low participation in secondary markets. To overcome these issues, a balance between technology and market demand must be achieved.
Cobo’s Role:
Cobo provides a full end-to-end RWA tokenization solution, including compliant issuance, asset management, and liquidity configuration, helping institutions securely and compliantly bring real-world assets onto the blockchain.