What are tokenized real-world assets? What can you tokenize? Why tokenize RWAs? What is the process of tokenizing assets? Let’s deep dive.
What are Real-World Assets [RWAs] in Web3?
Real-World Assets (RWAs) in Web3 are physical or traditional financial assets, like real estate, commodities, or equities, that have been tokenized and brought onto the blockchain.
Tokenization allows these assets to be represented digitally, enabling them to be traded, used as collateral and managed via smart contracts within decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. RWAs bridge traditional finance (TradFi) and DeFi, offering benefits like increased liquidity, transparency, and security.
Types of real-world assets: what can you tokenize?
Real-world assets (RWAs) on-chain represent various types of physical and financial assets that have been tokenized using blockchain technology. These assets exhibit different qualities and serve diverse use cases. Each type of RWA caters to different investor needs, from stability to income generation.
Some assets you can easily tokenize and their use case include:
- Bonds: Tokenizing bonds like US Treasury bills allows investors to earn yield while benefiting from blockchain's transparency, liquidity, and fractional ownership. Investors can hold portions of sovereign bonds, making bond markets more accessible and efficient.
- Real Estate: Tokenized real estate allows fractional ownership of properties, democratizing access to the real estate market. Investors can earn rental income and participate in global real estate markets without needing to purchase entire properties.
- Commodities: Commodities like gold are being tokenized, offering a digital alternative to traditional investments. Investors can own fractions of precious metals, enjoying benefits like instant transactions and lower storage fees.
- Art and Collectibles: High-value art and collectibles can be tokenized, allowing fractional ownership and making investment more accessible. Investors can own parts of artworks or collectibles, gaining exposure to these assets without needing to purchase them outright.
- Intellectual property: IP can be tokenized by converting rights to patents, copyrights, trademarks, or trade secrets into digital tokens on a blockchain. These tokens represent ownership or a stake in the IP, enabling fractional ownership, easier transfer of rights, and increased liquidity in IP markets. Tokenization of IP allows creators, companies, and investors to trade, license, or use IP assets as collateral, creating new opportunities for monetization and innovation within decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystems.
- Equipment and Machinery: Industrial equipment can be tokenized to optimize usage and ownership, allowing for more flexible asset management. Firms can share or lease machinery, increasing asset utilization and reducing costs.
- Stablecoins: Stablecoins are digital tokens pegged to assets like fiat currencies, offering price stability. They are used for cross-border payments and as a banking alternative, especially in regions with limited financial infrastructure.
- Tokenized Debt and Equity: Debt and equity instruments are being brought on-chain, allowing for easier access to these traditional financial markets. Tokenized bonds and stocks can offer new ways to invest and trade, though equity tokenization faces more regulatory challenges.
- Salaries and Invoices: Payroll and invoicing can be tokenized, enabling workers and businesses to access earnings and future income streams more flexibly. Individuals can sell portions of their future earnings or invoices, providing liquidity and financial flexibility.
- Carbon Credits: Companies and individuals can now buy and trade tokenized carbon credits, supporting environmental goals and sustainability efforts. Blockchain facilitates the transparent trading of carbon credits, helping companies meet regulatory standards and offset their carbon footprints.
The tokenization process
RWAs are created by issuers that do one or more of the following activities:
- Acquiring the assets in the real world
- Tokenizing these assets on-chain
- Distributing RWA tokens that represent the real assets to on-chain users
The process of tokenizing a real-world asset (RWA) involves three main stages:
- Off-Chain Formalization: Establish legal frameworks, verify the asset, and create the corresponding security tokens.
- Information Bridging: Synchronize off-chain data with the blockchain using decentralized oracles.
- RWA Protocol Demand and Supply: List and trade the tokens on DeFi platforms, ensuring market liquidity, compliance, and governance.
Benefits of RWAs in DeFi: why tokenize assets?
Tokenizing RWA offers several advantages such as:
- Liquidity: Tokenization allows for fractional ownership, making traditionally illiquid assets, like real estate, more liquid and easier to trade on digital exchanges 24/7.
- Accessibility: It lowers entry barriers, enabling global participation in assets that were previously limited by geographical or regulatory constraints.
- Efficiency: Tokenization streamlines asset management by reducing the need for intermediaries, lowering transaction costs, and speeding up settlement times.
- Transparency & Trust: Blockchain’s transparency ensures auditable records of ownership and transactions, increasing trust and reducing fraud.
- Compliance: Smart contracts can automate regulatory checks, simplifying compliance and reducing legal costs.
- Asset Diversification: RWAs tend to be less volatile than most crypto assets. RWA in DeFi can provide portfolio diversification for investors who want to reduce their exposure to the volatility and risk of crypto assets.
Categories of RWA projects
Tokenization Platforms
Tokenization platforms facilitate the process of converting real-world assets (RWAs) into digital tokens on the blockchain. These platforms enable the fractional ownership and trading of assets like real estate, commodities, and securities, making them accessible to a broader audience.
Examples include 
Centrifuge, which focuses on tokenizing real-world assets like invoices and real estate, and 
Polymath Network, a network designed for issuing and managing security tokens.
Lending and Borrowing
Credit loan projects enable unsecured lending based on borrowers' credit histories, working closely with off-chain financial institutions to assess and manage credit risk. These projects differ from traditional crypto collateral-based lending by focusing on the borrower's financial background rather than requiring cryptocurrency as security. For example, 
Creditcoin is a Substrate-based blockchain that facilitates lending by connecting investors and fundraisers through credit history.
Another example is 
Goldfinch, a decentralized credit protocol that provides loans without cryptocurrency collateral.
Marketplaces
RWA marketplace projects focus on creating platforms where tokenized versions of various real-world assets, such as real estate, luxury goods, or stocks, can be traded. These marketplaces provide liquidity and access to assets traditionally difficult to trade digitally.
Examples include 
Tangible, where users can buy NFTs representing real assets like gold or real estate, and 
Swarm Market, which offers trading of tokenized securities like U.S. bonds and stocks on a decentralized platform. 
Polytrade enables trading tokenized luxuries and assets from various partner projects.
RWA-backed Stablecoins
RWA-backed stablecoins are backed by RWA assets. These stablecoins are designed to maintain their price stability relative to the designated assets. These stablecoins are collateralized by real-world assets (RWAs) such as U.S. Treasuries, bank deposits, or other financial instruments.
Examples include 
Ondo Finance, which offers USDY—a stablecoin backed by U.S. Treasuries and bank deposits, and OUSG, a tokenized short-term U.S. Treasury fund for accredited investors.
Infrastructure (Blockchains and Protocols)
Infrastructure projects in the RWA ecosystem focus on building specialized blockchain ecosystems that support the trading and management of real-world assets. These projects often create the necessary foundational tools and protocols for seamless and secure transactions of tokenized assets.
For example, 
Story Protocol is an infrastructure project that tokenizes and manages intellectual property (IP) rights, converting copyrights into NFTs and automating rights management through smart contracts. 
Polymesh is another infrastructure project, providing a blockchain specifically designed for tokenized securities, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards through its built-in decentralized identity (DID) system.
Investment Funds
Investment funds in the RWA ecosystem gives investors exposure to tokenized RWAs by pooling capital to invest in diverse asset classes. These funds enable efficient capital allocation by allowing multiple investors to share in the ownership and returns of tokenized assets, often managed by professional fund managers who handle asset selection, management, and risk mitigation strategies.
These investment funds also benefit from the global nature of blockchain, allowing for the cross-border flow of capital and enabling investors from different regions to participate in the same fund.
The most notable project in this category is 
BlackRock’s Securitize.
DeFi Integration
DeFi integration projects bridge DeFi and RWAs, enabling seamless interaction between traditional assets and blockchain-based financial services. By integrating RWAs into DeFi protocols, these projects expand the range of assets available for lending, borrowing, trading, and yield generation within the DeFi space.
One of the key advantages of DeFi integration projects is the ability to unlock liquidity for traditionally illiquid assets. Through tokenization, these assets can be fractionalized and traded on DEXs, allowing investors to easily buy, sell, or lend their holdings. This not only increases market accessibility but also provides new opportunities for yield farming and collateralization, as RWAs can be used as collateral in DeFi lending protocols or staked in liquidity pools for additional income.
Insurance
Insurance projects in the RWA ecosystem leverage blockchain technology to offer decentralized insurance products that protect against risks associated with real-world assets.
These projects enable the creation of insurance policies that are transparent, secure, and automated through smart contracts, which execute claims and payouts based on predefined conditions without the need for intermediaries. By tokenizing insurance policies, these projects provide greater accessibility and flexibility for both insurers and policyholders, allowing for the fractionalization of policies.
Examples of RWA insurance projects include: 
Nexus Mutual and 
Etherisc.
Data and Oracles
Oracles deliver reliable and secure real-world data to the blockchain, essential for the accurate tokenization of real-world assets (RWA).
Oracles bridge the gap between off-chain and on-chain environments by providing data like prices, quality metrics, and status updates for RWAs.
Ensuring the accuracy of real-world data is critical for effective RWA tokenization.
A notable mention is 
DIA .
In the context of RWAs, DIA provides crucial information needed for tokenizing, valuing, and verifying transactions. For example, in real estate tokenization, DIA can supply up-to-date property valuation data, rental yields, and other market dynamics.
Legal and Compliance
Legal and compliance projects in the RWA ecosystem focus on ensuring that the tokenization, management, and trading of RWAs adhere to regulatory standards and legal frameworks.
One of the primary functions of legal and compliance projects is to provide the infrastructure for legally enforceable smart contracts. These smart contracts automate the execution of legal agreements, such as property transfers, loan agreements, or investment terms while ensuring that they are compliant with relevant regulations.
Another critical aspect is ensuring that the tokenized assets comply with jurisdictional regulations, such as securities laws, anti-money laundering (AML) rules, and know-your-customer (KYC) requirements.
Common Risks of RWA Tokenization
Tokenizing real-world assets (RWA) brings numerous opportunities but also introduces several risks that need to be carefully managed. These risks can be categorized into several key areas:
Economic Risks
Valuing real-world assets accurately in a Web3 environment is challenging. The lack of real-time valuation for assets existing in Web2 can lead to discrepancies between Web2 and Web3 markets. This can result in price gaps and even market fragmentation. Collateral risk is another economic concern; real assets typically have lower liquidity compared to digital tokens, making it difficult to respond quickly to market changes. If the value of real assets drops sharply due to external factors, it could lead to severe depegging of stablecoins that rely on these assets as collateral.
Regulatory Risks
RWA tokenization often operates under regulatory scrutiny, as the process clearly involves trading rights to real-world assets. This can lead to the direct application of Web2 regulations to Web3 environments. The varying regulatory requirements across different jurisdictions add complexity, particularly when it comes to KYC processes. Inadequate KYC implementation could lead to regulatory authorities banning the trade of certain assets on Web3 platforms. Some projects have already restricted access from regions with strict regulations to mitigate these risks.
Operational Risks
Ensuring the existence and accurate valuation of real assets often requires Web2 audits, which can be expensive and rely on potentially unreliable third parties. This is particularly risky for smaller projects that may not have the resources or legal standing to provide sufficient transparency. The lack of regular audit reports in many RWA projects increases the operational risks for users.
Technological Risks
As with any blockchain-based system, RWA tokenization is susceptible to cyberattacks. The decentralized nature of blockchain helps in tracking and mitigating some threats, but the infancy of the technology means that hacks and security breaches are still common. Ensuring the security of tokenized assets is critical for mainstream adoption, as any compromise could undermine the entire concept of digital ownership of real-world assets.
Custodial Risks
The involvement of third-party custodians, who manage the on-chain representation of real-world assets, introduces additional risks. If these custodians fail to secure or properly manage the assets, it could lead to significant losses for investors. The integrity and reliability of these intermediaries are crucial to the success of RWA tokenization.
Security Risks
RWA tokenization projects, despite having relatively simpler smart contracts compared to other Web3 projects, face significant security risks due to their centralized components. The presence of various authorized roles and access controls introduces vulnerabilities, particularly if these are managed through Web2 APIs. Thorough audits of both Web2 and Web3 features is essential.
Liquidity Risks
While tokenization promises increased liquidity, this is only achievable if there is a well-developed secondary market. Without sufficient tradeability, tokenized assets may suffer from poor liquidity, making it difficult for investors to buy or sell these assets, which can negatively impact their value. Market fragmentation, with multiple protocols on different networks, can exacerbate this issue, highlighting the need for interoperability and common standards.
Privacy Risks
The tokenization process often involves the sharing of sensitive information on a blockchain, raising privacy concerns. As regulatory bodies and traditional financial institutions become more involved in RWA tokenization, the demand for transparency may clash with the need for privacy, potentially eroding the anonymity that has been a hallmark of the crypto space.
The Role of Oracles in RWA Tokenization
Oracles play a crucial role in the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) by bridging off-chain data with the blockchain. They provide accurate, real-time data essential for the valuation, verification, and tracking of RWAs. This data includes price feeds, ownership records, and other key metrics, ensuring that the on-chain representation of assets remains accurate and trustworthy.
DIA's Role in RWA Tokenization
DIA stands out as an open-source data and Oracle platform that emphasizes decentralized data collection and verification. It aggregates data from multiple sources, including traditional finance and the blockchain, ensuring comprehensive and reliable information for DeFi applications.
Transparency and customizable data feeds are central to DIA's offerings, making it a key player in providing the necessary data for RWA tokenization, valuation, and transaction verification. For example, DIA can provide real estate tokenization platforms with updated property valuations, rental yields, and other critical market data.
This reliable data ensures the stable operation of DeFi protocols dealing with tokenized RWAs, supporting their integration into the broader decentralized financial ecosystem.
Looking to integrate DIA’s custom price oracles for RWAs in your dApp?
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