RWA (real-world assets)
RWA (real-world assets) are traditional off-chain assets — US Treasuries, private credit, real estate, commodities — represented as tokens on a blockchain. Tokenization puts ownership, or a legal claim on the asset, on-chain, making it programmable, transferable around the clock and usable as collateral in DeFi.
How it works
An issuer holds the underlying asset off-chain — say short-dated Treasuries in a custodian — and mints tokens that represent a claim on it. The token trades on-chain while the real asset generates yield or value in the traditional system; oracles and attestations link the on-chain token to the off-chain reality it is meant to track.
Why it matters
RWAs are one of crypto's fastest-growing sectors, led by tokenized Treasuries and money-market funds that bring real, off-chain yield on-chain. They connect DeFi liquidity to trillions in traditional assets and give protocols collateral that does not depend on crypto-native volatility.
How to read the sector
The key questions are about the off-chain leg, not the token: who issues it, who custodies the asset, and whether the legal claim is actually enforceable if the issuer fails. Also check where the yield comes from — a tokenized Treasury and a tokenized private-credit loan carry very different risks.
Learn more
For the full framework, read the explainer What is RWA tokenization? and the desk's real-world assets coverage hub.