At the Web3 event series held in Hong Kong this week, industry leaders emphasized that real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is a crucial evolution towards mainstream blockchain adoption.
"This is the perfect time for our entire industry," said Shuk Yi Ma, Chief Strategy Officer of Plume, in an exclusive interview. "Users disappointed with last year's DeFi yields are looking for something new, and we have tokenized assets ready."
Read more: Impact of Real-World Asset (RWA) Tokenization
Leading Purpose-Built Blockchains
A key emerging trend in the discussion is the development of blockchains specialized for RWAs, instead of using generic chains.
"Not all public chains were created for RWA protocols," Ma explained. "So we created this RWA chain and added DeFi composability to make it easily adoptable for crypto users."
"In the next 10 years, many existing fungible assets will come on-chain, including US Treasuries, sovereign bonds, and stocks," predicted Giant Ramanand, co-founder of Mantra. "When these assets come on-chain, we'll have transferable value that can be instantly sent globally."
Regulatory Challenges and Opportunities
Industry experts noted regulatory clarity as essential for widespread adoption.
"To further unleash the potential of this technology and encourage traditional finance to adopt it, we have issued circulars providing guidance," said Elizabeth Wong, Fintech Director at the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. "We have maintained a technology-neutral stance, recognizing that each blockchain has its own strengths and limitations."
RWA compliance lawyer Vivian May observed that global regulatory frameworks are increasingly aligning. "The overall regulatory environment is moving towards high convergence in terms of virtual asset definitions, KYC requirements, and compliance standards."
George Chow, Chief Fintech Officer at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, highlighted their Ensemble Initiative. "We aim to explore innovative market infrastructure to facilitate payments using tokenized money, and identify impactful domestic and cross-border use cases with key experts and industry pioneers."
Connecting Traditional Finance and Cryptocurrency
"It's not just about bringing offline assets on-chain. It's about providing a structural change where the real and virtual worlds connect," said JJ from The PAC, a platform that recently tokenized a quant fund with assets of around $100 million.
While financial assets will lead early adoption, Rachel Kim, CEO of VaultX, offers a different approach using NFC technology to tokenize art assets. "Our mission is to support digitally illiterate creators and collectors to innovate RWA ownership and create new value in the digital economy," she explained. VaultX has already partnered with galleries in Asia and Europe to create a decentralized marketplace where artists can receive continuous royalties from secondary sales.
Consumer-centric applications are also emerging. "Actual deployment is never about institutional investors. It's about people," said Eudemonia CC from Morph, which has quickly gained popularity with its black card. "We want to focus on payments and consumption, bringing new audiences into the ecosystem by enabling people to use crypto assets in the real world."
