As a track that the market has high hopes for, RWA has yet to demonstrate its ability to connect trillion-dollar assets in traditional markets. According to data from rwa.xyz, the total market value of RWA assets in the crypto industry is only $24 billion, which is still a figure reached after a 56% surge in the first half of this year. Therefore, it can be seen that the narrative of RWA has not ended but has yet to begin. As more categories of assets are tokenized in the future with U.S. stocks going on-chain, RWA will truly enter the next stage. And at this dawn before the dawn, Aptos has already achieved a curve overtaking, with on-chain RWA TVL growing 56.4% in the past 30 days, reaching $538 million, rising to third place among public chains. With the arrival of Aave, RW assets on Aptos are likely to welcome more investment opportunities, placing Aptos in a favorable position for the next stage of competition in RWA.
Source: on-aptos
Private credit remains the mainstream path currently
Private credit occupies 58% of the RWA asset share, becoming the most关注ed asset category, followed by U.S. Treasury bonds. Private credit assets mainly exist in on-chain form, often lacking trading liquidity; U.S. Treasury bonds, on the other hand, face competitive pressure from interest-bearing stablecoins, which are collateralized by Treasury bonds and offer similar yield characteristics.
What is private credit? Private credit refers to loans provided to businesses or individuals by non-bank institutions or investors in the non-public market. In traditional finance, private credit attracts a large number of institutional investors due to its flexibility and high returns. However, it also faces pain points such as high costs, low efficiency, and access restrictions. For example, the audit process for traditional private credit is cumbersome, transaction costs are high, and small and medium-sized enterprises often struggle to obtain financing due to a lack of credit history.
Cryptographic protocols act as intermediaries to issue and manage assets on-chain as a core business model, reducing costs by eliminating multiple layers of intermediaries and increasing transparency by providing real-time performance data on loan pools and underlying assets.
Private Credit Asset Tokenization Process
1. Off-chain Credit Asset Generation
The asset issuer (Originator) is responsible for generating off-chain credit assets. Private credit institutions (such as BSFG), small and medium-sized enterprise financing platforms, or regional credit market operators establish loan agreements (defining principal, interest rate, and term), set collateral assets (such as receivables or real estate, requiring valuation and liquidity assessment), formulate repayment plans and default clauses, and assess the borrower's financial status (including cash flow, debt ratio, and credit rating, such as S&P rating BB+). For example, a loan of $1 million is issued to a logistics company for a term of 12 months at an annual interest rate of 12%, secured by $1.1 million in receivables. This step ensures that the assets meet traditional financial standards, laying the foundation for subsequent tokenization.
2. Building On-chain Token Structures
Through RWA protocols (such as Pact), single or multiple loans are mapped to on-chain tokens. The token forms include: NFT (each loan generates a unique indivisible token, recording complete asset ownership), SFT (asset fractionalization, allowing investors to hold partial rights, such as a 10% share), or ERC-20 type (loan pools packaged as tradable fund shares, suitable for institutional investors). The token metadata covers borrower anonymous identification (compliant with GDPR), principal amount ($1 million), interest rate (12% annualized), repayment frequency (monthly), maturity date (July 2026), details of collateral assets, and default handling mechanisms. Smart contracts support repayment status management, automatic profit distribution, and early redemption or peer-to-peer transfer (with compliance verification required).
3. Compliance Packaging
The tokenization process must comply with regulatory requirements. Special purpose entities (SPVs) or virtual asset service providers (VASPs) must be established in the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, or Singapore as legal custodians, corresponding one-to-one with on-chain tokens. All investors must complete KYC/KYB and AML checks, and non-qualified investors are restricted in access and transfer rights under regulations such as Reg D. Off-chain disclosure documents (such as PDFs of term sheets or offering memoranda) clearly define tokens as debt assets, without voting rights or equity attributes. This step combines on-chain hash verification and off-chain encrypted storage of personal identity information (PII) to ensure compliance with UETA.
4. Token Issuance and Financing
Tokens are displayed through user interfaces or protocol platforms, accepting on-chain investments. Investors must complete KYC verification, invest using USDC, APT, or USDT, and receive RWA tokens as proof, collecting principal and interest repayments monthly or quarterly. For example, the expected annualized return of the Pact platform's BSFG-EM-1 is 64.05%, covering the financing needs of small and micro enterprises in emerging markets.
5. Profit Distribution and Asset Liquidation
Borrowers repay as scheduled, and funds are collected by the issuer and transferred to an SPV, mapped to the on-chain through oracles or smart contracts, and distributed to token holders. Smart contracts automatically split interest based on the holding ratio (for example, distributing 12% annualized returns according to a 10% share). Upon loan maturity, the principal is automatically returned or arrangements for asset renewal are made. If the token structure (such as SFT) allows, it can be traded on decentralized exchanges (DEX) or RWA-specific markets, but typically with a lock-up period, only supporting peer-to-peer transfers.
Aptos' Competitive Advantages in the RWA Track
Technical Advantages: Financial Application Potential of High-Performance Blockchains
Aptos, as a new generation Layer 1 blockchain, has a unique advantage in the RWA track due to its technical architecture, especially in the scenario of tokenizing private credit. The following analysis expands on core technical features:
High Throughput and Low Latency
Aptos adopts the Block-STM parallel execution engine, achieving efficient processing of transactions through optimistic concurrency control. Official testing data shows that Aptos' theoretical throughput can reach 150,000 transactions per second (TPS), with stable production environments maintaining 4,000-5,000 TPS, far exceeding Ethereum and Solana. In private credit scenarios, high throughput supports large-scale loan issuance, real-time repayment distribution, and on-chain auditing, ensuring transaction efficiency.
In addition, Aptos' transaction finalization time is only 650 milliseconds. This sub-second confirmation speed is crucial for RWA assets requiring instant settlement (such as profit distribution from loan pools). For example, the Pact protocol achieves T+0 settlement on Aptos, significantly reducing the capital occupation cost compared to traditional finance's T+2 or T+3.
Low Transaction Costs
Aptos' transaction fees average less than $0.01. The low-cost feature is particularly critical for RWA scenarios, as tokenized assets involve frequent on-chain operations (such as loan issuance, repayment distribution, compliance verification). For instance, the on-chain loan management of Pact requires real-time updates on repayment status, and low fees ensure that operational costs remain controllable.
Modular Architecture and Scalability
Aptos' modular design separates consensus, execution, and storage layers, allowing independent optimization of each layer, which is crucial for RWA asset management, as private credit involves complex metadata (such as borrower information and repayment plans).
Ecological Layout: Institutional Endorsement and Regulatory Friendliness
Aptos' ecological layout in the RWA track significantly enhances its competitiveness through collaboration with traditional financial giants and the expansion of the DeFi ecosystem.
Institutional Collaboration and Endorsement
As of June 2025, Aptos' total locked value (TVL) for RWA reached $540 million, ranking third among public chains, following Ethereum and ZKsync Era. This achievement is attributed to the participation of several traditional financial institutions:
In July last year, Aptos officially announced the introduction of Ondo Finance's USDY into its ecosystem and integration with major DEXs and lending applications. In October last year, Aptos announced that Franklin Templeton had launched a Franklin on-chain U.S. government money market fund (FOBXX) represented by the BENJI token on the Aptos Network. Additionally, Aptos has partnered with Libre to promote the tokenization of securities.
These collaborations not only bring funding and technical support to Aptos but also enhance its credibility in the field of compliance.
Regulatory Friendliness
Tokenization of private credit involves complex compliance requirements, such as KYC/AML checks, Reg D/Reg S compliance, etc. Aptos has built in on-chain identity verification and asset tracking functions through partnerships with compliance platforms. For example, the Pact protocol complies with UETA requirements by storing personal identity information (PII) off-chain in encrypted form and combining it with on-chain hash verification, ensuring the legal effectiveness of loan tokens.
In 2025, the global regulatory environment will gradually clarify. Europe's MiCA regulations provide a clear framework for crypto assets, and the U.S. GENIUS Act creates favorable conditions for stablecoin and RWA projects. Aptos' low fees and fast confirmation features make it an ideal choice for a regulatory-friendly public chain. For example, Aptos was chosen by Wyoming as the top technical scoring candidate chain for the stablecoin project WYST and plans to use Aptos to issue compliant stablecoins and loan tokens, expecting to cover $100 million in assets by 2026.
Emerging Market Positioning
Aptos' RWA strategy focuses on emerging markets, particularly in regions with insufficient financial inclusion. BSFG, as the main asset issuer of the Pact protocol on the Aptos chain, provides diversified financing solutions for emerging markets and specific regions through the tokenization of private credit products, significantly promoting the development of Aptos' RWA ecosystem.
Its flagship product, BSFG-EM-1, targets consumers and small business operators in emerging markets, providing short-term, small-amount consumer loans and revolving credit lines, with a scale of $160 million. The loan amounts range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, with terms of 3-12 months and interest rates as high as 64.05%. BSFG-EM-NPA-1 and BSFG-EM-NPA-2 are specialized pools for bad debts or default loans, with a scale of $188 million, limited to qualified investors, and the returns are not disclosed. BSFG-CAD-1 is a mortgage loan for Canadian residential properties, with a scale of $44 million, divided into senior and junior structures, with an interest rate of 0.13% (possibly low-risk senior loans), backed by real estate but in a locked state, with limited liquidity. BSFG-AD-1 targets small and micro enterprises in the UAE, providing operating loans with a scale of $16 million and an interest rate of 15.48%, servicing high-growth markets. BSFG-KES-1 targets the retail credit market in Kenya, with a scale of $5.6 million and an interest rate of 115.45%.
These products achieve efficient issuance and transparent management through Pact's on-chain infrastructure, contributing 77% (approximately $420 million) of Aptos RWA TVL.
Summary
Aptos' rapid rise in the RWA track is attributed to its technical advantages and ecological layout. By June 2025, its RWA TVL reached $538 million, ranking third among public chains, primarily driven by private credit. The Pact protocol has contributed over $420 million in assets (accounting for 77% of Aptos RWA) through the launch of on-chain debt pools, significantly enhancing ecological competitiveness. As a growth engine for RWA, private credit achieves on-chain composability through tokenization, allowing credit tokens to participate in DeFi protocols' revolving loans, leverage strategies, and liquidity pools, generating annualized returns of 6%-15%. Compared to government bonds (which face competitive pressure from interest-bearing stablecoins), private credit is favored by the market due to its high returns and clear cash flow. Aptos' low transaction fees (below $0.01) and 650-millisecond final confirmation time support real-time lending and settlement, with future integration with Aave potentially further activating Pact's potential.
Currently, the interest rate spread in traditional financial markets is tightening, prompting institutions to turn to on-chain solutions. Aptos fills the financing gap for small and medium-sized enterprises by servicing emerging markets. In the future, with the optimization of the regulatory environment and the expansion of the DeFi ecosystem, Aptos is expected to add $500 million in RWA TVL by 2026. Through the synergy of technology and ecology, Aptos is demonstrating sustained growth potential in the private credit track.
