A dramatic turn of events for a blockchain company is causing a storm on Wall Street and in the crypto world—Figure Technologies has made a comeback as the first RWA (Real World Asset) project IPO in the U.S. after suffering a series of blows including executive scandals and SEC investigations. This crypto-native company, known for the securitization of housing mortgages, saw its stock price soar 47% on the first day of its SPAC merger, and its blockchain platform Figure Market processed a record-breaking $120 million in assets on-chain on IPO day. This commercial rebirth reveals what survival rules exist in the RWA track?
1. From scandal to IPO: The 500 days that Wall Street prefers not to mention
In February 2023, Figure's former COO was reported to be involved in a sexual extortion case, causing the company's valuation to plummet. But during the crypto market's winter, founder Mike Cagney made three key decisions:
1. Amputation for survival
Replace the entire management team (including three C-level executives)
Move headquarters from San Francisco to Miami, which is more friendly to financial regulation
Introduce traditional institutional investment such as BlackRock at the cost of a 27% equity stake
2. Technological reconstruction
Completely shift the original Provenance blockchain to a RWA dedicated chain
Develop a security token protocol that complies with SEC requirements
Achieve loan pool audit transparency through zero-knowledge proofs
3. Regulatory arbitrage
Choosing the SPAC route instead of the traditional IPO path to avoid strict scrutiny
Deploying 40% of assets through Hong Kong subsidiaries to enter the Asian market
Creatively designed tokens as "digital asset certificates" instead of securities
This series of operations not only helped the company shake off the shadow of scandals but also achieved profitability in Q1 2024, with the mortgage business scale surpassing industry leader Rocket Mortgage.
2. Dissecting the capital alchemy of the first RWA IPO
Figure's prospectus exposed the astonishing financial efficiency in the RWA track:
Index traditional securitization Figure program efficiency improvement issuance cost 2.1% 0.3% 600% settlement period 45 days 3 days 1400% investor access threshold $250k $1k 25000% bad debt rate 3.7% 1.2% 208%
Its core technological breakthrough lies in:
Dynamic NFT collateral: Each loan generates an NFT that reflects real-time home valuation
Robot market makers: Automatically matching the borrowing needs of 200+ institutional liquidity pools
On-chain credit scoring: A hybrid rating model integrating FICO and on-chain repayment history
3. Market response: Institutional greed and the concerns of crypto believers
Post-IPO capital flows present a bizarre opposition:
Traditional finance side
JPMorgan included it in its MBS preferred list
BlackRock's mortgage ETF increased its position to 7.3%
Florida's pension fund allocated RWA assets for the first time
Crypto-native side
DeFi protocols collectively resist its "pseudo-decentralized" design
MakerDAO founder publicly questions its reserve audits
Over 60% of PROVENANCE tokens are staked on centralized platforms
Ironically, despite branding itself as a blockchain innovator, 96% of the company's revenue still comes from traditional financial services. An anonymous analyst stated: "This essentially puts a crypto skin on a seasoned Wall Street wolf."
4. Insights from the RWA competition from a Chinese perspective
On the same day Figure went public, two landmark events occurred in the Asian market:
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission held its first special seminar on RWA
Wanxiang Blockchain announces a pilot program for commercial bill tokenization with Hangzhou Bank
Comparing the development paths of China and the U.S.:
U.S. model
❌ Strong regulatory compliance first
❌ Institutional capital dominance
✅ Concentrated asset types (mortgages/government bonds)
Asian opportunities
✅ Policy experiment characteristics
✅ Large base of retail investors
✅ Diversified asset scenarios (supply chain finance/bills)
A director of a Hong Kong investment bank revealed: "We are helping three mainland technology companies prepare a SPAC-like structure, but with more DeFi elements."
Soul-searching
As RWA becomes Wall Street's new darling, who do you think will be the true winners of this transformation?
A) Traditional financial vultures playing with regulatory arbitrage
B) Crypto natives adhering to decentralization ideals
C) Institutional games between Chinese and American regulators
D) It's fundamentally a capital bubble that will burst sooner or later
Traditional finance practitioners and DeFi builders are welcome to share insights. According to insiders, Binance's RWA sector has established a liquidity cooperation channel with Figure, and the first batch of listed assets is in selection. When mortgages meet blockchain, this absurd yet real financial revolution has just begun to unfold.