Recently, CZ bluntly criticized some pseudo-RWA practices during his speech in Hong Kong and pointed out the real opportunities of RWA, reigniting interest in this already hot concept. What exactly is RWA? Why is it regarded by CZ as one of Hong Kong's 'trump cards'?
Simply put, RWA is: transferring valuable things in reality, like houses, gold, government bonds, etc., onto the blockchain, turning them into 'digital stocks' that everyone can invest in. This trend has led traditional giants like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs to enter the market, with the market size skyrocketing by 800% in two years.
How to play RWA? For example: An apartment in New York worth 1 million dollars can be 'cut' into 20,000 tokens through RWA technology. You can spend the price of a cup of coffee to:
- Owning 1/20000 of the real ownership of this apartment, with the property rights recorded on the blockchain, clear and undeniable;
- Automatically collect rent every week, the rent paid by tenants will be proportionally transferred to your wallet;
- Can be traded at any time, and if you no longer want to hold it, you can sell it to anyone globally like selling stocks, providing strong liquidity.
Its core is to transform large, illiquid assets in reality into small, highly liquid assets, allowing ordinary people to become 'shareholders' of global quality assets.
What are the popular RWA projects?
- Ondo Finance: Tokenizes US government bonds, allowing you to invest in high-yield government bonds to earn 'sleep income';
- PAX Gold (PAXG): Each token is anchored to 1 ounce of real gold (stored in the London vault), buying it is equivalent to buying real gold, safe and convenient;
- Centrifuge: Helps small and medium-sized enterprises turn 'accounts receivable' into on-chain asset financing, allowing you to invest in these 'digital IOUs' to earn interest.
Why is RWA popular?
1. Lowering the threshold: You can invest in global luxury homes and government bonds for just a few dozen dollars, breaking previous investment barriers;
2. Increasing liquidity: Assets that are difficult to liquidate, such as houses and artworks, can be traded 24/7 after tokenization;
3. Transparency and security: Each transaction is recorded on the blockchain, publicly transparent, and cannot be falsified;
4. Big names supporting: Wall Street giants are actively laying out, indicating it is a future trend.
The mainland has long laid out RWA, although it cannot directly buy and sell tokens like abroad, the approach focuses more on empowering the real economy.
Ant Group (brother company of Alipay) is focusing on 'infrastructure' to create new energy charging piles and photovoltaic power station RWA:
Package the future income rights of large photovoltaic power stations or a batch of charging piles into digital certificates (Tokens) and sell them to overseas investment institutions (such as Middle Eastern wealthy funds). For example, the 4,000 battery swap cabinets project of 'Xunying Travel' in Shenzhen achieves a daily transaction volume exceeding 20 million through this method, equivalent to converting future electricity fees into currently liquid funds. This is a 'national team' approach, focusing on To B cross-border financing, helping mainland quality infrastructure attract global funds. Although ordinary people cannot participate, the idea is worth referencing.
There is also a mind-blowing 'creative faction' case - Malu grape RWA:
The Malu grapes in Jiading, Shanghai, are famous, and there is a project that turns the 'pickup rights of a box of Malu grapes' into RWA tokens. When you buy the token, you lock in the future delivery of a box of authentic Malu grapes. This 'digital pickup voucher' can be freely transferred and gifted on-chain, and when the grapes are ripe, you can redeem the physical goods with the token. This is equivalent to moving agricultural futures to Web3, making the pickup voucher a 'small stock' that can be traded at any time. Although still in the exploratory stage and regulatory clarity is pending, the idea is excellent.
Currently, the differences between mainland and foreign RWA are:
- Foreign RWA tends to be 'investment products': focusing on allowing retail investors to invest, aiming for asset appreciation and trading;
- Mainland RWA tends to be 'empowerment tools': focusing on helping real enterprises (especially infrastructure and agriculture) to activate assets and solve financing difficulties, more inclined towards industrial applications.
