Robinhood Crypto Senior Vice President and General Manager Johann Kerbrat stated that tokenization can open new opportunities for retail investors to enter traditional restricted asset classes, calling it "very important for financial inclusivity."
Kerbrat stated at the "Consensus 2025" event in Toronto that some real-world assets, such as real estate and private equity, currently have only up to 10% of the US population able to invest. "Right now, you need to be an accredited investor to invest in private equity," he said.
"How many people can afford to buy a house or apartment in New York?" He explained, "But you can get a piece of the returns through fractionalization and tokenization, so we believe this will make transactions easier and make it easier for everyone to access."
Robinhood is one of the few investment firms or brokerages exploring RWA tokenization in recent months, along with BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Apollo, and VanEck.
RWA tokenization is often touted as a means to enhance financial accessibility, with most tokenized funds currently focused on private credit and the US Treasury market. According to data from RWA.xyz on May 16, the total market capitalization of on-chain RWA is $22.5 billion, with only 101,457 asset holders, averaging $221,867 of on-chain assets per holder.
The evolution of stablecoins will create more "specific" tokens.
Kerbrat also discussed stablecoins, which have become a key use case in this round of the cryptocurrency cycle, predicting, "You will see 100 types of stablecoins."
Kerbrat expects that "stablecoins focused on specific markets" will emerge, with DefiLlama stating that dollar-pegged stablecoins dominate the stablecoin space. The two largest stablecoins, Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC, have a combined value of $211.8 billion, accounting for 87.1% of the $243.3 billion stablecoin market cap.
"If you want to transfer funds from the US to Singapore, you might use a specific stablecoin." He said, "This shift will move from a single stablecoin to platforms managing all these stablecoins."
Fireblocks policy head Dea Markova recently told Cointelegraph that demand for non-dollar-pegged stablecoins is growing. In April, the Italian finance minister warned that the risks of dollar-pegged stablecoins were greater than those associated with US President Donald Trump's tariffs.
What are tokenized real-world assets? Using RWA to bring physical value on-chain
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain have long promised to reshape finance, but so far, digital assets have been characterized by extreme volatility.
To mitigate this risk, developers are turning to the physical world—tokenizing assets like gold, oil, and real estate to provide real backing and lasting value for digital currencies.
In this article, we will explore the tokenization of real-world assets and its significance for the blockchain industry.
What is Tokenization?
Before real-world assets can be used to back digital assets, they must be tokenized. Tokenization is the process of creating a digital representation or token of an asset on the blockchain, allowing ownership and transactions to be managed in an electronic and transparent manner.
How to Tokenize RWA?
The practical process of tokenizing real-world assets varies depending on the protocol used, but generally, the process follows a similar pattern. Let's explore how to tokenize a piece of artwork:
Legal Structure: To achieve compliant digital representation, ownership of the artwork is transferred to a legal entity or trust.
Asset Digitization: Deploy smart contracts on blockchains like Ethereum or Solana to mint tokens, with each token representing a fractional interest in the artwork.
Token - Asset Link: Tokens have a legal binding relationship with the entity that holds the artwork, granting the holder enforceable ownership or value rights.
On-chain Transactions: Tokens can be traded on secondary blockchain markets that support asset tokens, providing liquidity and global accessibility.
Governance and Settlement: If the artwork is sold, proceeds will be automatically distributed to token holders according to smart contract logic.
Use Cases for Real-World Assets (RWA) on the Blockchain
For Ava Labs' head of institutional and capital markets Morgan Krupetsky, tokenization is crucial for unlocking global access to traditional restricted financial products and can leverage previously illiquid assets as collateral through DeFi, allowing them to function.
Krupetsky told Decrypt, "Tokenization allows anyone with an internet connection to access dollars, dollar savings accounts, US stocks, and alternative assets. It also makes it easier to use assets as collateral and leverage DeFi primitives—allowing historically trapped capital or illiquid positions to work."
Here are some use cases for the tokenization of real-world assets:
🏠 Tokenized Real Estate: Real estate is converted into blockchain tokens, with platforms like Propy and RealT allowing users to purchase partial ownership of homes and buildings.
🛢️ Tokenized Commodities: Commodities such as gold and oil are represented in token form supported by the blockchain, such as Paxos Gold (PAXG), which offers tokens backed 1:1 by physical gold.
🏤 On-chain Lending Collateralized by RWA: Assets such as real estate or invoices are used as collateral for blockchain-based loans, with MakerDAO, Centrifuge, and Goldfinch providing lending services backed by real-world assets.
🖼️ Tokenization of Art and Collectibles: Physical assets, such as artworks, rare collectibles, and even fine wines, are being tokenized for partial digital ownership, with companies like Savea, Masterworks, and Mattereum leading the way.
For Sam Mudie, CEO and co-founder of UK-based tokenization company Savea, RWA also bridges traditional finance and decentralized finance.
Mudie told Decrypt, "Tokenization of RWA is revolutionary because it can enhance accessibility and scalability, operational and cost efficiency, security and transparency, and liquidity. Thus, the greatest opportunities are where the current inefficiencies are the highest."
Mudie believes tokenization can revitalize industries with centuries-old practices, such as wine, whiskey, watches, and art, which rely on extremely outdated infrastructure and still depend on face-to-face interactions.
He said, "The tokenization of these asset classes has significant multiplier effects."
Who is Tokenizing RWA?
Many projects have already engaged in the tokenization of real-world assets, with over $10 billion worth of RWA locked on decentralized platforms as of March 2025.
Cryptocurrencies claimed to be backed by real-world assets include PAX Gold (pegged to one ounce of gold stored in the London vault), Tether Gold (pegged to one troy ounce of gold in a Swiss vault), and RealT (offering tokenized equity in US real estate).
Companies focused on tokenizing real-world assets include Avalanche, Centrifuge, RealT, and Securitize.
According to CoinGecko data, as of April 2025, the total capitalization of the real-world asset market is approximately $37 billion, with the total value of real-world assets locked across 79 DeFi platforms being $10.2 billion as of March 2025.
Challenges and Regulatory Barriers
Krupetsky stated that clear regulatory guidance on stablecoins is needed before tokenization becomes mainstream, especially in the US, and explicitly allows blockchain to serve as a legitimate record of tokenized assets.
"Before this, many securities remained in a dual management state, both on-chain and off-chain, increasing costs and complexity." She said, "We also need to see tokenized assets integrate into traditional distribution channels, and that's starting to happen."
⚖️ Legal Ownership: Holding a token does not always equate to legal ownership. Real estate and other physical assets often require traditional processes, such as notarized deeds or court documents.
📜 Licensing Requirements: Platforms offering tokenized assets may require broker-dealer or financial services licenses, depending on how the tokens are issued and traded.
🙋 AML and KYC Compliance: Token platforms must comply with anti-money laundering and know your customer (KYC) laws, which can complicate entry.
🌎 Jurisdictional Conflicts: Physical assets are tied to local laws, but tokens can be traded globally, creating complex legal mismatches that are difficult to resolve.
Centrifuge CEO Bhaji Illuminati stated that tokenization generally falls into two categories: highly liquid, stable-return assets like fixed income products, and hard-to-access, niche assets like air rights or sports collectibles, which are primarily valuable to enthusiastic fans who would otherwise be unable to share ownership.
"This reflects our recognition that not everything has buyers—if there is no demand, then asset tokenization is meaningless." She said, "But for different reasons, there exists different demand."
Illuminati told Decrypt that the challenge lies in "matching supply and demand and tokenizing products that people genuinely care about," while rethinking how financial infrastructure is designed and operated.
Illuminati states, "This isn't about tokenizing traditional finance (TradFi) structures for distribution; it's about rebuilding the operational model from the ground up, representing the greatest opportunity for crypto infrastructure to fundamentally improve how financial markets operate."
The Future of Tokenizing RWA
As technology continues to narrow the gap between the physical and digital worlds, tokenizing RWA will redefine how we invest and interact with real-world assets in the future—some predict the value of this sector could reach $50 billion by the end of 2025.
Savea's Mudie stated, "Tokenizing RWA is one of the first major use cases of blockchain technology. It hasn't yielded to the idea of cryptocurrency replacing the traditional financial ecosystem—this is a dream for many 'degens'—but has enhanced it. Real-world assets have been invested in for decades or even thousands of years, and tokenizing them is simply the next step in their evolution."
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