What Are Real World Assets (RWA) in Crypto?

Real world assets, commonly abbreviated to RWA, refer to tangible or traditional financial assets that have been represented as digital tokens on a blockchain. These include government bonds, real estate, commodities like gold, private credit, equities, and even fine art.

The process of converting ownership rights in these assets into blockchain-based tokens is known as tokenisation. Once tokenised, these assets can be traded, fractionated, and settled on-chain — often around the clock and without the layers of intermediaries that characterise traditional finance.

The concept is straightforward: take an asset that already has established value in the real world, and make it programmable,…