RWA without stablecoins——It’s all rogue

RWA has become a little girl who can be dressed up by anyone

The word RWA has been everywhere recently. From international financial forums to industry startup groups, everyone is talking about "asset on-chain" and "real world mapping", as if anyone who doesn't say a few words about RWA is a bit out of step with the industry trend.

But the more heated the moment is, the more we need to calm down and figure out: What problems can RWA solve, and what basic conditions are needed to implement it.

Many people say that RWA is to "reshape" real-world assets on the chain, and Honglin Lawyer does not object to this statement. But the premise of "reshaping" is to truly break the original information barriers and settlement processes.

In many RWA projects I have come into contact with, the so-called "asset tokenization" is actually to transfer the data originally stored in Excel, ERP or the custodian system to the chain. But the whole process is still the same: asset generation, value confirmation, income calculation, investment allocation - these are still handled step by step by the project's offline operation team, and the chain is just an "enhanced report".

In this case, it is true that you say it "uses blockchain", but it is a bit nonsense to say that it "changes the logic of financial operation".

What you call "asset mapping" is actually no different from drawing a balance sheet in Excel. You can't just change the information related to assets from a paper contract to a JSON file written into the blockchain, and then claim that you have achieved "real-world asset tokenization".

You can use the chain to record assets, but you can't use the chain to drive finance. Without this breakthrough, RWA will always be stuck at version 0.1.

Two standards for distinguishing the authenticity of RWA

Many people think that the core of RWA is "rights confirmation" - assets have a source and are registered on the chain. But in fact, trusted data is only a basic premise. What really determines whether RWA has financial value is whether it can complete trusted settlement, that is, whether the fund flow mechanism on the chain can run.

Therefore, the value of RWA is divided into two progressive layers: one is trusted data, and the other is trusted settlement.

The first layer: trusted data, refers to whether the chain can record the state changes of real-world assets. This looks very "technical", but it is essentially a transformation of business processes. External interfaces such as sensors, custodians, and oracles must be able to push information to the chain in real time, automatically, and objectively when assets change. This is the first threshold of RWA. A project that can truly be called an RWA must achieve "on-chain knowledge of events as soon as they occur", rather than the operation department uploading a unified "report" at the end of each month. In many RWA cases that we know of that are packaged in news, many projects still rely on manual operations: a folder contains various asset information, and at the end of the month, someone clicks the mouse to generate a summary on the chain. This "later upload" is essentially just "on-chain accounting", which is far from the concept of "native trust" of blockchain. The second layer: trusted liquidation is the real value of RWA. In other words, whether the distribution of income, the return of principal, the handling of defaults, and the carry-over of expenses, these value transfer actions can be automatically executed, cannot be tampered with, and are open and transparent. To achieve this, there must be currency units on the chain, that is, the participation of stablecoins.

Many projects overlook this point: the data is there, the contract logic is there, but the settlement stage still depends on the financial lady to manually transfer the money, or "simulate" the capital flow through a third-party platform. Under this design, the on-chain token is just a symbol that "looks like an asset", but it is not an actual executable financial right.

So we say that there are two most basic criteria for measuring whether a project is a serious RWA:

First, can your data flow be automatically uploaded to the chain without human labor?

You say you are making new energy charging piles, the power of the pile body, the power on and off, and the fault logs - are they written directly into the chain from the sensor? Say you are doing accounts receivable financing, can the buyer's ERP system push the hash to the chain as soon as the invoice lands? Say you sell real estate rental income rights, does the rental flow have a custodian bank API to return in seconds?

If these actions still rely on the unified collection and manual input of the operation team, then "data on the chain" is a false proposition. You are not letting the system make judgments, but relying on "people to make judgments". In the end, it is still the centralized process, but the tool for "writing the ledger" has been replaced by blockchain. It has changed to a more fancy ledger, but it is still human flesh that is responsible for the bottom line, and the credit risk and tampering risk have not been reduced.

Second, can your capital flow be settled on the chain?

You said that you issued a new energy charging pile income token. As soon as the charging fees entered the escrow account, were they split into N stable coins by the smart contract and directly sent to the investor's address? You said that you are doing accounts receivable financing. Once the buyer's payment is received, can the contract immediately repay the principal, accrue interest, and deduct service fees according to the account period? You said you sell the right to real estate rental income. When the tenant clicks "Confirm Payment", does the chain transfer the rental stablecoin to the token holder at the same time, and automatically deposit the liquidated damages and maintenance fees into the risk pool?

If these actions still need to be checked by the financial lady one by one and manually transferred, then "on-chain settlement" is just a pie in the sky. The funds go around in the background and then return to the manual online banking, and the token becomes an experience voucher - you can see it but can't redeem it.

The real RWA should make money flow like data: verifiable stablecoin reserves, public distribution formulas, and contract addresses that can be checked at any time. Otherwise, no matter how fancy you talk about the right to income, investors will eventually have to wait in line for loans, and financial efficiency has not been qualitatively improved.

This is not the future we want.

RWA without stablecoins is just a hooligan

What we want is a structure that can really run: native on the chain, can run automatically, and can be redeemed in real time. Once the data is generated, it is automatically written to the chain and cannot be tampered with; once the funds are triggered, they arrive automatically without human management.

RWA is not a better-looking table, but a new set of operating logic: Data must be credible at the source, and funds must be cleared on the chain.

To achieve these two points, one is that blockchain technology is needed as the information bottom layer, and the other is that stablecoins are needed as the value carrier.

Many people talk about stablecoins and like to say that they can improve the efficiency of cross-border payments, reduce costs, and replace banks. But what really determines its value in RWA is not these macro advantages, but that it can make money really "run" in the world of blockchain. Instead of waiting for monthly or maturity settlement, it can be programmed, called, and can directly execute payments based on the data on the chain.

The greatest significance of stablecoins is that it allows money to be programmed and execute rules for the first time.

You can stipulate when it will be paid, to whom it will be paid, how much it will be paid, and even after an event on the chain occurs. It is not money that will only go away when someone clicks a button, but like data, it can flow automatically.

With the RWA of stablecoin applications, the entire life cycle of assets, from generation, income distribution, to exit recovery, can all run on the chain in the form of smart contracts. Otherwise, no matter how many institutions participate and how many audit endorsements there are, it is just another form of centralized platform.

That’s why we say: RWAs without stablecoin applications are all rogues.