Behind the 37 billion RWA spike: a game of life and death between ownership and 24/7 settlement

According to Woofun AI, the global public chain tokenized real world asset (RWA) market is experiencing explosive growth. As of August 3, the market size after excluding stablecoins had climbed to US$37.29 billion.

Behind this data is the regulatory tone established in the classification guidelines issued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in January, which strictly divides tokenized securities into two major groups: “issuer initiated” and “created by a third party,” with the aim of clarifying the vague area between on-chain records and legal ownership.

In empirical evidence in the field of gold as a commodity, Eva Meng, head of Matrixdock, pointed out that the settlement mechanism is the core litmus test for the authenticity of ownership. She stressed that although on-chain ledgers can accurately track token ownership, this does not automatically translate into the ability to settle underlying assets; the real challenge is whether the recorded ownership can be seamlessly connected to physical delivery when the claim is exercised. The tokenized gold product xAum launched by Matrixdock provides a closed-loop case for this: in April 2025, a holder destroyed 32.148 xAum and successfully received a 1 kg London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) certified gold bar within T+3 days after submitting a redemption application.

This process verifies the transfer path of rights from digital balances to physical assets through accurate correspondence between token destruction and escrow release, and proves that under a specific architecture, on-chain operations can trigger traditional physical settlement processes.

However, when the perspective shifts to the field of securities, the legal nature of ownership becomes more complex, directly linked to dividends, voting rights, and corporate action rights. AMINA Bank Product Director Myles Harrison believes that institutional investors' decision-making logic is not based on blockchain choices, but rather stems from a careful evaluation of legal and economic rights. He pointed out that tokens are essentially representative of claims, and their value depends entirely on the supervised authority's obligation to legally fulfill this claim; institutional clients are concerned about 'who owes them', 'which law is applicable', and 'default relief route' rather than which chain the assets are hosted on. Harrison stressed that for “securities held elsewhere,” the answer lies in ownership records, not the token itself; only when the tokenized structure initiated by the issuer integrates distributed ledgers into the master securities holders' files, can an on-chain transfer complete the legally effective transfer of securities on the official register; otherwise, the token only represents an independent right that may lack direct execution.

Securitize COO Billy Miller further explained the essential differences between the 'issuer initiated' model and the 'third party created' model. In the issuer initiation model, tokens represent actual ownership of securities, similar to the digital mapping of bookkeeping shares at a transfer agency. On July 2, Securitize promoted the commencement of trading common shares listed on the NYSE under the SECZ code. Eligible US investors can obtain tokenized SECZ issued on Avalanche and Solana through Securitize.

This move enabled the same securities to have both traditional exchange listing and on-chain tokenization forms of ownership, and achieved a parallel breakthrough in the dual-track system. In March, the NYSE officially listed Securitize as the first qualified digital transfer agent, allowing it to mint blockchain-native securities for enterprises and ETF issuers on the planned digital trading platform; the two sides also agreed to jointly develop industry standards for digital transfer agents and tokenized agents in an attempt to resolve standardization issues of authorization and circulation at the infrastructure level.

According to data compiled by Woofun AI, the regulated tokenized institutional landscape is rapidly expanding. Securitize's assets under management reached 3.4 billion US dollars by the end of March 2026, the total trading volume reached 1.9 billion US dollars in the first quarter of this year, and successfully landed on the NYSE in July.

However, OKX US CEO Roshan Robert pointed out that although blockchain infrastructure provides speed, transparency, and global reach, transfer agents and blockchain actually complement each other. The former maintains records, processes transfers and corporate actions, while the latter provides a technical foundation. The real bottleneck is the risk of timing mismatch: the NYSE is developing a regulated digital trading venue that aims to enable 24/7 trading of tokenized securities, instant settlement, and stablecoin capital flow, pairing the Pillar matching engine with a blockchain-based post-trade system. However, Harrison warned that counterparties, compliance teams, and settlement systems are still operating according to traditional practices honed over decades. Although AMINA Bank has 24/7 settlement capabilities, clearing through traditional institutions on Saturday night is still not feasible. He metaphorically said that the entire financial system, from processes, staffing to compliance infrastructure, revolves around market transaction time optimization, and the shift to an all-weather model is like a U-turn tanker. If someone claims that it can be completed in 12 months, it seriously underestimates the challenge.

Currently, RWA.xyz has tracked 85 tokenized treasury bond products with a scale of $16.16 billion, but the underlying market, banking, escrow, hedging, and primary market activities still follow traditional working hours, causing tokenized prices to deviate from the underlying market during non-trading periods, forcing liquidity providers to bear the risk of inventory, base differences, and shortfalls.

The essence of value return requires tokenization to address distribution pain points rather than create fake demand. The 'SpaceX Stock Token' launched by Robinhood (HOOD.US) in 2025 only provides exposure to derivatives, rather than direct ownership of SpaceX shares. This dispute revealed the core risk of tokenization: owning a token is not equal to appearing on the company's shareholder register, nor is it equal to enjoying the rights attached to the underlying shares. Harrison pointed out that although investors can trade tokens for 24 hours, the underlying securities will not be repriced outside of traditional market hours; buyers actually get a package with a reference value frozen until the market reopens.

For tokenized treasury bonds, the largest RWA category, AMINA's customers could have purchased traditional US Treasury bonds through the bank's securities brokerage license, so unless tokenization can significantly improve on-chain access, settlement, or usage scenarios, its added utility is limited, and may even solve a distribution problem that does not exist. Tokenization can only generate real economic value if blockchain indicates that it can improve access, settlement, portability, or collateral use, while ownership records preserve the holder's enforceable rights throughout the process; as tokenized securities enter the regulated open market, the market size of this difference is large enough to have a substantial commercial impact.