Review by Aishwary Gupta, Global Head of Payments and RWA at Polygon Labs
Most of the flashy RWA issues that make headlines are smoke and mirrors. If the industry does not correct course, it risks undermining the institutional trust that has taken years to build. Every week there is another announcement demanding billions in tokenized assets. But when institutional investors ask for basic details, the answers become mysteriously vague.
OpenAI has been forced to distance itself from Robinhood’s claims that it offers access to tokenized shares, explaining that it does not represent real equity in the company. In May 2025, the SEC accused Unicoin of misleading investors by inflating the value of tokenized real estate transactions.
From the sequel double counting problem down chilly, foggy multi-token status, it is clear that the RWA revolution still faces significant obstacles to achieving credibility.
This is actively harmful to the institutional adoption that everyone claims to want. The industry’s obsession with vanity metrics undermines the credibility that risk-weighted assets need for the ecosystem to unlock the trillions of institutional capital waiting on the sidelines.
Vanity metric industrial convoluted
“The biggest risk today is the assumption that legal packaging and blockchain alone create value.” Quoted by Forbes As Ian Balina, CEO of Token Metrics, says. “Without true composability, reliable secondary markets, and trusted custody, tokenized assets will be stuck in marketing decks, not investment portfolios.”
Related: The RWA platform is entering a up-to-date phase by expanding compliant access to onchain resources
He’s right. Treating the numbers on your dashboards as if they are all that matters is actively harmful. Any exaggerated claim makes it arduous for legitimate projects to be taken seriously. When a pension fund’s due diligence team cannot distinguish between real implementations and phantom TVLs, they are not interested in selecting a real one. They prefer to leave completely.
Blockchain’s entire value proposition is transparency and verifiability. And yet we are asking institutions to trust numbers that we cannot (or will not) prove.
Fixing the trust issue
Chains that are unable to demonstrate verifiable activity or regulatory compliance not only put their own users at risk, but also undermine the integrity of the entire blockchain ecosystem. They raise expectations and undermine trust in the entire concept of tokenization.
To maintain momentum and deliver the benefits of RWA, we urgently need crystal clear, regulated implementations that match actual adoption, not fabricated metrics.
What does a real RWA reception look like? A good place to start is Wyoming. In September, the Equality State launched the first U.S. state-backed stablecoin, FRNT, with full regulatory approval and fully controlled reserves. Or you can look to Japan, where JPYC is emerging as a legitimate yen stablecoin that is creating up-to-date demand for Japanese government bonds. These projects solve real payment problems. They are more than just dashboards with sleek volume control.
The adoption of the RWA also echoes the Philippines’ initiative to place government budget records online, in an effort to combat corruption and boost transparency in public spending. This kind of dashboard means millions of citizens can verify their government’s financial records in real time. It’s adoption that counts.
BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund currently has over $1 billion in AUM. This fund brings institutional-grade money market funds to the network. Meanwhile, Apollo’s ACRED brings blockchain efficiency to the operation of credit markets. These are regulated financial products with real capital and real users.
Stripe’s decision to integrate blockchain rails into global payments was made because the company needed to leverage the chain based on actual transaction volume and reliability, rather than social media engagement.
Transparency test
Any blockchain that claims to be an RWA leader simply needs to show us the money. TVL numbers are too simple. Can you show us the regulatory approvals? Are institutional partners willing to disclose themselves? Transaction volumes confirming that people are actually using these assets? Can we audit intelligent contracts? Can we verify reserves?
There is a lot of legal work going on around RWA across the ecosystem, but it risks being drowned out by media hype if we don’t set standards that demonstrate real adoption.
The RWA revolution doesn’t need hype to be stimulating. Real adoption comes through the issuance of municipal bonds, which saves the city 50 basis points. Or from a cross-border payment that clears in seconds, not days. It may come from a miniature business gaining access to credit markets that were previously closed to them.
This doesn’t mean that numbers don’t matter. Giving $1 billion in risk-weighted assets makes no sense if those assets cannot be verified, settled, or traded. The next frontier isn’t pumping up dashboards. It’s about building trust. Projects involving auditability, regulatory transparency and composable yield will define RWA 2.0 and attract trillions still waiting to be moved online.
Once transparency and accountability are established, risk-weighted asset values will soar even further, unlocking trillions in institutional capital.
Review by: Aishwary Gupta, Global Director of Payments and RWA at Polygon Labs.
This article is for general information purposes and is not and should not be treated as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
