CoinW Research Institute
Abstract: RWA3.0 is driving digital asset platforms to connect with global securities markets.
This article examines the emerging connections between stablecoins, digital asset account systems, securities markets, and blockchain infrastructure. Unlike traditional RWA, which focuses on "how real assets get on-chain," this article focuses on how standardized securities assets, such as stocks and ETFs, enter the digital asset ecosystem, and how users gain exposure to traditional financial market assets through stablecoins and crypto platforms.
From the perspective of user participation, the development of RWA has generally gone through three evolutionary stages. In the early stages, RWA primarily addressed the question of "how real assets can enter the blockchain." Its core model involved mapping real assets such as gold, real estate revenue rights, and accounts receivable into on-chain digital certificates, enabling users to hold corresponding asset exposure through tokens. This phase emphasized asset tokenization, ownership mapping, and on-chain verifiability. Subsequently, RWA2.0 connected real asset prices more through financial derivatives. Users do not necessarily hold the underlying assets directly but obtain exposure to price changes in traditional assets such as stocks, indices, and commodities through perpetual contracts and leveraged products. These products lowered the threshold for users to participate in traditional markets, allowing digital asset platforms to start providing multi-asset trading services; however, their core focus remained price tracking rather than the securities assets themselves.
Building on RWA1.0 and 2.0, RWA3.0 further evolves towards "connecting to securities markets." The core change is that stablecoins and digital asset platforms have begun to serve as new entry points into traditional securities markets. Users can obtain exposure to standardized securities assets such as U.S. stocks and ETFs through stablecoin funding systems within trading platforms, wallets, or on-chain financial applications. The realization methods include both direct connectivity to securities trading services through brokerage systems and the packaging of underlying assets such as stocks and ETFs into tokenized securities products by issuing institutions, which are then distributed through trading platforms, wallets, or API channels. This stage alters the roles of stablecoins and digital asset platforms. Stablecoins are no longer just trading mediums within the crypto market but have begun to serve as funding gateways connecting different asset markets; likewise, digital asset platforms have moved beyond merely trading crypto assets towards gradually evolving into integrated gateways for financial assets.
The current market has primarily developed two paths. The first type is brokerage access, where users connect to traditional securities trading services through stablecoins or digital asset platform accounts, relying on brokerage, clearing, settlement, and securities custodial systems; the second type is tokenized securities distribution, where issuing institutions issue on-chain securities products based on underlying assets like stocks or ETFs and distribute them through trading platforms, digital wallets, or other cooperative channels. These two models are not mutually exclusive but represent different paths of integrating real-world securities markets with blockchain, likely existing side by side in the future.
The most commonly misunderstood aspect of RWA3.0 is that many products outwardly appear as "using stablecoins to trade stocks," yet their underlying structures can vary significantly. What users receive may be real securities trading rights, or it could be price tracking products, tokenized securities certificates, or other economic rights. Therefore, when assessing RWA3.0 products, one cannot simply focus on the trading interface; further analysis of the underlying asset support methods, issuing entities, custody structures, user rights, corporate action handling, and compliance arrangements is necessary. The development of RWA3.0 is still constrained by real financial systems and regulatory frameworks. Requirements such as securities sales, cross-border investment, investor access, identity verification, and information disclosure determine that such products cannot achieve global non-discriminatory circulation like ordinary digital assets. Differences in rights arrangements, custody structures, liquidity mechanisms, and compliance models across products will continue to affect market trust and the speed of industry development.
The true significance of RWA3.0 is not simply converting more assets into tokens but promoting the formation of new connections between stablecoins, digital asset account systems, and traditional financial market infrastructures. Future competition will not just revolve around how many assets can be supported or transaction volumes, but will gradually shift towards the authenticity of assets, compliance capabilities, custody systems, liquidity management, and the ability to integrate financial infrastructures.
Table of Contents
1. Definition, Boundaries, and Research Framework of RWA3.0
1.1 Evolution of the Track: From RWA1.0 to RWA3.0
1.2 Definition of RWA3.0 in this Article
1.3 How RWA3.0 Differs from Tokenized Stocks, Synthetic Stocks, and CFDs
1.4 Core Model of RWA3.0
2. Current Market Status and Development Drivers
2.1 Expansion of Stablecoins: On-chain Dollars are Forming New Funding Pools
2.2 Market Space Comparison: The Size Gap Between U.S. Stocks/Securities Markets and Crypto Markets
2.3 Performance of the U.S. Stock Market and Global Allocation Attractiveness
2.4 Why Now: The Maturation of CEX, Multi-Asset Platforms, and Embedded Brokerage Capability
2.5 Current Stage Assessment: Demand has Been Verified, Models are Diverging, Compliance Remains Key
3. Industrial Chain and Infrastructure Structure of RWA3.0
3.1 User Entry Layer: Exchanges, Wallets, and Front-End Account Systems
3.2 Brokers and Dealers: Account Opening, Order Placement, Order Routing, and Market Access
3.3 Clearing and Securities Custody: Who Actually Holds the Stocks and Who is Responsible for Settlement
3.4 Tokenized Issuers: How to Package Securities Rights into On-Chain Products
3.5 Stablecoins and Payment Settlement: How On-Chain Dollars Enter the Securities System
3.6 Data, Prices, and Reserve Proof: How Prices, Endorsements, and Transparency are Established
3.7 KYC/AML and Regional Restrictions: Why RWA3.0 is More Compliance-Heavy than Ordinary Crypto Products
3.8 Corporate Actions and Investor Rights: How Dividends, Stock Splits, Trading Halts, and Voting Rights are Handled
4. Typical Case Analysis
4.1 BIT: A Representative Sample of Direct Stablecoin Connection to U.S. Securities Accounts
4.2 Binance: Evolving from U.S. Stock Trading Entry to bStocks, Formation of Own Securities Asset System
4.3 Bitget: Evolving from Stock Trading Entry to Reality, Extension of Own rTokens System
4.4 Comparative Analysis
5. Model Comparison, Core Discrepancies, and Key Issues
5.1 Two Main Lines: Brokerage Access Type and Tokenized Distribution Type
5.2 Discrepancy One: What Exactly Do Users Buy?
5.3 Discrepancy Two: 1:1 Support, Direct Shareholding, and Shareholder Rights are Not the Same
5.4 Discrepancy Three: Formation of Price, Liquidity, and Trading Times
5.5 Discrepancy Four: Who is Responsible for Issuing, Executing, Custody, and Verification
5.6 Discrepancy Five: Compliance Boundaries and Information Disclosure Determine Long-Term Credibility
6. Major Risks and Challenges
6.1 Cross-Border Regulation: Securities Properties Determine that It is Not Ordinary Crypto Products
6.2 Ownership Penetration: The Existence of Underlying Assets Does Not Mean User Rights are Clear
6.3 Corporate Actions: The Most Difficult to Standardize "Securities Details"
6.4 Liquidity and Pegging: Price Risks Behind 24/7 Trading
6.5 User Understanding: The More the Interface Resembles Spot Trading, the Higher the Misreading Risk
6.6 Infrastructure Dependency: RWA3.0 is Multi-Party Cooperation, Not a Single Product
6.7 Current Bottlenecks: The Industry Still Lacks a Unified Standard
7. Trends and Prospects
8. Conclusion
References
1. Definition, Boundaries, and Research Framework of RWA3.0
Before discussing RWA3.0, it is necessary to clarify the definitional boundaries of this article: RWA3.0 does not refer broadly to all "real-world assets on-chain", nor is it simply converting traditional assets such as stocks, bonds, and funds into on-chain tokens. Instead, it refers to the stage where digital asset systems begin to serve as new entry points connecting to real financial markets. Unlike early RWA, which focused primarily on "how assets are mapped on-chain" and "how to form income and circulation mechanisms around on-chain assets," the core change in RWA3.0 is that the way users participate in real asset markets has changed. Stablecoins are starting to become important funding gateways connecting to traditional financial assets, and digital asset platforms are beginning to cater to the trading, distribution, and management needs of standardized financial assets such as stocks and ETFs. At this stage, users can obtain exposure to the prices of traditional financial assets, economic rights, or securities trading services through stablecoins like USDT or USDC, within trading platforms, wallets, or other digital financial applications. The methods of realization include both connecting to brokerage systems through digital asset platforms for securities trading and issuing institutions packaging stocks, ETFs, and other assets into on-chain securities products, which are then distributed through trading platforms, wallets, or API channels. Therefore, the focus of RWA3.0 is not just whether assets can be put on-chain, but whether the digital asset account system can become a new gateway to traditional financial markets. This stage connects not just the assets themselves but also brokers, custody, clearing, data services, and compliance systems. It represents an integration between digital asset infrastructure and traditional capital markets, rather than merely a new form of asset issuance.
1.1 Evolution of the Track: From RWA1.0 to RWA3.0
Observing from the perspective of how users obtain exposure to real-world assets, the development of RWA has generally gone through three stages. It should be noted that RWA1.0, RWA2.0, and RWA3.0 are not industry-wide standards but rather a phased division proposed based on user investment methods and the evolution of financial infrastructures. Here, "1.0, 2.0, 3.0" does not represent different asset classes, but the deepening integration between real assets and blockchain systems.
The core of RWA1.0 is to convert real-world assets into verifiable, ownable, and transferable digital certificates on-chain. In this phase, users primarily attain exposure to real assets by directly holding on-chain tokens that represent the rights to the underlying assets. For example, gold tokens, real estate revenue rights tokens, accounts receivable certificates, etc., record asset ownership and flow processes through blockchain technology. This stage addresses the core question: Can real assets be standardized, and can they enter the blockchain system in a digital format? However, due to the strong non-standard features typically of the underlying assets, the market still faces issues relating to asset verification, custody, liquidity, and trading efficiency.
As transaction demands in the crypto market grew, users did not necessarily need to directly hold the real assets but rather sought exposure to the price performance and trading opportunities of the related assets. Consequently, RWA began to enter the digital asset market through financial derivatives, including perpetual contracts for stocks, index perpetual contracts, commodity contracts, etc. The essential change of this stage is users shifting from "holding assets" to "trading asset prices." For instance, users could earn profits from price changes involving stocks of companies like Nvidia, Apple, and Tesla by trading perpetual contracts without having to buy the actual stocks or enter traditional securities accounts. This model lowered the barrier for users to participate in traditional asset markets; however, its essence remained financial derivatives trading, where users gained exposure to price rather than rights to the underlying securities. Therefore, the issue RWA2.0 aimed to resolve was: How to effectively leverage crypto trading infrastructure to allow users to conveniently access real asset price exposure.
RWA3.0 further drives the connection between digital asset systems and traditional securities markets. The core change of this stage is allowing users to access traditional financial markets either directly or indirectly through digital asset account systems. Users can use stablecoins like USDT, USDC to gain exposure to standardized securities assets such as stocks and ETFs through trading platforms, wallets, or financial applications. Implementation methods include: direct access to securities trading services via cooperating brokers; issuance institutions issuing tokenized stock or ETF products; and the provision of securities asset trading and management functions through digital asset platforms. Compared to the first two stages, RWA3.0 connects not just the assets themselves but the entire system of financial infrastructures, including brokers, custody, clearing, data services, and compliance systems. Consequently, the core transformation of RWA3.0 is that blockchain is no longer merely a tool for carrying assets or trading prices but is beginning to serve as a new type of gateway connecting users, funding, and global financial assets.
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