$37 Billion RWA Market Faces New Challenge: After Assets Are On-Chained, Who Delivers on Ownership?

The RWA market continues to expand rapidly, but the concerns of industry participants are shifting. According to a recent feature report by BeInCrypto, titled "The $37 Billion Tokenization Boom Has an Ownership Problem," as of August 3, the scale of tokenized RWAs on public chains had reached $37.29 billion (excluding stablecoins). Among this, Treasury bills and money market products accounted for $16.16 billion, representing roughly 43% of the entire market; commodities reached $4.6 billion, and equities and ETFs reached $2.16 billion.

But as more real-world assets move on-chain, a more fundamental question than "what assets can be tokenized" is beginning to emerge: Does holding a token mean that one truly owns the real-world asset or the associated rights it represents?

BeInCrypto placed this question at the core of its latest feature report, interviewing Matrixdock Lead Eva Meng, AMINA Bank CPO Myles Harrison, Securitize COO Billy Miller, and OKX US CEO Roshan Robert to discuss the real-world challenges facing the tokenization market from various angles, including settlement, ownership registration, and 24/7 trading. Among them, Matrixdock Lead Eva Meng placed settlement at the heart of the ownership issue, extending the discussion from "how ownership is recorded on-chain" to "whether related rights can be settled in the real world."

From 32.148 XAUm to a 1kg Gold Bar: How Does On-Chain Ownership Transition to Physical Delivery?

Blockchain can accurately record how many tokens an address holds, but for RWAs, the on-chain record of ownership itself does not determine whether the underlying asset can be used for settlement when needed. Eva pointed out that the real test occurs when the related rights are exercised: whether the underlying asset can be settled according to the corresponding mechanism.

XAUm, the tokenized gold product from Matrixdock, the RWA platform under BIT, provides a practical case study for this relatively abstract issue. BeInCrypto mentioned in its report that in April 2025, a holder burned 32.148 XAUm and received a 1kg LBMA gold bar within T+3 of submitting the redemption request, connecting the on-chain token burn with the release of the corresponding gold from the custody system. The report also used images of physical gold delivery from Matrixdock to illustrate how the rights represented by a token extend from an on-chain balance to the delivery of a real-world asset.

What truly deserves attention about this redemption is not merely that "XAUm can be exchanged for gold," but that it demonstrates a practical pathway from on-chain records to physical delivery: from holding XAUm, submitting a redemption request, and burning the token, to the release of the corresponding gold from custody and its physical delivery. The rights represented by the token must go through an actual settlement process before they can be realized in the delivery of the underlying asset. For physical RWAs like tokenized gold, this also provides a more intuitive perspective: whether the rights recorded on-chain can truly be honored ultimately depends on whether the underlying asset can be settled or delivered according to the corresponding mechanism when the holder exercises their rights.

As tokenization extends to securities, the ownership issue becomes even more complex. BeInCrypto noted that securities ownership also involves rights such as dividends, voting rights, and corporate actions. AMINA Bank CPO Myles Harrison emphasized that institutional investors care more about who bears the obligations, which jurisdiction's laws apply, and what rights investors possess. Securitize COO Billy Miller, meanwhile, pointed out that different tokenization models differ in how ownership is registered. This also implies that for securities, the token itself is insufficient to define the complete ownership relationship; what remains crucial is how it connects to legally recognized ownership records and the corresponding rights framework.

The physical redemption case of XAUm provides an observable outcome for this issue. Compared to simply proving that "gold has been tokenized," the process from 32.148 XAUm to a 1kg LBMA gold bar more directly demonstrates how on-chain token burns connect to the release of the underlying asset and physical delivery. As the RWA market's focus gradually shifts from "how many assets are on-chain" to "how assets operate once on-chain," this practical connection from token to underlying asset becomes an important dimension for understanding the value of tokenized assets.

Tokens Can Trade 24/7, But the Underlying Markets Are Not Always-On

When on-chain ownership can be further connected to real-world assets, another issue arises: tokens can trade around the clock, but the underlying markets and traditional financial infrastructure supporting them do not necessarily operate 24/7.

In her interview with BeInCrypto, Eva also used gold as an example, pointing out that currently, only a part of the entire system is truly always-on. On-chain secondary trading and transfers can continue uninterrupted, but the underlying markets, banks, custody, hedging, and primary market activities still follow traditional market operating hours. Therefore, even when traditional gold markets are closed, tokenized gold can continue to form prices on-chain and may reflect new macroeconomic information or geopolitical events earlier.

The real challenge emerges when on-chain prices deviate from underlying market prices. She further noted that if mechanisms typically used to bring the two markets back into alignment—such as arbitrage, hedging, minting, and redemption—are temporarily unavailable during these periods, liquidity providers would need to bear greater inventory risk, basis risk, and gap risk until the relevant markets reopen. This implies that achieving 24/7 on-chain trading for RWAs does not mean the entire asset ecosystem supporting the token has simultaneously entered an always-on state.

For tokenized gold, this extends the question from "how to tokenize gold" to "how the asset actually operates once on-chain." XAUm can circulate continuously on-chain, but the gold it represents still exists within the real-world market system; the on-chain market can extend trading hours, yet it cannot automatically make banks, custody, hedging, and primary markets 24/7. How to connect an always-on token market with an underlying asset ecosystem that still follows traditional operating hours is becoming a question that RWAs must confront once they move from issuance to actual operation.

BeInCrypto extended this issue across the broader tokenization market: the choice of blockchain still affects transaction costs, execution speed, and asset accessibility, but for institutions, legal and operational infrastructure equally determines whether an asset can truly enter an investment portfolio. The place where tokenization truly generates economic value lies in the ability of on-chain representations to improve asset accessibility, settlement, transferability, or collateral utility, while ownership records continue to preserve holders' enforceable rights throughout the process.

Now that the RWA market has reached $37.29 billion, "moving assets onto the blockchain" itself is gradually shifting from an endpoint to a starting point. From BeInCrypto's discussion of ownership and settlement to the practical case of XAUm moving from the burn of 32.148 tokens to the delivery of a 1kg LBMA gold bar, all point to the same question: once tokens truly enter financial scenarios such as trading, settlement, and collateralization, whether on-chain records can continuously connect to enforceable rights and final settlement in the real world may be the very question tokenization must answer in its evolution from digital representation to practical financial application.