RWA: what they are and how they work

Real World Assets (RWA): the new revolution in the global financial system

Real World Assets (RWAs) are a blockchain-based innovation that has the potential to transform the way we transfer and hold assets, both financial and non-financial. 

In 2026, RWAs are experiencing significant interest and adoption, particularly among institutional entities, due to their key features, including efficiency, decentralisation, and accessibility. 

As our CEO, Andrea Ferrero, aptly puts it, “If we have been using tracks built after the Second World War, tokenisation is allowing us to move financial securities and more onto new tracks.”If you are curious to find out what RWAs are and how they work, this is the article for you.

What are RWAs technically? 

What are RWAs? Simply put, RWAs are real-world assets (such as shares, bonds, real estate, loans, or works of art) represented in decentralised finance via smart contracts.

Although the concept may seem trivial, this ‘simple’ innovation is triggering a silent revolution in the global financial infrastructure, breaking down barriers to entry and making inherently inefficient markets liquid.

Historically, institutions such as banks, stock exchanges, and management companies have offered these services in an exclusive and centralised manner, forcing users to compromise on privacy, management costs, and the overall efficiency of the asset exchange process. 

The goal of RWAs is therefore to evolve the current financial system from an efficient but highly centralised system to an even more efficient one, while introducing decentralisation and greater access.

To better understand the mission and purpose of RWAs, let us retrace the evolution of modern financial infrastructure by studying three fundamental steps that have characterised this sector: the era of the paper-based system, the era of the centralised digital system and the era of the decentralised digital system.

This was the dominant system until the early 1970s. At this stage, the transfer of value between two parties occurred exclusively through the physical exchange of paper documents (share certificates, bonds, bearer securities), which were the only means of establishing ownership of the asset.

This phase began with the start of digitisation in the United States, particularly with the founding of NASDAQ in 1971 (the world’s first electronic stock market). In this system, ownership transfers almost instantly with a single click, effectively eliminating physical media.

This phase marks the definitive shift from trust in human institutions to trust in cryptographic code. While the previous era digitised information and its movement, the decentralised era — driven by blockchain technology and the advent of RWAs — is digitising value itself.

In this new paradigm, assets are no longer confined to private, isolated databases but are entered into distributed ledgers, structurally changing the global financial system and introducing three unprecedented innovations:

Tokenisation and, specifically, RWAs therefore represent the latest frontier in infrastructure innovation underpinning global value transfer. Although this path is not without problems — such as vulnerability to cyberattacks and the system’s current operational complexity — it is undoubtedly the most plausible evolution of the current financial system.

How the tokenisation process works

Now that we understand what RWAs are and what problem they aim to solve, let’s analyse how a physical asset is actually transformed into a digital asset. This process, known as tokenisation, is not a simple technical act, but an operation that combines law, finance nd technology through three essential stages: digitisation, code creation and market launch.

The process begins with digitisation, a crucial step that bridges the physical and cryptographic worlds. At this stage, the real asset (whether a gold bar, a property, or a commercial credit) undergoes rigorous evaluation and specific legal structuring.

It is not just a matter of creating a digital ‘photo’ of the asset, but of establishing a legal framework—often through special purpose vehicles or custody agreements—that ensures ownership of the token effectively confers ownership, economic rights, and economic benefits of the underlying asset. At this stage, all relevant information, such as appraisals, certificates of authenticity and technical data, is prepared for transfer to the distributed ledger.

Once the legal and documentation framework is defined, the technical phase of creating the smart contract begins. In this step, the tool for exchanging the asset within the blockchain infrastructure is developed.

The rules for using the token are written into the code, including the dividend distribution frequency, transfers (required to comply with anti-money laundering regulations), voting rights for holders, and all other information necessary for the asset. Through the minting process, the asset is officially issued on the blockchain, transforming a physical asset into a unique, secure, and non-counterfeit digital unit.

The final stage concerns the asset’s entry into the market, which represents a real step forward compared to the past. Thanks to tokenisation, the asset enters a global ecosystem that offers several indisputable advantages over the legacy digital system, including the potential for greater liquidity and accessibility.

On the one hand, by operating within a market structure built on decentralisation, open access, and distributed systems, a tokenised asset gains access to a global market that operates 24/7. This eliminates the geographical and temporal barriers of traditional markets, dramatically increasing the base of potential investors and, in turn, liquidity and accessibility.

On the other hand, as RWAs are a digital representation of a physical asset, they benefit from the possibility of being fractionated into multiple shares in a much simpler way than a classic digital contract, bringing undoubted advantages in the process of exchanging large or valuable and typically illiquid assets, such as real estate or works of art.

Ultimately, the integration of these three phases demonstrates that tokenisation is not simply a migration of data from a paper register to a digital one, but a fundamental shift in the concept of ownership. Through the perfect synchrony between legal compliance, technological rigour, and freedom of exchange, RWAs enable historically static assets to achieve unprecedented dynamism and flexibility. 

A practical example: the Fleap case

To illustrate the potential of tokenisation in concrete terms, let us examine one of the most significant case studies in Italy: the Fleap case. This example represents a milestone in the RWA sector, as it demonstrates how blockchain technology is successfully applied to complex financial processes while ensuring full legal and operational compliance.

More specifically, Fleap S.p.A. is an Italian company founded in 2019 within PoliHub, the incubator of the Politecnico di Milano, to create new opportunities in private markets through the tokenisation of financial instruments.

Fleap is a highly emblematic case, as it was the first company to obtain authorisation from CONSOB (the Italian financial markets regulator) as a ‘register keeper’ under the ‘Fintech Decree‘. Thanks to this qualification, it can offer Italian companies native tokenisation services for financial instruments.

Through its platform, it is possible to manage shares, bonds, debt securities and OICR units as programmable tokens on the blockchain, while maintaining their legal value and economic rights unchanged. This brings concrete benefits in terms of transparency, efficiency and cost reduction.

The platform also supports advanced governance features, including voting management, minute-taking, document storage, and corporate operations automation, reducing the complexity of historically burdensome, fragmented processes.

The Fleap case demonstrates that asset tokenisation technology is a ready-made solution to improve our relationship with financial asset management, offering a glimpse into the future infrastructure of the economic system.

Conclusions

As we have analysed, RWAs are among the most revolutionary frontiers in technology applied to finance, marking a paradigm shift that is rewriting the rules of ownership and exchange.

Currently, the RWA market (excluding stablecoins) has reached a capitalisation of approximately £14 billion. However, this is only the beginning: expert estimates indicate exponential growth that will bring the sector to £38 billion ove, bringingyears, confirming that tokenisation is emerging from an experimental phase to become movingtutionally recognised standard.

In this scenario, understanding what RWAs are is a vital requirement for anyone who wants to correctly interpret the direction of financial markets and value transfer systems globally. We are witnessing the birth of a more equitable, liquid and transparent financial infrastructure, where the boundary between ‘real’ and ‘digital’ has now been definitively blurred.