The crypto world is brewing over a storm, and faces of the biggest players are just beginning to pop out. From Bitcoin veterans to DeFi disruptors, one thing unites them in their views, a sea change is coming.
In this whirlpool of change, as volatility returns to the market and speculation increases over what comes next for digital assets, one usually quiet yet powerful trend is reshaping the entire ecosystem: Real-World Asset tokenization, better known as RWA. It’s no more about coins and chains; it’s about bridging the tangible and the digital, turning real estate, bonds, and even private credit into blockchain-traded instruments.
According to BitMEX CEO Stephan Lutz, this may emerge as the most significant wave to hit crypto since the rise of Bitcoin.
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RWA: The Hottest Topic of 2025
Speaking at Expand North Star 2025 in Dubai, Stephan Lutz described RWA as “the hot topic of the summer.” “We now see traditional finance assets being tokenized and brought to the crypto-native crowd, which is a big thing,” he said. “The current yields we’re seeing come mainly from these traditional instruments. But the bigger play begins once we start tokenizing illiquid assets, like real estate or private credit.”
For Lutz, though, the real breakthrough will come when the market figures out how to fairly value these real-world assets on-chain, a challenge that stands between experimentation and full-scale adoption.
Solving Valuation: The Key to the Next Market Explosion
Looking a few years ahead, Lutz says once someone cracks the valuation model for tokenized assets, RWA will dwarf traditional crypto trading volumes. “The moment someone solves the valuation aspect, like knowing exactly what this building is worth, that’s when RWA will surpass even crypto trading,” he explained. “You’re bringing illiquid assets to a liquid market, and once you put derivatives on top, the opportunity becomes enormous.”
With BitMEX’s strong foundation in derivatives, the exchange sees an untapped opportunity to create a new layer of financial products built on tokenized real-world assets.
Ownership: The Silent Risk Nobody Pays Attention to
With all this optimism, Lutz warned the most underestimated risk in the RWA space today is legal title, the question of who really owns the asset behind the token. “Do you really own what you think you own?” he asked. “If you buy a tokenized equity right now, you don’t actually own the underlying equity. You just hold a title for its economic performance. That’s fine as a start, but it’s not real ownership.”
Until the industry builds in clear legal frameworks that grant real ownership rights on-chain, says Lutz, RWA adoption will remain limited to early movers and institutional experiments.
Blockchain Transparency: The Foundation of Trust
Asked how blockchain can mitigate those risks, Lutz emphasized its transparency as the technology’s most powerful advantage. “Without blockchain technology, RWA trading wouldn’t work,” he said. “Transparency allows professional investors, maybe 10 to 20% of the market, to properly evaluate what they’re trading. Once they trust it, the rest will follow.”
That 10-20% of savvy investors, he says, will be the driving force behind mainstream RWA adoption.
Lutz’s Advice: Follow the Projects Solving the Pricing Problem
As the conversation wrapped up, Lutz offered one clear piece of advice to investors: “Look out for projects tackling the pricing issue. Once that’s solved, that’s when you’ll really want to decide where to invest in digitally traded RWA.”
Basically, Stephan Lutz sees the future of crypto not in new coins but in new layers of reality being pulled onto the blockchain. The moment valuation and legal clarity align, the world’s most valuable assets, from skyscrapers to sovereign bonds, could be traded with the same ease as Bitcoin. And when that happens, the next bull run won’t just be digital, it’ll be real.
