Over the past few years, few sectors in crypto have generated more grand narratives than real-world assets (RWAs) and stablecoins.
On one side, U.S. Treasuries, stocks, funds, and even private credit are being brought onchain, giving real-world assets programmability, composability, and global circulation. On the other, fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar and euro are being transformed into onchain cash that can move around the clock.
This narrative has been repeated for so long that it can easily feel stale. But when the recent moves by traditional financial institutions and crypto platforms are viewed together, a different picture emerges: these are no longer isolated experiments. The pieces are beginning to interlock, forming an end-to-end financial system. (Further reading: “From ‘Speculative Asset’ to ‘Next-Generation Financial Infrastructure’: Is Crypto Building a New TradFi System?”)
1. The Next Phase of RWAs Is About More Than Issuing Tokens
The initial vision for RWAs was straightforward: turn assets into tokens.
A U.S. Treasury fund that previously existed only in a traditional brokerage account could issue its shares as tokens. Gold that once had to be traded through funds, warehouse receipts, or brokers could be represented by a digital certificate onchain.
This solved the problem of representing an asset digitally. But in the real financial world, a token alone is nowhere near enough.
If an onchain token merely tracks a stock, it may not grant genuine shareholder rights. If it operates outside existing regulations and trading and settlement rules, institutions may be unwilling—or unable—to use it.
A functioning market must answer a long list of mundane but essential questions. Who holds the underlying shares? How are dividends distributed? Who maintains the ownership register? How are transfers recorded? And how are trades settled after execution?
That is why the New York Stock Exchange’s work deserves attention.
In January, the NYSE announced that it was developing a tokenized securities platform. The proposal is not simply about issuing a handful of tokens that track stock prices. Instead, it aims to give tokenized shares the same shareholder rights as traditional securities, while supporting 24/7 trading, fractional shares, instant settlement, and stablecoin-based settlement.
The NYSE has since brought in Securitize and tZERO to help build out digital transfer-agent services, broker-dealer participation, securities registration, and onchain settlement infrastructure.
This is fundamentally different from a crypto-native platform issuing its own tokenized version of a stock.
Traditional finance is trying to determine how blockchain can become a new technical foundation for securities markets without abandoning securities law, investor rights, or existing market rules.
Meanwhile, crypto platforms are moving in the opposite direction—closer to traditional finance.
Major trading platforms have begun offering access to U.S. stocks, ETFs, and even options. In the past, a user might buy BTC on a crypto exchange, Nvidia shares in a brokerage account, and gold through yet another provider. Increasingly, crypto platforms are trying to bring these assets into a shared account and funding system.
Bitfinex Securities, for example, recently listed five products that allow eligible investors to gain economic exposure to listed companies including Strategy and Metaplanet through tokenized securities, with trading supported in U.S. dollars, USDT, and BTC.
Ultimately, the RWA race is evolving from “Who can turn an asset into a token?” to “Who can build a fully functioning onchain capital market for issuance, trading, custody, settlement, and ongoing operations?”
Once the discussion reaches settlement, stablecoins naturally become the next piece of the puzzle.
2. Once Assets Move Onchain, Stablecoins Become the Cash Layer
Once assets can exist and trade onchain, the next question is obvious: what money should be used to settle those trades?
For a long time, stablecoins functioned primarily as fiat-denominated tokens inside crypto’s own trading economy. Most users bought USDT or USDC to trade crypto on exchanges, with the funds circulating largely within the industry.
But once assets begin trading around the clock, the limitations of traditional banking systems become immediately apparent.
Why do conventional securities markets close on weekends? One important reason is that the banks, custodians, clearinghouses, and funding systems behind them all operate according to their own business hours.
This is where stablecoins come in.
In early September, 21 financial institutions—including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi, and Deutsche Bank—announced plans to establish a joint company and launch a U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin in the first half of 2027. The initiative may later expand to the euro and other G7 currencies.
Stablecoin issuance is therefore moving beyond competition among crypto companies and into the banking system itself.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire offered an interesting analogy for the current market, comparing today’s onchain finance and stablecoin infrastructure to the internet in 2002.
The point is not simply that the stablecoin market could grow many times larger. Rather, the infrastructure appears to be approaching a threshold: the technology is maturing, regulators are becoming more receptive, and institutions are finally gaining the conditions necessary for adoption at scale.
Circle's latest report makes a similar argument, describing stablecoins as entering the regulated financial system rather than continuing to operate solely as crypto products outside banking.
This also explains why RWAs and stablecoins are becoming increasingly difficult to discuss separately.
Suppose a U.S. stock can genuinely trade onchain 24 hours a day. Tokenizing the stock alone does not solve the limitations of traditional markets. Stablecoins provide the corresponding form of money: if the asset can move around the clock, the cash must be able to do the same.
Tokenized securities can form one side of a trade, with a stablecoin cash leg on the other. Blockchain can then enable near-real-time delivery versus payment, or DvP. A securities settlement process that once required several institutions, multiple accounts, and potentially several days could be compressed into a single system.
As securities, funds, bonds, and other RWAs move onchain, stablecoins could evolve from the unit of account for crypto markets into the cash layer of the entire onchain capital market.
This is also why regulation matters so much.
Regulation is not necessarily the opposite of stablecoin expansion. In many respects, stablecoins can enter the broader financial system only after their regulatory boundaries become sufficiently clear.
3. As Stablecoins Leave Exchanges, the Last Mile Connects to the Real World
Even after assets are tokenized, issued in compliance with regulations, and settled onchain, stablecoins still need one final capability before they can truly function as money: people must be able to spend them in the real world.
Recent developments in Japan offer a useful example.
In August, HashPort and Lawson conducted an in-store pilot at Lawson’s Takanawa Gateway City location in Tokyo, allowing a customer to pay with a yen-denominated stablecoin. The merchant side was connected directly to the convenience store’s existing point-of-sale system.
This was no longer a Web3 event with a QR code on a table and two wallets transferring tokens to one another. It was an attempt to integrate stablecoins into an ordinary retail environment.
At another Lawson location, NETSTARS completed its own proof of concept for Stablecoin Pay, testing payments with a yen-denominated stablecoin, USDC, and USDT across multiple blockchain networks through an existing POS system.
Stablecoin Pay officially launched in July with a merchant fee of 0.98%. Its objective is clear: merchants should not need to understand every blockchain, wallet, or stablecoin individually. They should be able to connect through a single payment infrastructure.
This may be more important than the novelty of buying coffee with stablecoins at a convenience store.
Credit cards, Alipay, and transit cards did not achieve mass adoption because every convenience store understood Visa’s clearing network, QR code standards, or the interbank system.
Quite the opposite. One of the defining characteristics of a mature payment network is its ability to hide the complexity underneath.
Stablecoins will probably have to follow the same path before they can enter mainstream retail. Consumers should only need to choose a wallet, while merchants continue using the POS systems they already know. Payment providers can handle the blockchains, currencies, exchange rates, confirmations, compliance, and settlement in between.
Blockchain may ultimately sit behind every transaction without needing to appear in front of every consumer.
Something equally interesting is happening on the other side of the payment terminal. HashPort also announced Wallet MCP, which is designed to connect AI agents such as ChatGPT and Claude to wallets. With user authorization, an agent could check balances, transfer or swap assets, and pay for external services.
This means the stablecoin payment networks being built today may serve more than human users.
If AI agents eventually book hotels, purchase API access, procure cloud-computing resources, or manage company expenses, stablecoins—with their digitally native, globally transferable, and programmable properties—may be better suited to machine payments than traditional bank cards.
A new payment network is gradually taking shape: from consumer wallets to agent wallets, from onchain tokens to convenience-store POS terminals, and from U.S. dollar stablecoins to yen-denominated stablecoins.
The role of the wallet will change accordingly.
In the past, wallets mainly solved the problem of securely holding and using onchain assets. In the future, they may also become the user-facing gateway between onchain financial networks and real-world commerce.
This is what makes the latest collaboration between imToken and NETSTARS worth watching. On September 3, the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding to explore connecting imToken’s wallet infrastructure with Stablecoin Pay, potentially allowing stablecoins held in users’ wallets to be spent at physical merchants in Japan.
The collaboration remains exploratory and does not mean a specific payment service has already launched. But its direction reflects a broader shift in the role of wallets: from connecting users to onchain assets and DApps to becoming an entry point for real-world payments.
Final Thoughts
Looking back, the progression over the past few years is remarkably clear.
The first question was whether real-world assets could move onchain. Then came the question of liquidity: could those assets be traded, borrowed, and lent through DeFi?
Today, the discussion has become far more practical. Can traditional institutions issue assets compliantly? Can trades settle using onchain money? And can that money be spent in convenience stores—or even by AI agents?
When NYSE-backed market infrastructure, Wall Street stablecoins, convenience-store POS systems, and user wallets begin to interlock, RWAs will no longer be merely about bringing real-world assets into Web3.
That may be the moment when crypto’s financial infrastructure truly begins moving into the real world.
The next chapter is worth watching.