——Interview with the Management Team of RWA.ltd
HONG KONG, Aug. 26, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — In August 2025, Wall Street is undergoing a quiet yet profound transformation. When Ethereum surpassed 4,800 USD on August 23, marking a four-year high and more than 200% up from its April low, many began to realize that this surge was not just another cycle of crypto-market frenzy. Instead, it reflected the accelerating fulfillment of traditional financial giants’ strategic bets on blockchain. Institutions such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Apollo are migrating billions of dollars in real-world assets (RWA) onto the Ethereum network, gradually positioning it as the core infrastructure connecting traditional finance with the digital economy.
According to RWA.xyz, by the end of 2024 the total value locked (TVL) of RWAs on Ethereum had already surpassed USD 14.9 billion, accounting for 81% of the global market. By mid-2025, this share further rose to 83.6%. This institution-driven wave of tokenizing RWAs directly fueled Ethereum’s price appreciation and elevated its strategic position on Wall Street. Against this backdrop, the world’s first non-financial RWA trading platform, based in Hong Kong, announced that it will adopt the ERC-3643 protocol as the foundation for compliant asset issuance and circulation. This decision has attracted industry attention, prompting us to interview the management team of RWA.ltd.
Q: Why choose ERC-3643 instead of the well-known ERC-20?
A: ERC-20 is indeed the most classic token standard in the Ethereum ecosystem. Its simplicity and compatibility have made it the common language for stablecoins and DeFi protocols. USDT, USDC, and DAI are all based on ERC-20. However, ERC-20 was designed for open circulation, not compliance control. For RWAs, which are inherently subject to regulatory oversight, ERC-20 alone is far from sufficient.
ERC-3643 is an evolution built on ERC-20. It introduces mechanisms such as investor whitelists, KYC/AML verification, and transfer permission controls. For example, a token transfer must first pass through a compliance gateway to verify that both parties are qualified investors before the transaction is executed. This design of “embedding compliance into code” directly addresses the compliance risks that traditional financial institutions worry about most. For RWA.ltd, it was the natural choice.
Q: Could you help us compare ERC-20, ERC-721, and ERC-3643?
A: ERC-20 was the earliest fungible token standard, suitable for representing currencies, bonds, and other standardized rights. ERC-721 ushered in the NFT era, enabling unique assets to be authenticated on-chain, but its applications are better suited to art, collectibles, or event tickets rather than securitized assets.
ERC-3643 can be seen as a “compliance-enhanced ERC-20.” It retains ERC-20’s compatibility but adds conditional transfers, identity verification, and compliance review functions. For example, a bond token can specify that it may only be held by qualified investors, and if the holder loses that status, the system automatically prevents transfers. These mechanisms make ERC-3643 the ideal choice for compliant asset tokenization.
Q: How does RD Technology view ERC-3643?
A: RD Technology, as a compliance-focused stablecoin and asset digitalization infrastructure company rooted in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area, shares a view that aligns closely with ours. They emphasize that “timely compliance” is the first principle of financial asset digitalization. Whether for stablecoins or RWAs, assets must always be ready for regulatory inspection while maintaining market liquidity.
In their perspective, ERC-3643 precisely meets this requirement. Its logic is to make compliance an automated process. For instance, a stablecoin transfer would automatically trigger an identity check, and if conditions are not met, the transaction would simply fail. RD Technology believes that mainstream compliant stablecoins and RWA products are likely to adopt ERC-3643 rather than remain with ERC-20. This judgment matches our own assessment.
Q: Why is Wall Street putting billions of dollars’ worth of RWAs on Ethereum? Do other blockchains have opportunities?
A: Ethereum has three major advantages. First, its ecosystem is the most mature, with the largest developer base and the strongest compatibility. Second, institutions have already used ERC-20 to complete their first wave of pilots—for example, BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, Franklin Templeton’s money market fund, and Apollo’s credit securitization fund all run on Ethereum. Third, Ethereum’s market share has reached a dominant position. By August 2025, it held 55% of the global RWA market—far ahead of other chains.
Of course, competition exists. Cosmos’ Noble chain and bank-operated private blockchains are making attempts, but they lack sufficient ecosystem support and cross-border liquidity. By contrast, Ethereum is not only a technical platform but also an institutional consensus.
Q: Have technological upgrades and regulatory policy changes also influenced RWA.ltd’s decision?
A: Very much so. Ethereum’s Pectra and Fusaka upgrades this year significantly improved throughput and smart contract security, reducing average transaction costs by 60% and shortening settlement time to mere seconds. This made institutional-grade transactions on Ethereum truly feasible.
On the regulatory side, the U.S. SEC launched its “RWA Compliance Acceleration Program,” allowing some institutions to issue tokenized products under a sandbox regime. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) in June released the “Tokenization of Virtual Assets Implementation Guidelines 2.0,” which clarified compliance frameworks for real estate and securitized assets. Particularly, Hong Kong’s “Digital Asset Development Policy Declaration 2.0,” published in June 2025, signaled that the city is moving from being a pilot field toward a stage of institutionalization and scale. These developments align seamlessly with ERC-3643’s built-in compliance modules.
Q: What specific plans does RWA.ltd have after adopting ERC-3643?
A: In the short term, we will focus on the tokenization of non-financial RWA assets—exchangeable physical assets and redeemable usage rights. In the medium to long term, we plan to explore emerging categories such as cultural tourism, real estate, carbon credits, and intellectual property. For example, the carbon credit market is expected to surpass USD 1 billion in 2025, and ERC-3643 can provide condition-based compliant issuance for such assets.
We will also actively collaborate with ecosystem partners in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area, leveraging the Hainan QFLP channel to facilitate cross-border capital flows and data interactions. ERC-3643 enables us to build a globally applicable platform for compliant asset issuance.
At present, Hong Kong’s RWA.ltd non-financial RWA trading platform has completed both technical development and legal audits and is undergoing final internal testing. The platform will officially launch its public beta in early September 2025, and we welcome industry partners to join us in its development.
Q: Lastly, could you summarize your view on ERC-3643 in one sentence?
A: ERC-20 ignited DeFi, ERC-721 opened the door to NFTs, and ERC-3643 will become the compliance bridge for real-world assets on-chain. For RWA.ltd, choosing it is not merely a technological decision but a forward-looking judgment on the future financial order.
About RWA Group
RWA Group (formerly known as NFT China, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong International Institute of New Economics) is a leading one-stop RWA service provider in Hong Kong’s Web3.0 industry, integrating digital financial advisory and infrastructure services. Founded by a professional team with extensive experience in blockchain technology, traditional finance, and digital asset infrastructure, RWA Group has established a deep business network covering Hong Kong, Mainland China, Southeast Asia, and beyond.
Since 2023, RWA Group has achieved sustained profitability and has successfully facilitated the tokenization issuance of multiple non-financial assets for clients including BYD and Faraday Future. The company was awarded second prize in the 2024 China Web3.0 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, EPIC
Top 100 and actively leads the development of industry technical specifications and evaluation standards, driving the standardization of the ecosystem.
www.rwa.ltd
The World’s First Non-Financial Real-World Asset Tokenization Platform www.rwa.ltd has successfully integrated RWA issuance, trading, and advisory services, with its unique closed-loop service system—Technology Implementation, Compliance Assurance, Ecosystem Expansion—as its core competitive advantage. Moving forward, the platform will continue to serve as a bridge for the globalization of non-financial assets, advancing global collaboration and standardization in real-world asset digitization, and pioneering a new wave of digital transformation for physical assets.
