Definition
Real-world assets refers to off-chain financial and physical assets (treasuries, corporate bonds, real estate, commodities, private credit, invoices) that are represented on-chain as tokenized claims. RWA tokenization has been one of the fastest-growing institutional use cases for blockchain infrastructure as of 2026, with tokenized treasury products, private credit funds, and commodity-backed tokens reaching tens of billions of dollars in outstanding value. The institutional infrastructure for RWA is the combination of compliant issuance, secondary-market trading venues, and custody integration that makes these assets tradable under regulatory frameworks.
Example
An asset manager tokenizes a portfolio of US Treasury bills on a regulated chain, issues tokens representing pro-rata claims on the underlying bills, and lists the tokens on a Reg-ATS-registered venue for secondary trading. Buyers hold tokens with direct economic exposure to the underlying Treasuries.
How Liquid Mercury Handles This
Mercury RWA is Liquid Mercury's secondary-market infrastructure for tokenized RWA, covering order matching, settlement integration, and compliance surfaces for institutional RWA venues operating under Reg ATS, MiCA, or equivalent frameworks.