Real-world assets (RWAs) are financial and physical assets that exist outside of blockchain infrastructure. Common examples include bonds, equities, fund units, real estate, commodities, and private credit instruments.

In the context of digital capital markets, the term “RWA” is commonly used to describe these assets when they are brought on-chain through a tokenization process.

It is worth noting that in traditional finance, “RWA” also refers to risk-weighted assets, a concept used in bank capital adequacy calculations. The on-chain usage of the term emerged from the digital asset industry and has become widely adopted, though the terminology continues to evolve across jurisdictions and industry contexts.