Real World Assets are probably the ultimate expression and killer app of decentralized finance and distributed ledger technology

But I am not sure that Meltem agrees with that.

The Degens are already here. They are usually early. Ignore them at your peril. Maybe ignore people who disagree, and keep building.

Regardless of where you land, the Institutions are definitely coming. And where the institutions head, their Asset and Wealth Managers follow. And if the Asset and Wealth Managers are heading there, the RIAs, FOs, and retail investors can't be far behind. This is how a movement works.

A Movement to Brooklyn's Willam Vale Hotel for the RWA Summit

This week (October 22nd-23rd), Centrifuge ("the platform for tokenized real-world assets onchain"), is hosting and organizing the largest gathering of builders, investors, and partners in the Real World Asset ecosystem. Learn more about it here: https://www.rwasummit.io/new-york-2024

This is the second major RWA event in the last 3 weeks, hot on the heels of the outstanding RWA.day, a side-event in Salt Lake City that preceded October 2024's Blockworks III.

As a long-time builder in the RWA space - Vertalo tokenized its own equity via a Reg D/S tokenization in March of 2018 - I know what 'early' feels like. It feels crazy, like Bitcoin felt crazy before 2013 or Ethereum before 2017.

Many of the firms that are presenting or sponsoring The Real World Asset Summit are not yet household names, but not for long.

If you follow me here or on TwiX, you may have already heard of Vertalo, but we are just one part of a vibrant ecosystem that is, to paraphrase Peter Thiel, 'will start with markets that are so small that people think they have no value when you start them'. The defi and RWA market growth is tracking 'small, then everything' perfectly. Watch Thiel's canonical 'Competition is for losers' lecture at Stanford Business School if you are not familiar with his thesis.Today, RWA is a relatively small business with the most insane - but addressable - TAM in fintech.

Why should you head to Brooklyn?

Now onto the 'why' for the Real World Asset Summit: bringing together the disparate elements of the tokenization and RWA ecosystem and leaving with a better sense of how all these startups, investors, and builders work - together and separately - can create a vibrant and growing market that defies the historical May to December bromance that seems to affect the crypto markets unlike any other.

Parthenon/EY's Prashant Kher crafted a great LinkedIn article on this topic, called: The transformative potential of tokenization – it will take a village!

To put a point on it, Prashant issues a call for cooperation and coherence: "For tokenization to become a significant part of capital markets and overall financial services, a minimal viable ecosystem (MVE) across the value chain is needed to drive transformative change. Participants across the ecosystem currently are at varying degrees of readiness and scale. In addition, there is a need for interoperability and standards to tie the ecosystem together to achieve scale as an industry."

As he points out, the Tokenization of Real World Assets is a team sport, but it's still not clear who plays on the team, and what their roles are. Is RWA a grueling marathon - where there are just individuals trying to put up the best numbers - or is it football - where you have set plays and position players?

Understanding how all the RWA parts interconnect is how this goes from 'small, to everything', and if we make progress on that, the future is bright.

So, if you are already attending the RWA Summit, I look forward to seeing you, and hopefully at the 'Transfer Agent and Asset Servicer' workshop that I'll facilitate at 945am on Wednesday.

If you haven't requested an invite, click here and maybe you can join the 375 confirmed attendees who will be there.

Who's Going?

Some of those include Cynthia Lo Bessette of Fidelity Digital Assets , Roger Bayston head of Digital Assets Franklin Templeton , Talia Klein Director of Digital Assets at BNY , Meltem Demirors of Crucible Venture Partners LLC facing off with Robert Leshner of Superstate , Laura Shin of Unchained , Annelise Osborne of Kadena (book signing!), Will Nuelle GP at Galaxy Ventures , Michael Bucella from Neoclassic Capital , Christopher Perkins of CoinFund , Herwig “Happy” Konings ?? , Nathan McCauley of Anchorage Digital ,and many more like the fantastic organizers from Centrifuge like founders Lucas Vogelsang and Martin Quensel who also runs Anemoy . Many thanks for Bhaji Illuminati - without whom none of this would be possible!

The complete list of speakers are here: https://www.rwasummit.io/new-york-2024#speakers

I'll see you there! And If you want to meet up with me, click here!

Learn more about $150m of RWA on Centrifuge Markets Dashboard here: Enter App