NYDIG: RWA has not created short-term impact, but long-term value will unfold

Greg Cipolaro, Head of Global Research at NYDIG, believes that the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) like stocks currently does not provide significant immediate benefits to the crypto market and blockchains. In the early stages, the main benefits come from transaction fees and network effects when these assets are stored on-chain.

According to Cipolaro, long-term value will gradually emerge as accessibility, interoperability, and (composability) improve. When RWA tokenization is more deeply integrated into the ecosystem, they can be used as collateral, for lending, or trading in DeFi, thereby increasing benefits for the related networks.

He emphasizes that tokenization is an inevitable trend, especially as the legal framework becomes clearer and infrastructure continues to improve. However, current tokenization models are fragmented and heavily dependent on traditional financial compliance mechanisms such as KYC, whitelist wallets, or transfer agents, which limit on-chain integration.

Cipolaro concludes that the economic impact on crypto assets is still not significant, but if future regulations become more open and RWA reaches broad accessibility, the ability to capture on-chain value will increase sharply, making it worth closely watching by investors.