Figure applies for IPO, new opportunities arise in the RWA sector

Blockchain financial company Figure announced today that it has submitted its Initial Public Offering (IPO) application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and plans to complete its listing within the year. This move not only validates the success of Figure's business model but also marks a transition from concept to reality in the realm of Real World Assets (RWA), indicating that a reconstruction involving a trillion-dollar market has begun.

Figure occupies an absolute dominant position in the RWA private credit tokenization field. Data shows that in the $27.74 billion tokenized private credit market, Figure's cumulative loan size has reached $11 billion, accounting for nearly 50% of the market share. This significant advantage makes Figure the benchmark enterprise in the industry.

The background of Figure's founder has provided crucial support for its rise. He has extensive experience in the consumer finance sector and keenly recognizes the transformative potential of blockchain technology in financial infrastructure. In 2018, he founded Figure and proposed the grand vision of "reshaping the credit market with blockchain."

Unlike many projects that remain at the conceptual level, Figure has built a complete closed loop from asset issuance, loan initiation to securitization and trading, truly bringing traditional financial assets into the blockchain world:

• A self-developed blockchain platform, becoming the industry's first public chain specifically designed for financial services, supporting real-time asset settlement and composability;
• Launched an asset matching platform that connects loan initiators and investors, achieving efficient matching and circulation of assets;
• The recently launched yield-bearing stablecoin has become the world's first of its kind registered with the US SEC, introducing a mainstream compliant yield vehicle for on-chain assets.

These measures constitute Figure's strong "product moat" and have allowed it to expand against the trend in the crypto market—only in the past month, its new loan assets have exceeded $800 million, showing astonishing growth.

The rise of Figure reflects the overall explosive trend in the RWA sector. Data shows that in the past 24 hours, RWA-related crypto assets have increased by 6.9%, with several mainstream tokens experiencing significant gains, indicating that investors are increasingly favoring "hard assets" associated with the real economy in an uncertain environment.

The true potential of RWA far exceeds its current performance, with a trillion-level blue ocean market already opened. The private credit market itself is a massive industry with a scale of 3 trillion dollars. According to professional institutions' forecasts, the entire RWA market's potential tokenization space could reach 31 trillion dollars, covering multiple categories of traditional financial assets such as US dollars, US Treasury bonds, gold, real estate, and accounts receivable.

Many Wall Street giants have entered this field, launching tokenized funds and deploying money market funds on public chains, among other innovative measures. Top private equity firms are also lowering investment thresholds through tokenized tools, gradually "democratizing" traditional high-net-worth products.

Figure democratizes asset classes that were originally available only to institutions and the wealthy through its platform. In a sense, it is innovating a fusion of "on-chain asset management and consumer finance."

Although Figure is in a leading position, the widespread adoption of RWA still faces three key challenges:

1. On-chain assets and off-chain entities' "trust anchors": How to ensure that tokens truly represent real-world assets and have clear legal ownership?
2. Asset structuring is a prerequisite for tokenization: Not all assets can be directly "on-chain". A more feasible approach is to first structure through traditional financial mechanisms (such as funds, asset-backed securities) and then tokenize, improving efficiency and compliance.
3. The value of RWA lies in efficiency improvement: Blockchain is not about "creating" new financial products, but rather about allowing existing assets to circulate within a more transparent and real-time technological framework.

On these three issues, Figure's advantage lies in its understanding of traditional finance as well as its mastery of blockchain underlying infrastructure, thus possessing a triple moat of technical capability, compliance experience, and product implementation.

Figure's application for an IPO is a landmark event that signifies the transition of RWA from concept to reality. It proves that blockchain can effectively empower the circulation of traditional assets, lower barriers, and enhance efficiency. Figure is attempting to build a "bridge of trust" between traditional finance and the crypto world. This is not only about an entrepreneur's vision, but it could also reshape our understanding of capital markets, asset allocation, and financial democratization.

In the next decade, whoever can master RWA will have the opportunity to gain the ticket to the next trillion-dollar financial era.