HTX Research latest report | From asset tokenization to cash flow tokenization: RWA and DeFi enter the second half of “programmable finance”

1. Executive Summary

Over the past two years, RWA tokenization has completed the first phase of concept validation. Under the non-stablecoin definition, the tokenized asset market grew from less than $3 billion in mid-2024 to over $30 billion by April 2026, and then stabilized at around $34 billion. This indicates that traditional financial assets can be effectively mapped onto the blockchain, and institutions are beginning to view blockchain as new infrastructure for issuance, settlement, and asset management.

But growth in size does not mean financialization is complete. The core issue in the current RWA market has shifted from “whether assets can be put on-chain” to “whether the assets are useful after being put on-chain.” Tokens can represent ownership and economic rights to bonds, gold, fund shares, or credit assets, but that does not automatically mean they have become financial building blocks that are freely composable, usable as collateral, repricable on demand, and integrable into DeFi protocols.

This report’s core judgment is that RWA and DeFi are entering the same second half. RWA’s first half is about proving that assets can be tokenized, registered on-chain, and held; the second half is about proving whether these assets can be collateralized, whether they can form secondary liquidity, whether they can enter lending markets, whether they can become stablecoin reserves, and whether they can be used for buybacks and structured products. DeFi’s first half is about proving that permissionless finance can run; the second half is about proving that protocol revenues can persist, risks can be managed, and tokens can capture value. The convergence of these two main lines marks a key turning point in the crypto market as it moves from “narrative assets” to “cash-flow assets.”

Against this backdrop, the report argues that the next stage for RWA is no longer merely “assets on-chain,” but “cash flows on-chain, credit on-chain, and risk on-chain”: stablecoins solve the on-chain cash leg, RWA provides low-volatility yield assets and sources of traditional collateral, and DeFi protocols provide the layers for trading, lending, leverage, liquidation, and capital allocation. Only when all three form a closed loop can RWA evolve from static claims into dynamic financial infrastructure.

As a research department under Huobi HTX, HTX Research has tracked the evolution paths of RWA, stablecoins, and on-chain financial infrastructure for a long time. While completing trend assessments, this report also lays out new product requirements that this turning point imposes on trading platforms, and, together with Huobi HTX’s product practices in areas such as yield management, structured products, on-chain yields, and collateralized financing, discusses how institutional narratives can be translated into financial products that ordinary users can actually use.

2. RWA Market: From Concept Validation to Financialization

2.1 The real meaning behind the leap in market size

From less than $3 billion in mid-2024 to around $34 billion in the second quarter of 2026, the tokenized assets market (non-stablecoin definition) has grown dramatically. This leap is not just “the RWA narrative heating up.” More importantly, it proves that three foundational conditions are maturing at the same time: compliant cash legs, institution-grade infrastructure, and sustainable demand for products.

First, stablecoins are gradually being institutionalized, creating a more predictable regulatory environment for on-chain payments, settlement, and subscriptions/redemptions. The U.S. OCC document shows that the GENIUS Act took effect on July 18, 2025 and established a regulatory framework for payment stablecoin activities. (HTX) Stablecoins are the most important cash leg between RWA and DeFi. Only when the cash leg has regulatory certainty does it become easier for institutions to incorporate on-chain fund flows into audit, risk control, and operating systems.

Second, infrastructure is moving from “pilot-ready” to “production-ready.” Custody, KYC/AML, on-chain identity, oracles, compliant transfer modules, institution-grade wallets, and on-chain audit solutions are gradually maturing, lowering the technical barriers for traditional financial institutions to issue and manage on-chain assets.

Third, institutions are shifting from POC to productization. Early RWA looked more like blockchain experiments by financial institutions; now tokenized U.S. treasuries, money market fund shares, gold, and credit-type assets are gradually becoming sustainable operating product lines. Behind the market size growth is the start of traditional asset management systems accepting on-chain issuance and on-chain settlement as a new infrastructure option.

2.2 Concept validation is complete, but financialization is still early

Despite strong growth, $34 billion is still only a tiny slice of the global financial system. Global markets for bonds, equities, gold, credit, and funds are measured in tens of trillions to hundreds of trillions of dollars, while tokenized assets account for only a very small share. Compared with their underlying markets, tokenized bonds, gold, and equities still have extremely low penetration.

This means the most accurate positioning of RWA today is not “already mainstream,” but “already proven feasible.” It verifies the operationality of on-chain issuance, on-chain holding, and on-chain settlement, but it has not yet proven the sustainability of large-scale asset composability, large-scale credit creation, and large-scale secondary liquidity.

The first stage of RWA addresses “whether assets can be moved on-chain.” The second stage of RWA must answer “whether moving them on-chain creates new financial efficiency.” This is the key watershed that takes RWA from concept validation toward financialization.

2.3 From scale growth to financial use

Previously, the market tended to measure RWA development with tokenized asset size, number of issued assets, and number of on-chain holders. After entering the next stage, more important indicators will become utilization, turnover, collateralization rates, borrowing demand, real yield, default handling, secondary market depth, and protocol revenue.

If a tokenized U.S. treasury product is merely held long-term in a whitelisted wallet, it is more like an on-chain yield claim. Only when it can be used for collateralized borrowing, repo transactions, stablecoin reserves, DAO treasury management, or as derivative margin does it truly enter the on-chain financial system.

Therefore, the next competitive dimension in the RWA market is no longer “who can issue more assets,” but “who can make assets truly flow, be composed, and be repriced on-chain.”

3. Asset Classes, On-Chain Utilization, and the Multi-Chain Landscape

3.1 The assets easiest to put on-chain are not necessarily the ones with the most on-chain value

There is already clear stratification within the RWA market.

The first layer is U.S. treasuries and gold. They are the largest asset categories by current scale and are also the easiest assets to move on-chain. U.S. treasury markets have high standardization, stable yields, transparent pricing, and clear investor demand. For crypto investors, tokenized treasuries are a tool to earn money-market-like yields on idle stablecoins; for institutions, they mean faster settlement, more flexible collateral movements, and a way of accessing that is closer to digital asset markets. Tokenized U.S. treasuries are one of the main drivers of recent RWA growth.

Gold is also naturally suitable for tokenization. It is globally standardized, easy to custody, and has transparent pricing. Moreover, traditional finance already has non-physical holdings such as paper gold, gold ETFs, and gold certificates. Public data also show that tokenized commodity markets are dominated by gold; gold accounts for the vast majority of the scale in this category.

The second layer is private credit, reinsurance, Bitcoin mining notes, lending vault tokens, and other financial products that are closer to native on-chain demand. Their market size is not necessarily the largest, but by design from the outset they emphasize on-chain use cases—such as collateralization, tranching, yield distribution, protocol integration, and risk transfer. Asset-backed credit and professional financial products have reached the scale of $1 billion quickly, reflecting the pull of native on-chain demand toward specific asset structures.

The third layer is VC funds, active management strategies, private fund share classes, and some equity-like assets. These assets are attractive in narrative, but harder to execute. The challenges are not only technical; legal relationships, valuation mechanisms, investor suitability, lockups, disclosures, redemption arrangements, tax treatment, and cross-border compliance together create a high barrier.

This shows that RWA is not a single track, but a collection of asset structures, legal structures, and financial use scenarios. Tokenizing treasuries and gold is closer to “digitalization,” i.e., moving existing asset records onto-chain. Tokenized private credit, reinsurance, and on-chain loan share classes are closer to “financialization on-chain,” i.e., considering on-chain composition and on-chain usage from the product design stage.

Therefore, measuring RWA projects cannot only be based on asset scale. A tokenized treasury product with a large scale may contribute less at the margin to the DeFi ecosystem if most of the time it is simply held in whitelisted wallets. A smaller asset pool that can be widely used as collateral, liquidity instruments, or risk transfer tools may contribute more. In the future, the core evaluation framework for RWA needs to shift from “asset issuance volume” to “financial usage volume.”

3.2 The on-chain utilization paradox: the largest asset categories, the lowest DeFi activity

The current RWA market shows a clear “size-activity inverse” pattern. The largest asset categories often have the lowest on-chain utilization; assets that are smaller but designed for on-chain use are more likely to enter DeFi protocols. Public data indicate that tokenized bonds are among the largest asset categories, yet only about 5% of supply is deployed in DeFi. Reinsurance tokens are smaller in scale, but have a higher proportion deployed in DeFi protocols.

This phenomenon reveals a key issue: “tokenized” and “used for on-chain finance” are two entirely different concepts. The former emphasizes representation of asset rights; the latter emphasizes composability, collateralizability, and transferability.

Many treasury and gold products essentially remain on-chain receipts. The underlying assets are managed jointly by traditional custodians, fund managers, transfer agents, compliance service providers, and the banking system; tokens are merely more efficient interfaces for registration and transfer. They can improve holding and settlement experiences, but they do not necessarily have features like open transfer, permissionless collateralization, cross-protocol composition, or automatic liquidation.

There are mainly four reasons for low utilization.

First, compliance transfer restrictions. Many RWA tokens can only be transferred after completing KYC, meeting investor suitability requirements, and transferring between whitelisted wallets, which naturally limits open DeFi composability.

Second, redemption and NAV cycles are discontinuous. Treasury fund units, private credit, and fund share classes are often redeemed on business days or in batches, while DeFi protocols run in a 7×24 environment, creating a structural mismatch in time architecture.

Third, pricing and risk models are not mature. DeFi protocols require real-time pricing, discount parameters, liquidation thresholds, and liquidity depth. But many RWA assets do not have continuous secondary markets and must rely on NAV, broker quotes, or model-based valuations.

Fourth, legal recourse and default handling remain off-chain. Smart contracts can automatically allocate returns, but cannot automatically execute foreclosure of real estate collateral, collections for corporate loans, or bankruptcy liquidations.

Therefore, the core of RWA’s next stage is not to make more assets “show up on-chain,” but to make more assets “safely usable for on-chain finance.” This requires the maturation of compliant asset standards, permissioned DeFi pools, on-chain identity, verifiable reserves, oracles, off-chain legal enforcement, and on-chain liquidation mechanisms.

3.3 Multi-chain landscape: RWA will not be monopolized by a single chain

RWA’s network distribution shows a “one dominant, multiple strong” pattern. Ethereum, with its first-mover advantages in DeFi, security, institutional recognition, and smart contract ecosystem, remains an important infrastructure. But networks such as BNB Chain, Solana, Stellar, Liquid Network, XRP Ledger, ZKsync Era, and Arbitrum have also formed their own RWA maps. Public data show Ethereum holds about half of the tokenized asset market share, while other chains also experience distributed growth in scenarios such as treasuries, payments, gold, cross-border settlement, and low-cost transactions.

This indicates that RWA will not simply converge on a single chain. Different assets will choose different infrastructures based on cost, compliance, liquidity, ecosystem relationships, and issuer channels.

Ethereum is suitable for assets requiring high security and high value and for those needing DeFi composition. Stellar and XRP Ledger are more oriented toward payments, cross-border settlement, and institutional networks. Solana fits assets with high throughput and low costs, with a focus on trading experience. L2s such as ZKsync and Arbitrum have differentiated room in privacy, scalability, compliance proofs, and EVM ecosystem connectivity.

However, multi-chain also brings new problems. Compliance-checked cross-chain transfer of assets is more difficult than transferring ordinary crypto assets across chains, because it involves not only token bridges, but also investor identity, jurisdiction constraints, transfer eligibility, sanctions screening, reserve status, and synchronization of legal rights.

In the future, competition among RWA infrastructures will shift from “whether assets can be issued” to “whether compliant assets can flow across chains, protocols, and scenarios.” Whoever can solve cross-chain transfer of compliant assets and cross-protocol composition problems is likely to become a core infrastructure for the second half of the RWA market.

4. DeFi Cash-Flow Valuation: Moving from TVL Logic to Profit Logic

4.1 DeFi is entering the cash-flow valuation era

As DeFi protocols gradually accumulate real users, real transactions, and real fees, the asset valuation framework for crypto also needs to change. Previously, the market often used TVL, transaction volume, FDV/TVL, and FDV/Revenue to measure DeFi projects. But these indicators mostly reflect scale, and do not necessarily reflect profitability or value capture capacity.

A more mature analytical framework should understand crypto assets on the “commodity—financial debt claim” spectrum.

Commodity-like assets, such as Bitcoin, are mainly driven by scarcity, liquidity, safety, monetary premium, and adoption rate. They do not promise future cash flows, so they are more suitable for frameworks based on network value, monetary premium, and macro asset comparisons.

Cash-flow assets, such as some DeFi protocol tokens, can be analyzed through revenue, profit, fee distributions, treasury assets, governance mechanisms, and token value-capture paths. These assets are no longer just narrative vehicles; they increasingly resemble equity-like representations in on-chain financial networks.

Lending protocols represented by Aave are a typical example of this shift. Aave has real borrowing demand, real interest income, observable fee structures, and a capital allocation mechanism backed by continuous iteration. DeFiLlama breaks down Aave’s fees and revenue items; Aave V3’s fee sources include borrowing interest, flash loan fees, liquidation fees, Paraswap exchange fees, and Chainlink SVR, among others.

This does not mean traditional financial valuation models can be simply applied to DeFi tokens. Governance tokens are not equal to stocks, and protocol revenue is not necessarily attributable to token holders in the same way. But when a protocol’s business model, revenue structure, and value capture mechanism are clear enough, the cash-flow framework becomes increasingly important.

4.2 A step deeper: what cash-flow valuation truly tests is the “transmission chain”

The easiest point to misread around DeFi cash-flow valuation is this: if the protocol has revenue, the token should be valued with traditional P/E or DCF. In reality, that is only the first layer. More important is to identify whether the chain of transmission from protocol activity revenue to token value is complete.

This transmission chain includes at least six links.

First, whether the protocol has genuine demand. Is revenue paid by real users, or is it driven by short-term incentives, subsidies, speculative cycles, or single-market sentiment? If revenue depends heavily on short-term trading hype, it is more like cyclical revenue rather than capitalizable cash flows.

Second, whether the protocol can retain revenue. Many DeFi protocols have high total fees, but a significant portion must be paid to LPs, validators, market makers, liquidity providers, or external service providers. What is usable for valuation is not gross fees, but net revenue that the protocol can retain and allocate.

Third, whether revenue can cover risk costs. Lending protocols face bad debt, failed liquidations, oracle risks, and spending on security modules; DEXs face liquidity incentives and market-making costs; derivatives protocols face pressure on insurance funds under extreme market conditions. Revenue models without risk costs tend to overestimate protocol profitability.

Fourth, whether the DAO has capital allocation capability. After protocol revenue goes into the treasury, is it used for buybacks, burns, incentives, security reserves, developer spending, or ecosystem subsidies? Different allocation methods lead to completely different token value paths.

Fifth, whether the token has a clear value capture mechanism. Governance rights alone do not equal cash-flow rights. Only when buybacks, burns, staking yields, fee returns, or other mechanisms are clear enough does protocol revenue become more likely to be priced into the token by the market.

Sixth, whether regulation recognizes this value transmission. Governance tokens differ from traditional equity. Token holders usually do not have legal claims over protocol assets or future cash flows. Therefore, legal structure and regulatory classification directly affect whether institutional capital can value these assets at lower discount rates.

Therefore, the key to DeFi cash-flow valuation is not mechanically applying traditional financial models to tokens. It is assessing whether the protocol already has a complete chain of “real demand → revenue retention → risk deduction → governance allocation → token capture → legal explainability.”

4.2.1 Why has Aave become a representative case of an “on-chain bank”?

Aave’s business structure is relatively clear: depositors provide liquidity, borrowers borrow assets using collateral, and the protocol generates cash flow through the interest spread, liquidation fees, flash loan fees, partnership income, treasury earnings, and GHO stablecoin-related income.

It is not a bank in the traditional sense because it does not have a centralized balance sheet and does not perform the maturity mismatches typical of traditional banking systems; but from an economic function perspective, it does play the role of an on-chain money market and collateralized lending infrastructure.

Unlike purely narrative tokens, Aave has real usage scenarios and observable revenue sources. Borrowing interest, flash loan fees, liquidation fees, partnership income, and stablecoin-related income together form the foundation of protocol cash flows.

Aave’s special nature also lies in the fact that it sits at the intersection of RWA and DeFi.

First, stablecoins are an important foundation for Aave’s lending activities. Stablecoins such as USDC, USDT, and GHO form the cash leg for on-chain credit markets.

Second, as institutional markets and permissioned pools develop, protocols like Aave have the opportunity to serve the financing needs for collateralized compliant assets. If tokenized treasuries, fund shares, private credit, and other compliant assets can be safely incorporated into permissioned markets, they become more than mere wallet receipts—they become the foundation for on-chain credit expansion.

Third, Aave’s product architecture is evolving from a single lending market toward a more complete on-chain financial platform. A unified liquidity architecture, stablecoin business, security modules, and user-side applications are all designed so the protocol can support more complex assets, more granular risk types, and broader user needs.

This also explains why Aave is viewed as an important case for DeFi cash-flow valuation. RWA needs a protocol layer that can provide liquidity, collateralized financing, and risk parameter management; lending protocols like Aave are a potential承接 layer.

4.2.2 Protocol revenue does not equal token value

The Aave case also reminds the market that there is no automatic one-to-one equivalence between protocol revenue and token value. When a protocol makes money, it does not necessarily mean governance tokens will rise in value at the same proportion. The process still needs to consider how fees enter the DAO treasury, how the DAO decides on buybacks, incentives, insurance, security spending, and product investment; whether token holders can stabilize and capture protocol value through governance; and whether regulation recognizes this value transmission mechanism.

Therefore, the key to DeFi valuation is not revenue alone, but the conversion rate—i.e., the rate at which protocol economic activity converts into value for token holders.

Common paths include burns, buybacks, rebates, and staking yield. Burns affect long-term scarcity by reducing supply. Buybacks create market demand via protocol revenue. Rebates directly return a portion of fees to users or holders. Staking enhances token utility through lockups and yield distribution. Different mechanisms differ significantly in directness, sustainability, regulatory risk, and market impact. Value transmission efficiency varies across buybacks, burns, rebates, and staking rewards, and DAO spending, token emissions, and legal structure also influence the final valuation outcome.

In the future, when evaluating DeFi protocols, it should not only look at TVL and revenue scale, but build a framework similar to an “on-chain income statement + capital allocation table”:

First, total fees represent how much users are willing to pay for the protocol.

Second, protocol revenue represents how much the protocol actually retains.

Third, net profit represents how much remains after subtracting incentive, security, development, and operating expenses.

Fourth, treasury assets and liabilities represent how much capital buffer the protocol has.

Fifth, the value capture mechanism represents how profits affect the token.

Sixth, reinvestment efficiency represents whether retained profits improve future revenue capacity.

This framework also applies to product analysis after RWA combines with DeFi. What will matter is not whether a protocol has scale, but whether scale can be converted into sustainable yield, manageable risk, and value that can be captured by users or token holders.

5. Stablecoins, Regulation, and Risk Framework

5.1 Stablecoins are the shared underlying asset for RWA and DeFi

The intersection of RWA and DeFi is inseparable from stablecoins. Stablecoins are not only units for quoting prices in trading; they are also on-chain cash, collateral, the settlement layer, and the medium for yield distribution.

Without stablecoins, tokenized treasuries struggle to get on-chain capital entry points. Without stablecoins, DeFi lending struggles to form stable borrowing demand. Without stablecoins, cross-border payments, institutional settlement, and RWA secondary markets lack a unified cash leg.

Regulatory clarity for stablecoins is a structural variable for both RWA and DeFi. For RWA, stablecoins provide compliant cash entry, subscription/redemption media, and on-chain settlement units. For DeFi, stablecoins provide low-volatility liabilities and a foundation for borrowing demand. For institutions, clear stablecoin regulation means they can more easily incorporate on-chain fund flows into compliant, audited, and risk-controlled systems.

In the long run, stablecoins, RWA, and DeFi will form a three-layer structure.

The first layer is compliant stablecoins and on-chain cash management, responsible for payments and settlement.

The second layer is tokenized treasuries, money market funds, private credit, gold, and securitized assets, responsible for yield and collateral.

The third layer is protocols such as Aave, Maple, Sky, Pendle, Uniswap, and Hyperliquid, responsible for lending, trading, interest rates, risk, and leverage.

The closer these three layers are, the closer on-chain finance becomes to real capital markets. Stablecoins solve the “money” problem, RWA solves the “asset” problem, and DeFi solves the “financial functionality” problem. Only when all three come together can a complete on-chain financial system form.

5.2 RWA and DeFi risks: efficiency improves, but complexity is amplified

The combination of RWA and DeFi is not risk-free. On the contrary, it stacks off-chain financial risks, on-chain smart contract risks, on-chain market liquidity risks, and regulatory risks together.

In traditional finance, asset defaults, valuation write-downs, redemption squeezes, and regulatory reviews are already complex enough. If these risks enter a DeFi environment that is 7×24, leveraged, composable, and supports automatic liquidation, the system’s response speed will be faster, and risk transmission could be stronger.

The first category of risk is asset authenticity and reserve risk. Whether the tokenized assets truly exist behind the tokens, whether reserves are sufficient, whether custody is independent, whether audits are timely, and whether assets are pledged multiple times are all core questions. Stablecoins have already demonstrated that reserve transparency is extremely important for market confidence, and RWA will face similar issues.

The second category is liquidity mismatch. Many underlying RWA assets are only traded on business days or redeemed periodically, while DeFi lending and derivatives markets operate in a 7×24 environment. If RWA is used for collateralized borrowing, and market pressure arises on weekends or holidays, oracle pricing, redemption mechanisms, and liquidation procedures may all become mismatched.

The third category is compliance-composability risk. The advantage of open DeFi is permissionless composability, but RWA often requires whitelisting, KYC, investor suitability requirements, and jurisdiction constraints. How to preserve composability without breaking compliance is the RWAFi challenge as a whole.

The fourth category is DAO governance and value transmission risk. Should protocol revenue be used for buybacks, or should it be used for security modules, user incentives, risk reserves, and product development? This is essentially a capital allocation question. Low DAO voter turnout, token concentration, conflicts among stakeholders, and regulatory uncertainty can all affect valuation.

The fifth category is oracle and pricing risk. RWA prices may come from NAV, exchange quotes, broker quotes, model valuations, or manual disclosures. Different pricing sources have different delays, manipulation space, and update frequencies, which directly impact the liquidation safety of lending protocols.

Therefore, the combination of RWA and DeFi should not be simply understood as “traditional assets go on-chain, and liquidity is unlocked.” True execution requires conservative risk parameters, layered market structures, permissioned pools, compliant secondary markets, transparent reserve proofs, stress testing, and clear default handling rules. Only when the risk framework matures will capital move from pilots into large-scale deployment.

6. Conclusion, Product Implications, and Huobi HTX’s Business Focus

6.1 RWA’s first half is issuance; the second half is usage

RWA tokenization and DeFi cash-flow valuation seem like two different topics, but they actually point to the same industry turning point: the crypto market is moving from “assets exist” to “assets are useful,” from “protocols are used” to “protocols can profit,” and from “narrative premium” to “cash flows, governance, and compliance priced together.”

RWA’s first phase proves that assets can be put on-chain. The second phase must prove that after assets are put on-chain, they can generate higher financial efficiency. DeFi’s first phase proves that permissionless finance can run. The second phase must prove that protocol revenue can persist, risks can be managed, and value can be captured by tokens. Stablecoins are the base layer currency that connects these two phases.

The directions most worth watching in the future are not simply “more assets on-chain,” but five types of scenarios that truly create financial depth:

First, tokenized treasuries enter on-chain collateral and repo markets.

Second, private credit combined with institutional lending protocols forms an on-chain fixed-income market.

Third, tokenized gold and commodities become derivative and margin assets.

Fourth, compliant equities and fund shares enter a 24/7 global trading and financing system.

Fifth, DeFi protocols enter the cash-flow valuation era by using clear value-capture mechanisms.

These directions jointly point to one trend: the competitive focus for RWA will shift from “on-chain speed” to “on-chain depth,” and DeFi’s competitive focus will shift from “TVL scale” to “cash-flow quality.”

6.2 The product and wealth-management matrix already formed by Huobi HTX

From a business perspective, the development of RWA and DeFi not only implies new asset narratives, but also means the product system of trading platforms must extend from a single trading entry point to entries for asset allocation, yield management, on-chain participation, and risk layering. At the product level, Huobi HTX has already formed a product matrix that covers basic wealth management, structured yield, on-chain yield, and collateralized financing. These modules closely match the core needs of the second half of RWA/DeFi.

First, Huobi’s Earn-for-You has taken on the role of a comprehensive yield entry. In the Huobi Earn product upgrade announcement, the Earn function is restructured into five core modules: Overview, Simple Earn, New Listings, Structured Products, and On-chain Earn. This structure essentially splits users’ yield needs into five scenarios: account-level yield overview, basic wealth management, new asset participation, structured yield, and on-chain yield.

Second, Simple Earn already covers the basic wealth-management layer. According to Huobi HTX’s official explanation, Simple Earn includes flexible and fixed-term products, allowing users to choose different terms based on liquidity needs. In the context of ongoing stablecoin and RWA development, these products correspond to on-chain cash management and low-volatility yield needs. It does not directly issue RWA, but in user experience it serves the function of a “stablecoins and mainstream assets yield entry.”

Third, Structured Products covers the structured yield layer. The Huobi Earn product upgrade announcement shows that Structured Products integrates structured earn products such as Dual Investment and Shark Fin, offering users richer risk-return combinations. The significance of these products is that they move users from single “hold-and-earn” yield to a management framework for target prices, time horizons, volatility, and structured returns. As DeFi and RWA assets gradually mature, structured yield products are an important product layer for accommodating different risk preferences.

Fourth, On-chain Earn covers the on-chain yield layer. The Huobi Earn product upgrade announcement indicates that On-chain Earn integrates blockchain-native yield services such as ETH 2.0 node staking, giving users a channel to grow on-chain assets. These products correspond to a core trend in the second half of DeFi: users may not need to directly operate complex protocols, but still need a safer, clearer, and more standardized entry to participate in on-chain yield.

Fifth, margin-to-coin has covered the collateralized financing and asset-efficiency layer. The Huobi margin-to-coin page shows that verified users can exchange digital assets by staking specified assets in the margin account; the exchanged assets can arrive within a short period. This product supports terms such as flexible, 7 days, 30 days, 45 days, and 90 days, and supports multiple assets as collateral. The essence of this product is to improve users’ capital utilization efficiency without directly selling their core asset exposure, aligning with the direction of “collateralized financialization” in DeFi and RWA.

Therefore, Huobi HTX’s business focus in the RWA and DeFi track is not limited to asset observation or trade matching. Through products such as Earn, Simple Earn, Structured Products, On-chain Earn, and margin-to-coin, it has already formed a relatively complete entry point for user asset efficiency.

From a product logic perspective, Huobi HTX has covered four key layers:

First, the cash management layer: by Simple Earn, spot-like flexible products and fixed-term products, it captures users’ demand for stablecoin and mainstream asset yields.

Second, the yield structure layer: via products such as Dual Investment and Shark Fin, it extends users’ yield management from a single interest rate to a structure involving target price, term, and volatility.

Third, the on-chain yield layer: through On-chain Earn, PoS staking, and ETH 2.0 node staking, it lowers the operational barrier for users to participate in on-chain protocol yield.

Fourth, the collateral efficiency layer: via products like margin-to-coin, it helps users improve capital utilization efficiency while retaining core asset exposure.

This also means Huobi HTX, in its product forms, has covered the most important categories of user needs in the second half of RWA and DeFi: low-volatility yield, structured yield, on-chain yield, collateralized financing, and asset efficiency management. RWA’s second half is “usage,” while DeFi’s second half is “cash flow.” The trading platform’s productization capability is the key connecting layer that turns these trends from institutional narratives into financial products that ordinary users can use.

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