HTX Research Latest Report | From Asset Tokenization to Cash Flow Tokenization: RWA and DeFi Enter the Second Half of 'Programmable Finance'

The second half of RWA is 'usage', while the second half of DeFi is 'cash flow'. The productization capability of trading platforms is the key connecting layer that transforms these trends from institutional narratives into financial products that ordinary users can utilize.

Written by: HTX

1. Summary

---

In the past two years, the tokenization of RWA has completed the first phase of concept validation. The scale of tokenized assets, excluding stablecoins, has risen from less than $3 billion in mid-2024 to over $30 billion by April 2026, stabilizing around $34 billion. This indicates that traditional financial assets can be effectively mapped onto the blockchain, and institutions are beginning to view blockchain as a new infrastructure for issuance, settlement, and asset management.

However, growth in scale does not equate to completed financialization. The core issue in the current RWA market has shifted from 'can assets be tokenized' to 'are assets useful once tokenized'. Tokens can represent ownership and income rights of bonds, gold, fund shares, or credit assets, but this does not mean they have become financial building blocks that can be freely combined, collateralized, repriced, and embedded in DeFi protocols.

The core judgment of this report is that RWA and DeFi are entering the same second half. The first half of RWA was about proving that assets can be tokenized, registered, and held on-chain, while the second half must demonstrate whether these assets can be collateralized, whether they can form secondary liquidity, whether they can enter the lending market, whether they can become reserves for stablecoins, and whether they can be used for repurchases and structured products. The first half of DeFi was about proving that permissionless finance can operate, while the second half must prove that protocol revenues can be sustained, risks can be managed, and tokens can capture value. The intersection of these two main lines is essentially a key turning point for the crypto market from 'narrative assets' to 'cash flow assets'.

Thus, the report posits that the next phase of RWA is no longer just 'asset tokenization', but rather 'cash flow tokenization, credit tokenization, and risk tokenization': stablecoins solve the on-chain cash leg, RWA provides low-volatility yield assets and traditional collateral sources, and DeFi protocols offer trading, lending, leverage, clearing, and capital allocation layers. Only when these three form a closed loop can RWA evolve from static certificates to dynamic financial infrastructure.

As the research arm of Huobi HTX, HTX Research has been tracking the evolution of RWA, stablecoins, and on-chain financial infrastructure. This report not only completes trend judgments but also outlines the new requirements this turning point poses for trading platform product systems, and discusses how institutional narratives can be transformed into financial products that ordinary users can practically use, in conjunction with Huobi HTX's product practices in yield management, structured products, on-chain yield, and collateral financing.

2. RWA Market: From Concept Validation to Financialization

---

2.1 The True Meaning Behind the Leap in Market Scale

The market for tokenized assets, excluding stablecoins, has grown from less than $3 billion in mid-2024 to approximately $34 billion by the second quarter of 2026. This leap is not merely due to a 'hype around RWA narratives', but more importantly, it proves that three foundational conditions are maturing simultaneously: compliant cash legs, institutional-grade infrastructure, and sustainable product demand.

First, stablecoins are gradually being institutionalized, providing a more predictable regulatory environment for on-chain payments, settlements, and redemptions. Documents from the U.S. OCC indicate that the GENIUS Act will take effect on July 18, 2025, establishing a regulatory framework for payment stablecoin activities. Stablecoins are the most important cash leg between RWA and DeFi; only when the cash leg has compliance certainty can institutions more easily incorporate on-chain capital flows into their auditing, risk control, and operational systems.

Second, infrastructure is transitioning from 'pilot available' to 'production available'. Custody, KYC/AML, on-chain identity, oracle services, compliance transfer modules, institutional-grade wallets, and on-chain auditing solutions are gradually maturing, lowering the technical barriers for traditional financial institutions to issue and manage on-chain assets.

Third, institutions are moving from POC to productization. Early RWA resembled blockchain experiments by financial institutions, but now tokenized government bonds, money market funds, gold, and credit assets are gradually becoming sustainable product lines. Behind the growth in market scale is the traditional asset management system beginning to accept on-chain issuance and on-chain settlement as a new infrastructure option.

2.2 Concept Validation Completed, but Financialization is Still in Early Stages

Despite the significant growth rate of RWA, $34 billion still represents a tiny slice of the global financial system. The global bond, stock, gold, credit, and fund markets are measured in tens of trillions or even hundreds of trillions of dollars, while current tokenized assets account for only a small fraction of that. The penetration rate of tokenized bonds, gold, and stocks compared to their underlying markets remains extremely low.

This means that the most accurate positioning of RWA currently is not 'already mainstream', but 'already proven feasible'. It has validated the operability of on-chain issuance, holding, and settlement, but has yet to verify the sustainability of large-scale asset combinability, large-scale credit creation, and large-scale secondary liquidity.

The first phase of RWA addresses the question of 'can it be moved on-chain'. The second phase of RWA must answer whether 'moving on-chain creates new financial efficiencies'. This is also the critical watershed for RWA's transition from concept validation to financialization.

2.3 Shifting from Scale Growth to Financial Utilization

In the past, the market habitually measured the development of RWA by the scale of tokenized assets, the number of issued assets, and the number of on-chain holders. However, as we enter the next phase, more important metrics will shift to utilization rates, turnover rates, collateralization rates, lending demand, real yields, default handling, secondary market depth, and protocol revenues.

If a tokenized government bond product is merely held long-term in a whitelisted wallet, it resembles an on-chain yield certificate; if it can be used for collateralized loans, repurchase transactions, stablecoin reserves, DAO treasury management, or derivatives margin, it truly enters 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, combine, and price on-chain'.

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

---

3.1 The Easiest Assets to Tokenize Are Not Necessarily the Most Valuable On-Chain

There is already a clear stratification within the RWA market.

The first layer consists of government bonds and gold. They are currently the largest asset classes and the easiest assets to move on-chain. U.S. Treasury bonds are highly standardized, yield stable returns, have transparent pricing, and clear investor demand. For crypto investors, tokenized government bonds serve as a tool for idle stablecoins to earn money market-like yields; for institutions, they mean faster settlement, more flexible collateral flow, and a closer access to the digital asset market. Tokenized U.S. government bonds are one of the main drivers of recent RWA growth.

Gold is also naturally suitable for tokenization. It is globally standardized, easy to custody, has transparent pricing, and traditional finance has long had non-physical holding forms such as paper gold, gold ETFs, and gold certificates. Public data also shows that the tokenized commodity market is almost dominated by gold, which accounts for the vast majority of this category's scale.

The second layer includes private credit, reinsurance, Bitcoin mining notes, and lending vault tokens, which are financial products closer to on-chain native demand. These products may not have the largest scale, but they emphasize on-chain usage scenarios from the design stage, such as collateralization, layering, yield distribution, protocol access, and risk transfer. Asset-backed credit and specialized financial products reach a scale of $1 billion rapidly, reflecting the pull of on-chain native demand for specific asset structures.

The third layer includes VC funds, actively managed strategies, private fund shares, and some equity assets. These assets are narratively attractive but are more challenging to implement. The difficulties lie not only in technology but also in legal relationships, valuation mechanisms, investor suitability, lock-up periods, information disclosure, redemption arrangements, tax treatment, and cross-border compliance, all of which create high barriers.

This indicates that RWA is not a single track but a collection of asset structures, legal structures, and financial usage scenarios. The tokenization of government bonds and gold is closer to 'digitalization', meaning moving existing asset records on-chain; while private credit, reinsurance, and on-chain loan shares are closer to 'on-chain financialization', meaning considering on-chain combinations and on-chain usage from the product design stage.

Therefore, evaluating RWA projects cannot solely focus on asset scale. A large-scale tokenized government bond product, if mostly held in a whitelisted wallet, may contribute less marginally to the DeFi ecosystem than a smaller-scale asset pool that can be widely used as collateral, liquidity certificates, or risk transfer tools. The core evaluation system for RWA in the future needs to shift from 'asset issuance volume' to 'financial utilization volume'.

3.2 The On-Chain Utilization Paradox: The Largest Asset Classes, the Lowest DeFi Activity

Currently, the RWA market exhibits a clear 'scale-activity inversion'. The largest asset classes often have the lowest on-chain utilization rates; smaller-scale assets designed for on-chain use are more likely to enter DeFi protocols. Public data shows that tokenized bonds are one of the largest asset classes, yet only about 5% of the supply is deployed in DeFi; reinsurance tokens, although smaller in scale, have a higher proportion deployed in DeFi protocols.

This phenomenon reveals a key issue: 'being tokenized' and 'being used in on-chain finance' are two completely different concepts. The former emphasizes the representation of asset rights, while the latter emphasizes the combinability, collateralizability, and transferability of assets.

Many government bond and gold products essentially remain on-chain receipts. The underlying assets are managed by traditional custodians, fund managers, transfer agents, compliance service providers, and banking systems, with tokens serving merely as a more efficient registration and transfer interface. They can improve the holding and settlement experience but do not necessarily possess the capabilities for open transfer, permissionless collateralization, cross-protocol combinations, and automatic liquidation.

The reasons for low utilization rates can be categorized into four main types.

• First, compliance transfer restrictions. Many RWA tokens can only be transferred between wallets that have completed KYC, met investor suitability, and are on a whitelist, which inherently limits open DeFi portfolios.
• Second, redemption and net asset value cycles are not continuous. Government bond funds, private credit, and fund shares are often redeemed based on business days or batches, while DeFi protocols operate in a 24/7 environment, leading to a natural mismatch in time structure.
• Third, price and risk models are immature. DeFi protocols require real-time prices, discount parameters, liquidation thresholds, and liquidity depth, but many RWAs lack continuous secondary markets and can only rely on NAV, broker quotes, or model valuations.
• Fourth, legal recourse and default handling remain off-chain. Smart contracts can automatically allocate profits, but cannot automatically execute property mortgage disposals, corporate loan collections, or bankruptcy liquidations.

Therefore, the next phase for RWA is not to make more assets "visible on-chain," but to make more assets "safely usable in on-chain finance." This requires the maturation of compliant asset standards, permissioned DeFi pools, on-chain identities, verifiable reserves, oracles, off-chain legal enforcement, and on-chain settlement mechanisms.

3.3 Multi-Chain Landscape: RWA Will Not Be Monopolized by a Single Public Chain

The network distribution of the RWA market presents a "one strong, many strong" pattern. Ethereum, with its advantages in DeFi, security, institutional recognition, and the smart contract ecosystem, remains an important infrastructure. However, networks such as BNB Chain, Solana, Stellar, Liquid Network, XRP Ledger, ZKsync Era, and Arbitrum have also formed their own RWA landscapes. Public data shows that Ethereum accounts for about half of the tokenized asset market, but other chains are also experiencing distributed growth in scenarios such as government bonds, payments, gold, cross-border settlements, and low-cost trading.

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

Ethereum is suitable for high-security, high-value assets that require DeFi portfolios; Stellar and XRP Ledger are more focused on payments, cross-border settlements, and institutional networks; Solana is suitable for high throughput, low-cost assets aimed at trading experiences; L2s like ZKsync and Arbitrum have differentiated space in privacy, scalability, compliance proofs, and EVM ecosystem connections.

However, multi-chain also brings new challenges. The cross-chain transfer of compliant assets is more difficult than that of ordinary crypto assets, as it involves not only token bridges but also investor identities, jurisdictional restrictions, transfer qualifications, sanction screenings, reserve statuses, and legal rights synchronization.

In the future, the competition for RWA infrastructure will shift from "whether assets can be issued" to "whether compliant assets can flow across chains, protocols, and scenarios." Whoever can solve the issues of cross-chain transfer and cross-protocol combinations for compliant assets may become the core infrastructure in the latter half of RWA.

4. DeFi Cash Flow Valuation: From TVL Logic to Profit Logic

---

4.1 DeFi Enters the Era of Cash Flow Valuation

As DeFi protocols gradually accumulate real users, real transactions, and real fees, the valuation framework for crypto assets also needs to change. In the past, the market often used metrics such as TVL, trading volume, FDV/TVL, and FDV/Revenue to measure DeFi projects. However, these metrics reflect scale more than profitability and value capture ability.

A more mature analytical framework should understand crypto assets on the spectrum of "commodities --- financial claims."

Commodity-like assets, such as Bitcoin, are primarily driven by scarcity, liquidity, security, monetary premium, and adoption rates. They do not promise future cash flows, making them more suitable for frameworks based on network value, monetary premium, and macro asset comparisons.

Cash flow-type assets, such as certain DeFi protocol tokens, can be analyzed through revenue, profits, fee distributions, treasury assets, governance mechanisms, and token value capture paths. These assets are no longer just narrative carriers but are gradually approaching expressions of equity in on-chain financial networks.

Aave, as a representative of lending protocols, is a typical case of this shift. Aave has real borrowing demand, real interest income, observable fee structures, and a continuously iterating capital allocation mechanism. DeFiLlama has broken down Aave's fees and income items, with Aave V3's fee sources including borrowing interest, flash loan fees, liquidation fees, Paraswap exchange fees, and Chainlink SVR, among others.

This does not mean that traditional financial valuation models can be simply applied to DeFi tokens. Governance tokens are not equivalent to stocks, and protocol income does not necessarily belong to token holders. However, when the protocol's business model, revenue structure, and value capture mechanisms are sufficiently clear, the cash flow framework will become increasingly important.

4.2 A Deeper Level: Cash Flow Valuation Truly Tests the "Transmission Chain"

One of the most commonly misunderstood points around DeFi cash flow valuation is: as long as the protocol has income, the token should be valued using traditional P/E or DCF methods. In fact, this is just the first layer. More importantly, it is to identify whether the chain of transmission from protocol activity to token value is complete.

This transmission chain includes at least six links.

* First, does the protocol have real demand? Is the income from real user payments, or from short-term incentives, subsidies, speculative cycles, or single market sentiment? If income heavily relies on short-term trading heat, it is closer to cyclical income rather than capitalizable cash flow. * Second, can the protocol retain income? Many DeFi protocols have high total fees, but a significant portion needs to be paid to LPs, validators, market makers, liquidity providers, or external service providers. The truly usable income for valuation is not gross fees, but the net income that the protocol can retain and allocate. * Third, can the income cover risk costs? Lending protocols face bad debts, liquidation failures, oracle risks, and security module expenditures; DEXs face liquidity subsidies and market-making costs; derivatives protocols face pressures from insurance funds in extreme market conditions. Income models without risk costs can easily overestimate the profitability of the protocol. * Fourth, does the DAO have capital allocation capabilities? After protocol income enters the treasury, is it used for buybacks, burns, incentives, security reserves, developer expenditures, or ecological subsidies? Different allocation methods can lead to completely different token value paths. * Fifth, does the token have a clear value capture mechanism? Governance rights do not equate to cash flow rights. Only when buybacks, burns, staking yields, fee returns, or other mechanisms are sufficiently clear can protocol income be more easily priced into the token by the market. * Sixth, does regulation recognize this value transmission? Governance tokens differ from traditional equity, and token holders typically do not have legal claims to the protocol's assets or future cash flows. Therefore, legal structures and regulatory classifications will directly affect whether institutional funds can price these assets at lower discount rates.

Therefore, the key to DeFi cash flow valuation is not to mechanically apply traditional financial models to tokens, but to assess whether the protocol has established a complete chain of "real demand --- income retention --- risk deduction --- governance allocation --- token capture --- legal interpretability."

4.2.1 Why Aave Represents the Case of "On-Chain Bank"

Aave's business structure is relatively clear: depositors provide liquidity, borrowers borrow assets with collateral, and the protocol generates cash flow through interest rate spreads, liquidation fees, flash loan fees, cooperative income, treasury income, and GHO stablecoin income.

It is not a traditional bank in the conventional sense, as it does not have a centralized balance sheet and does not engage in maturity mismatches typical of traditional banking systems; however, in terms of economic function, it indeed plays the role of an on-chain money market and collateralized lending infrastructure.

Unlike purely narrative tokens, Aave has real use cases and observable income sources. Borrowing interest, flash loan fees, liquidation fees, cooperative income, and stablecoin-related income together form the basis of the protocol's cash flow.

Aave's uniqueness also lies in its position at the intersection of RWA and DeFi.

First, stablecoins are an important foundation for Aave's lending activities. USDC, USDT, GHO, and other stablecoins constitute the cash legs of the on-chain credit market.

Second, the development of institutional markets and permissioned pools gives protocols like Aave the opportunity to meet the financing needs of compliant asset collateral. If tokenized government bonds, fund shares, private credit, and other compliant assets can be safely incorporated into the permissioned market, they will no longer just be certificates in wallets but can become the foundational assets for on-chain credit expansion.

Third, Aave's product architecture is evolving from a single lending market to a more complete on-chain financial platform. Unified liquidity architecture, stablecoin business, security modules, and user applications are all designed to enable the protocol to accommodate more complex assets, more segmented risks, and broader user needs.

This also explains why Aave is regarded as an important case in DeFi cash flow valuation. RWA needs a protocol layer that can provide liquidity, collateral financing, and risk parameter management; lending protocols like Aave are the potential accommodating layers.

4.2.2 Protocol Income Does Not Equal Token Value

Aave's case also reminds the market that there is no automatic equivalence between protocol income and token value. Just because a protocol makes money does not mean that governance tokens will necessarily appreciate in equal proportion. It is also necessary to consider how fees enter the DAO treasury, how the DAO decides on buybacks, incentives, insurance, security expenditures, and product investments, whether token holders can stabilize the capture of protocol value through governance, and whether regulation recognizes this value transmission mechanism.

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

Common paths include burns, buybacks, rebates, and staking yields. Burns affect long-term scarcity by reducing supply; buybacks create market buy pressure through protocol income; rebates directly return part of the fees to users or holders; staking enhances token utility through locking and yield distribution. The directness, sustainability, regulatory risks, and market impacts of different mechanisms vary significantly. The efficiency of value transmission mechanisms such as buybacks, burns, rebates, and staking rewards differs, and DAO expenditures, token emissions, and legal structures will all affect the final valuation results.

In the future evaluation of DeFi protocols, it is essential to establish a framework similar to an "on-chain profit and loss statement + capital allocation table" rather than solely focusing on TVL and revenue scale:

• First, total expenses represent how much users are willing to pay for the protocol.
• Second, protocol revenue indicates how much the protocol actually retains.
• Third, net profit represents how much remains after deducting incentives, security, development, and operational costs.
• Fourth, treasury assets and liabilities represent how much capital buffer the protocol has.
• Fifth, value capture mechanisms indicate how profits affect the tokens.
• Sixth, reinvestment efficiency represents whether retained profits enhance future revenue capabilities.

This framework is also applicable to product analysis after the integration of RWA and DeFi. What will truly matter in the future is not whether a protocol has scale, but whether that scale can be transformed into sustainable revenue, manageable risks, and value that can be captured by users or token holders.

5. Stablecoins, Regulation, and Risk Framework

---

5.1 Stablecoins as Common Underlying Assets for RWA and DeFi

The intersection of RWA and DeFi cannot be separated from stablecoins. Stablecoins serve not only as units of trade quotation but also as on-chain cash, collateral, settlement layers, and mediums for profit distribution.

Without stablecoins, tokenized government bonds would struggle to gain on-chain funding access; without stablecoins, DeFi lending would find it difficult to establish stable loan demand; without stablecoins, cross-border payments, institutional settlements, and RWA secondary markets would lack a unified cash leg.

The clarity of stablecoin regulation is a structural variable for both RWA and DeFi. For RWA, stablecoins provide compliant cash access, subscription and redemption mediums, and on-chain settlement units. For DeFi, stablecoins offer low-volatility liabilities and a foundation for lending demand. For institutions, clear stablecoin regulation means they can more easily incorporate on-chain funding flows into compliance, auditing, and risk control systems.

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

• The first layer consists of compliant stablecoins and on-chain cash management, responsible for payments and settlements.
• The second layer includes tokenized government bonds, money market funds, private credit, gold, and securitized assets, responsible for yields and collateral.
• The third layer comprises protocols like Aave, Maple, Sky, Pendle, Uniswap, and Hyperliquid, responsible for lending, trading, interest rates, risks, and leverage.

The closer these three layers are, the closer on-chain finance is to a true capital market. Stablecoins solve the "money" problem, RWA addresses the "asset" problem, and DeFi tackles the "financial function" problem. Only through their combination can a complete on-chain financial system be formed.

5.2 Risks of RWA and DeFi: Efficiency Gains May Amplify Complexity

The combination of RWA and DeFi is not without risks. On the contrary, it layers off-chain financial risks, on-chain smart contract risks, market liquidity risks, and regulatory risks.

In traditional finance, asset defaults, valuation downgrades, redemption runs, and regulatory scrutiny are already complex enough; if these risks enter a 24/7, leveraged, composable, and auto-liquidating DeFi environment, the system's response speed will be faster, and risk transmission may be stronger.

• The first type of risk is asset authenticity and reserve risk. Whether there are corresponding assets behind tokenized assets, whether reserves are sufficient, whether custody is independent, whether audits are timely, and whether assets are being double-pledged are all core issues. Stablecoins have already proven that reserve transparency is crucial for market confidence, and RWA will face the same issues.
• The second type of risk is liquidity mismatch. Many underlying RWA assets are only traded on business days or redeemed periodically, but DeFi lending and derivatives markets operate 24/7. If RWA is used as collateral for loans, once market pressure arises on weekends or holidays, oracle prices, redemption mechanisms, and liquidation processes may experience mismatches.
• The third type of risk is compliance composability risk. The advantage of open DeFi is permissionless composability, but RWA often requires whitelists, KYC, investor suitability, and jurisdictional restrictions. How to retain composability without compromising compliance is a challenge for the entire RWAFi.
• The fourth type of risk is DAO governance and value transmission risk. Whether protocol revenue should be used to repurchase tokens or allocated to security modules, user incentives, risk reserves, and product development is fundamentally a capital allocation issue. Low DAO voting rates, token concentration, stakeholder conflicts, and regulatory uncertainties can all impact valuations.
• The fifth type of risk is oracle and pricing risk. The prices of RWA may come from NAV, exchange quotes, broker quotes, model valuations, or manual disclosures. The delays, manipulation potential, and update frequencies of different price sources directly affect the liquidation safety of lending protocols.

Therefore, the combination of RWA and DeFi should not be simply understood as "traditional assets entering on-chain to release liquidity." Real implementation requires conservative risk parameters, layered market structures, permissioned pools, compliant secondary markets, transparent reserve proofs, stress testing, and clear default handling rules. Only with a mature risk framework can funds transition from pilot projects to large-scale deployments.

6. Conclusion, Product Insights, and Huobi HTX's Business Focus

---

6.1 The First Half of RWA is Issuance, the Second Half is Usage

RWA tokenization and DeFi cash flow valuation may seem like two different themes, but they actually point to the same industry turning point: the crypto market is transitioning from "asset existence" to "asset usefulness," from "protocol usage" to "protocol profitability," and from "narrative premium" to "cash flow, governance, and compliance joint pricing."

The first phase of RWA has proven that assets can go on-chain, but the second phase must prove that assets on-chain can create higher financial efficiency. The first phase of DeFi has demonstrated that permissionless finance can operate, but the second phase must prove that protocol revenue can be sustainable, risks can be managed, and value can be captured by tokens. Stablecoins serve as the foundational currency layer connecting these two phases.

The most noteworthy direction in the future is not simply "more assets on-chain," but five categories that truly form financial depth:

• First, tokenized government bonds entering on-chain collateral and repurchase markets.
• Second, private credit combined with institutional lending protocols forming on-chain fixed income markets.
• Third, tokenized gold and commodities becoming derivatives and margin assets.
• Fourth, compliant stocks and fund shares entering a 24/7 global trading and financing system.
• Fifth, DeFi protocols entering the cash flow valuation era through clear value capture mechanisms.

These directions collectively point to the same trend: the competitive focus of RWA will shift from "on-chain speed" to "on-chain depth," while the competitive focus of DeFi will shift from "TVL scale" to "cash flow quality."

6.2 The Product and Wealth Management Matrix Formed by Huobi HTX

From a business perspective, the development of RWA and DeFi does not only signify a new asset narrative but also indicates that the product system of trading platforms needs to extend from a single trading entry to asset allocation, yield management, on-chain participation, and risk layering entries. Huobi HTX has already formed a product matrix covering basic wealth management, structured yields, on-chain yields, and collateral financing, which highly corresponds to the core needs of the second half of RWA / DeFi.

• First, Huobi Earn has taken on the role of a comprehensive yield entry. The announcement of Huobi HTX's Earn product upgrade has restructured the Earn function into five core sections, including Overview, Simple Earn, New Listings, Structured Products, and On-chain Earn. This structure essentially breaks down users' yield needs into five categories: account yield overview, basic wealth management, new asset participation, structured yields, and on-chain yields.
• Second, Simple Earn has already covered the basic wealth management layer. Official statements from Huobi HTX indicate that Simple Earn includes flexible and fixed-term products, allowing users to choose different terms based on liquidity needs. In the context of the ongoing development of RWA and stablecoins, these products correspond to on-chain cash management and low-volatility yield needs. They do not directly issue RWA but function as an entry point for "stablecoin and mainstream asset yields" in terms of user experience.
• Third, Structured Products have already covered the structured yield layer. The announcement of Huobi Earn product upgrades shows that Structured Products integrate structured earning products like Dual Investment and Shark Fin, providing users with richer risk-return combinations. The significance of these products lies in their ability to guide users from single-holding yields to a management framework of target prices, terms, volatility, and structured returns. As DeFi and RWA assets gradually mature, structured yield products are crucial for accommodating users with different risk preferences.
• Fourth, On-chain Earn has already covered the on-chain yield layer. The announcement of Huobi Earn product upgrades indicates that On-chain Earn integrates blockchain-native yield services like ETH 2.0 node staking, providing users with channels for on-chain asset growth. These products correspond to the core trend of the second half of DeFi: users do not necessarily need to directly operate complex protocols but require a safer, clearer, and more standardized entry to participate in on-chain yields.
• Fifth, Margin Swap has already covered collateral financing and asset efficiency layers. The Margin Swap page of Huobi shows that verified users can exchange digital assets by pledging specified assets in their accounts, with the exchanged assets arriving within a short time; this product supports flexible, 7-day, 30-day, 45-day, and 90-day terms and allows various assets as collateral. The essence of this product is to help users enhance capital efficiency without directly selling core assets, aligning with the direction of "collateral financialization" in DeFi and RWA.

Therefore, Huobi HTX's business focus in the RWA and DeFi track does not merely stay at asset observation or transaction matching, but has already formed a relatively complete user asset efficiency entry through products like Earn, Simple Earn, Structured Products, On-chain Earn, and Margin Swap.

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

• First, Cash Management Layer: Through Simple Earn, savings and fixed-term products, we meet users' demand for stablecoin and mainstream asset yields.
• Second, Yield Structure Layer: Through products like Dual Investment and Shark Fin, we expand users' yield management from a single interest rate to target price, duration, and volatility structures.
• Third, On-chain Yield Layer: Through On-chain Earn, PoS staking, and ETH 2.0 node staking, we lower the operational threshold for users to participate in on-chain protocol yields.
• Fourth, Collateral Efficiency Layer: Through products like margin currency exchange, we enhance capital utilization efficiency while allowing users to retain exposure to core assets.

This also means that Huobi HTX has covered the most important types of user demands in the second half of RWA and DeFi in terms of product forms: low volatility yields, structured yields, on-chain yields, collateral financing, and asset efficiency management. The second half of RWA is about "usage," while the second half of DeFi is about "cash flow." The productization capability of trading platforms is the key connecting layer that transforms these trends from institutional narratives into financial products usable by ordinary users.

Disclaimer: This content is provided for general branding and informational purposes only and doesn't constitute financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. Any events, rewards, online events, or related information mentioned herein should not be considered a recommendation, solicitation, or invitation to purchase, sell, trade, or otherwise deal in any crypto assets or to use any services. Crypto assets are highly volatile and may result in loss. WEEX services and online events may not be available in all regions and are subject to applicable laws, regulations, and eligibility requirements. You are responsible for ensuring that your use of WEEX services complies with local laws and for carefully assessing the risks before participating in any crypto-related activities.