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What Is a Tokenized Real-World Asset?
A tokenized real-world asset (RWA) is a token whose value is tied to an asset that exists off-chain. Common types include:
- Tokenized stocks: tokens that track a listed company's share price.
- Tokenized funds: tokens representing units or shares in a fund, or tracking its value.
- Tokenized commodities: tokens tied to physical commodities such as gold.
What makes RWAs tricky is that a token's price says nothing about what sits underneath it. A token tracking Apple's share price could be a real Apple share held in custody. It could be a note issued by a company in Jersey, or a derivative contract with a broker. All three can follow the price closely, yet each gives the holder very different rights, and leaves them with something very different if the issuer fails.
In short: price exposure is not ownership.
Why We Built RWA Issuer Pages
Comparing tokenized RWAs usually means digging through prospectuses, final terms and regulatory filings. Marketing pages rarely help. Phrases like "1:1 backed" or "real shares" describe how well a product is backed, not what you legally own.
Our RWA issuer pages describe every product with the same set of fields, filled from the issuer's own legal documents. That lets you line up two products tracking the same asset and see exactly where they differ: what you own, who owes you, and what's left if the issuer fails.
How We Classify Each Product
Every field on an RWA issuer page answers one of four plain questions you'd want answered before buying.
| Question | Fields that answer it |
| What do I actually own? | Tokenization model, Legal instrument |
| Who issues it, and what are my rights? | Issuing entity and domicile, Issuance framework, Claim against, Enforcement rights, Holder rights (voting, distributions, corporate actions, subscription rights, information rights) |
| What happens if the issuer fails? | Backing type, Residual liquidation claim, Service providers (custodian, security agent, transfer agent, fund administrator) |
| Who can hold it, and how do I exit? | Redemption, Eligibility, Transferability |
CoinGecko's Methodology
Classifications on CoinGecko's RWA issuer pages are drawn from each issuer's binding legal documents: prospectuses, final terms, offering memoranda and regulatory filings. These are followed, in order of authority, by the issuer's own legal and help-center pages, then its product pages. Where a marketing summary conflicts with a binding document, the binding document prevails. Aggregators, news and other third-party sites are used only to locate primary documents and are never cited as a source.
Product size is taken from on-chain data (token supply × net asset value) or the issuer's own dated disclosure, and is shown with its as-of date. Each legally distinct structure is classified as a separate product; products that differ only by blockchain, ticker or trading venue are grouped. Tokenization model is decided by a single test, what the token legally represents, regardless of collateral levels, which are captured separately under Backing type.
Where a right does not exist by the nature of the product, such as voting rights on a gold token, a structural default of None is applied and labelled; any document granting the right overrides it. Values that cannot be established from a source are shown as Unknown rather than inferred. Related fields (backing type, residual liquidation claim and asset custodian) are cross-checked for consistency.
Every published field is traceable to a specific clause or section of a source document and is reviewed by CoinGecko's Data Operations team before publication.
Note to issuers: In the event of any changes, please submit a request to keep your details up to date.
What Do I Actually Own?
Name and Size
This field shows the product's name, its size and the date the size figure applies to. Size means total value locked for on-chain-native products and assets under management for funds.
We calculate size from on-chain data (token supply × net asset value) or take it from the issuer's own dated disclosure, never from an aggregator. If no primary source confirms the figure, the page shows it as Unknown. Where an issuer has several products, they are listed from largest to smallest. Size gives a rough sense of adoption and liquidity, while the as-of date shows how current the figure is.
Tokenization Model
This field describes what the token legally is: issuer-sponsored, third-party custodial or third-party synthetic.
| Value | What it means |
| Issuer-sponsored | The token is the real asset, issued or recorded by the asset's own issuer or its agent. Moving the token updates the official ownership record, as when a company issues its own shares on-chain or a fund issues its units as tokens. |
| Third-party custodial | An independent company holds the real asset in custody and issues a token representing your interest in it, such as tokens backed by custodied shares or vaulted gold. |
| Third-party synthetic | The token is the issuer's own financial product, a note or derivative, that pays out based on the asset's price. Nobody holds the real asset for you, and you get no rights from the asset's original issuer. |
We classify each product by what the token legally represents. A direct interest in the actual asset held in custody is third-party custodial, unless the asset's own issuer issued the token, in which case it is issuer-sponsored. A token that is the issuer's own debt or derivative is third-party synthetic, however much collateral sits behind it; collateral is covered separately under Backing type.
Because physical commodities like gold have no issuer, a commodity token is never issuer-sponsored: it is custodial if real metal is held, or synthetic if it is futures- or contract-based.
The categories follow the framework US SEC staff used to describe tokenized securities, adapted so the same labels work for stocks, funds and commodities.
Legal Instrument
This field names the legal form of what you hold, such as a share, a note or a fund unit. That form decides which rules protect you: securities law for shares, creditor rights for notes, and contract terms for derivatives.
| Value | What it means |
| Share | A directly registered share in the company. |
| Security entitlement | A custodial interest in a real security held on your behalf, similar to shares in a brokerage account. |
| Debt security | A note owed by the token issuer, such as a structured note, tracker certificate or linked security. You're a lender to the issuer, with returns tied to the asset's price. |
| Derivative contract | A swap, contract-for-difference or futures-based token. A contract with a counterparty, not ownership. |
| Fund structure | Units or shares in a fund. |
| Commodity claim | A redeemable claim on a custodian or issuer that holds physical commodity, such as a vaulted-gold token. |
We determine this information directly from the binding legal document, which usually states the instrument type explicitly.
Who Issues It, and What Are My Rights?
Issuing Entity and Domicile
This field shows the legal company that issues the token and the country where it is established, as a country code. Taken from the binding documents, it is often a special-purpose company rather than the brand name you know.
This is the company you would ultimately deal with if something goes wrong, and its country decides which courts and insolvency rules apply.
Issuance Framework
This field shows the country, regulator and legal framework under which the product is offered. A product can list several, because offerings often span jurisdictions: one country's law might govern the notes, another title transfer, and a third the collateral agreement.
We determine this from the governing-law and regulatory sections of the binding documents. We record every jurisdiction that governs a material part of the structure, not just the headline one.
Claim Against
This field shows who your claim ultimately points at. That matters because "you own Apple" and "a company owes you whatever Apple is worth" carry very different risks.
| Value | What it means |
| Underlying asset issuer | Your claim traces to the real company behind the asset. You hold its share directly or through custody. |
| Issuing fund | You hold shares or units issued by the fund itself, not a wrapper that tracks it. |
| Physical commodity | You own specific bars or units of the physical commodity, set aside in your name, with no company between you and the commodity. |
| RWA token issuer | The company that issued the token owes you the asset's value, but you don't own the asset itself. This applies to notes, derivatives, and commodity tokens backed by a shared pool or by futures contracts. |
We decide this based on the legal instrument and how ownership is recorded. Funds have their own value because holding a fund's own tokens makes you a shareholder in the fund, not a creditor of the token issuer.
Enforcement and Legal Rights
This field shows how far your legal reach extends if you need to enforce your claim. It measures reach only; the strength of what you hold shows up in the claim, backing and liquidation fields.
| Value | What it means |
| None | No enforceable claim, even against the token issuer. |
| Against issuing entity or SPV | You can pursue the token issuer, the fund or the special-purpose company, but your reach stops there. |
| Against underlying asset issuer | Your reach extends to the real company behind the asset, directly (issuer-sponsored) or through the custody chain (custodial). |
Commodities have no underlying issuer, so the answer can only be None or Against issuing entity or SPV.
The strength of owning allocated metal shows up instead under Claim against, Residual liquidation claim and Backing type.
Holder Rights
We determine every holder right from the binding documents. Where a right simply doesn't exist for a product type, we apply a structural default of None and label it as such:
- Fund products: voting, corporate actions and subscription rights default to None. Funds do pay distributions, so that field is always researched.
- Commodity products: voting, distributions, corporate actions and subscription rights default to None. Gold carries no governance, income or subscription rights.
If a product's documents grant one of these rights anyway, the documents override the default.
Voting
| Value | What it means |
| None | No voting rights. |
| Proxy via platform | The platform passes your vote through to shareholder meetings on your behalf. |
| Direct | You vote directly as a shareholder. |
Dividends or Distributions
| Value | What it means |
| None | No payouts. |
| Reinvested (rebase) | Payouts are reinvested automatically. Your token balance or the token's value grows instead of you receiving cash. |
| Cash or stablecoin credit | Payouts arrive as cash or stablecoins credited to you. |
| Direct | You receive distributions directly as an owner. |
Corporate Actions
This field covers events like stock splits, mergers and spin-offs.
| Value | What it means |
| None | These events aren't reflected in your token, and you don't take part in them. |
| Rebase | Reflected economically, for example a multiplier adjusts your holding after a split, but you don't take part as a shareholder. |
| Direct participation | You take part directly, as a shareholder would. |
Pre-emptive Subscription Rights
This is the right to buy new shares before outside investors when a company raises capital.
| Value | What it means |
| None | You don't get this right. |
| Direct | You hold this right directly. |
Information and Disclosure Rights
| Value | What it means |
| None | No information rights. |
| Via platform, no inspection rights | The platform publishes information such as NAV, proof-of-reserves or attestations, but you have no legal right to inspect the issuer's books. |
| Direct | You have reporting or inspection rights directly from the issuing entity, such as fund financials and investor reports, or statutory shareholder inspection rights. |
What Happens If the Issuer Fails?
Residual Liquidation Claim
This field shows what you're entitled to if the issuer becomes insolvent.
| Value | What it means |
| None | No claim at all. |
| Unsecured creditor | You rank alongside the issuer's general creditors, with no collateral and no investor-compensation or deposit-insurance scheme behind you. |
| Via platform | A beneficial claim on the asset, reached through the custody chain. |
| Secured creditor on collateral | You're a creditor with a security interest in specific pledged collateral, usually enforced by a security agent. Recovery is capped at what that collateral sells for. |
| Direct | Direct title to, or a residual claim on, the asset itself that survives the issuer's insolvency. Examples: a direct shareholder, a fund shareholder's share of fund assets, or direct title to segregated commodity. |
We determine this from the insolvency, collateral and ranking clauses of the binding documents. Unsecured and secured creditors are kept as separate values because the gap between them is a real difference in risk, not a technicality.
Backing Type
This field shows what stands behind your claim. It is filled for every product, not just commodities.
| Value | What it means |
| Segregated | A specific asset is set aside for you and kept separate from the issuer's own assets. These can be allocated gold bars, a registered share or a fund's separate asset pool, so it stays yours if the issuer goes bankrupt. |
| Pooled | You hold a share of a shared pool, such as unallocated metal, with nothing set aside for you specifically, so if the issuer fails you rank as an unsecured creditor of that pool. |
| Collateralized | Assets are pledged to holders, and if the issuer defaults, a security agent can sell them on your behalf, though you can only recover what they sell for. |
| Synthetic | Nothing is held for you, so you rely entirely on the issuer to pay what it owes. |
We determine this from the custody, collateral and segregation clauses of the binding documents.
Service Providers
This group lists the independent companies that hold the underlying assets, enforce collateral, keep the ownership register or run the fund's books on holders' behalf. Each of the four roles shows a named company, Not applicable (the role doesn't exist for this structure) or Unknown (the role exists but the documents don't name the provider yet), so you can tell whether a gap is structural or simply undisclosed.
| Role | What this provider does |
| Asset custodian | Holds the underlying shares, metal or fund assets. |
| Security agent | Enforces the collateral pledge on holders' behalf if the issuer defaults (collateralized notes). |
| Transfer agent | Maintains the official or on-chain register of who owns what (issuer-sponsored and custodial models). |
| Fund administrator | Calculates NAV and keeps the fund's books (funds). |
We name a provider only when the binding documents do. A synthetic product normally shows Not applicable for asset custodian: if its issuer holds the real asset to hedge its own position, that asset is held for the issuer, not for holders.
Who Can Hold It, and How Do I Exit?
Redemption
This field shows whether you can return the token to the issuer, and whether you'd get cash or the actual asset back.
| Value | What it means |
| None | You can't return the token to the issuer. |
| Cash only | You get cash back when you return the token. |
| In-kind only | You get the actual asset back, such as shares or gold bars. |
| Cash and in-kind | You can choose between cash and the actual asset. |
KYC (Know-Your-Customer), where you verify your identity, may be required before you can redeem your assets.
We separate retail holders from authorized participants, the large institutions that create and redeem tokens with the issuer. Where an issuer's website describes a redemption route open only to authorized participants, the page shows what the legal terms give ordinary holders instead.
Eligibility
This field shows who is allowed to hold or buy the product on the secondary market. Restrictions that apply only to creating or redeeming tokens with the issuer sit under Redemption.
| Sub-field | What it means |
| US persons | Whether US persons are permitted. |
| KYC gate | Whether identity verification is required to hold or buy. |
| Sophisticated investors only | Whether the product is restricted to professional, accredited or qualified investors. |
Transferability
This field shows whether the token can move freely on-chain.
| Value | What it means |
| Yes, open | Freely transferable on-chain. It may still be subject to sanctions screening or an issuer's power to freeze tokens; we note this where it applies. |
| Yes, within platform only | Only transferable between whitelisted or pre-approved wallets. |
| No | Not transferable. |
How the Fields Fit Together
Several fields are different views of the same underlying fact, and we cross-check them before publishing. Four patterns illustrate how the fields combine:
- Direct ownership: issuer-sponsored model, share or fund structure, segregated backing, direct residual claim, claim against the underlying asset issuer or issuing fund.
- Custodial holding: third-party custodial model, security entitlement, segregated backing, residual claim via platform, claim against the underlying asset issuer. A custodian holds the real asset on your behalf.
- Secured note: synthetic model, debt security, collateralized backing, secured creditor on collateral. You don't own the asset, but pledged collateral stands behind your claim.
- Pure exposure: synthetic model, derivative contract, synthetic backing, unsecured creditor. You get price exposure and rely entirely on the issuer to pay.
These patterns explain the fields; they are not ratings or recommendations.
This page is for informational purposes only and is not financial, legal, investment or regulatory advice.
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