DeFi Executives Speak on Critical Issues Affecting the Tokenized Asset Ecosystem

• There is a “double-standard” problem facing the tokenized assets ecosystem.
• DeFi companies should not be discussing minimum standards amid high expectations.
• Regulatory elements are the potential catalysts for the tokenized asset sector.

DeFi executives and stakeholders have highlighted several issues inhibiting the industry’s development, suggesting methods to address challenges and create a consistent ecosystem that will enable innovation to thrive.

https://youtu.be/C1DthcsKzPw?si=uXsg-GzMaOqxAdLO 

The experts expressed their opinions during a meetup hosted by NOWNodes as one of the sideline events of Consensus 2026 in Miami. The meetup’s panel of discussion featured industry experts from Crypto.com, Zerion, Solflare, Li.Fi, the TON Foundation, Paxos, Houdini Swap, and Globalstake, while the discussion focused on what it takes to build successful tokenized systems and the impact on those affected when they fail.

Scaling Under Pressure

Li.Fi CEO Philipp Zenter cited the industry’s double standards as a crucial inhibitor to the sector’s development. During the first panel session moderated by ChangeNOW’s Chief Strategy Officer, Pauline, Zenter questioned the prevailing scenario where users believe stablecoins are backed by cash held by a private, unaudited company, but doubt the reality of tokenized real-world assets.

Responding to the same issue, Solflare co-founder Vidor Gence explained how his team operates, noting that they run five RPC providers simultaneously, cross-referencing responses for high-priority transactions. According to Gence, his firm cross-references data correctness across RPC providers when dealing with high-priority cases.

Zerion’s Abi Dharshan had a different perspective on the issue. He appreciated the fallout of the meme coin supercycle, describing it as the stress test that the industry needed. According to Dharshan, that chaotic cycle caused projects to invest significantly in data correctness, data redundancy, real-time prices, and transaction landing. He believes the meme coin setback encouraged people to appreciate what future incoming institutions require.

Meanwhile, Kwon Park, Global Head of Digital Assets at Crypto.com, said the consistency challenge confronting tokenized systems is cultural. According to Park, the issue of a minimum standard should not exist for a company of the scale of Crypto.com, which spans an exchange, brokerage, credit and debit cards, and prediction markets. Park noted that his company’s target is to always maintain a high quality, meaning proactive investment in SOC 2 audits, NIST certifications, business continuity programs, and cold wallet insurance.

Digging Into RWAs

A deeper inquisition into real-world asset tokenization compared the sector with the 2021 NFT era, where in the space of two years, 95% of NFT collections’ market cap had vanished. Most experts dismissed the comparison, stating that NFTs were speculative collectibles with no underlying value or yield, while RWAs are tied to real assets, real regulation, and real institutional capital.

TON Foundation’s Head of Growth, Martin Masser, highlighted the need for traditional banks to upgrade their systems, noting that most of them still run software from the 1960s. Meanwhile, Paxos’ Gary Chan argued that regulatory clarity remains the single biggest unlock for tokenized assets. Chan noted that his company’s experience in the industry demonstrated the resilience of a properly regulated infrastructure, not its fragility.

According to Ryan Haczynski of Globalstake, there is a less visible form of RWA liquidity that often gets missed in the institutional players using tokenized assets as collateral to access stablecoin loans, then deploying that capital in delta-neutral strategies off-chain. He considers that one of several sophisticated things that are happening in a blend of on and off-chain, which the data doesn’t necessarily reveal.

Overall, the panelists identified regulatory elements such as the Genius Act and broader legislative momentum as potential catalysts for the tokenized asset sector. According to Houdini Swap’s Elias Enriquez, the real unlock is not any single regulation, but a seamless interoperability and on-chain privacy robust enough to bring in users who have never touched a wallet.

Related: DTCC Sets Timeline for Tokenized Asset Launch in 2026