HashKey RWA CEO Anna Liu: Tokenized RWA Market Approaches $3B, Four Key Hurdles Remain

Anna Liu, CEO of HashKey RWA, delivered a keynote at the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival, according to ChainCatcher. She said HashKey Chain has launched 11 tokenized products, with on-chain RWA assets totaling HK$2 billion. Seven tokenized products are already listed for trading, including Hong Kong's first tokenized gold ETF. Liu outlined four major challenges for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. First is the authenticity of underlying assets: blockchains cannot ensure the integrity of information before it reaches the chain, leaving oracle reliability as a core issue. Second is the absence of a viable commercial closed loop: many initiatives tokenize assets for its own sake and must deliver incremental value that traditional structures cannot. Third is liquidity: even compliant U.S. STO venues often record daily turnover of only tens of thousands of dollars, underscoring the need to align high-quality assets, licensed distribution, and mature secondary-market infrastructure. Fourth is cross-border compliance complexity, which she advised teams to design for from day one. She added that tokenization decisions should start with three questions: Can it be done? Is it suitable? And why tokenize it? Citing market data, Liu said the global tokenized RWA market reached nearly $30 billion in the first quarter of this year, up more than 260% year over year. The IMF has recently described the trend as a "fundamental restructuring of the financial architecture."