2026-05-10 –, Masaryk Stage
Real World Assets are currently "Real World Receipts". We will dissect the current gaps between their custody and ownership at different levels, and explore the future of assets issued natively onchain, where the token is the legal title.
Full description:
Real World Assets are currently "Real World Receipts". This presentation dissects the gaps between custody and ownership (the critical legal disconnect between holding a token and owning the underlying asset) at different levels, and the architectural shift required to solve it.
The talk will focus on three key areas:
The Custody Gap: Why the current SPV model turns tokens into shadow claims, creating a central point of failure and an additional layer of risk.
The DeFi Gap: Depositing an RWA into a smart contract transfers the token, but does it legally transfer the asset? I will examine examples like Aave Horizon to show how current protocols and "legal wrappers" address this legal gray area.
Beyond Tokenization: The shift from "Reflective" to "Native" assets, and their potential. I will explore how frameworks like the UK Electronic Trade Documents Act allow us to architect assets where the ledger is the registry, enabling true onchain ownership.
I joined Nethermind as an intern in 2022, where I later continued my work at as a Blockchain Engineer, diving deep into smart contracts, DeFi, and tokenization. Now, as Tokenization Tech Lead, I have been helping design and build various tokenization solutions, researching related standards, and exploring it's intersection with DeFi.