We cover Digital Assets Summit 2025: RWAs bridging TradFi and DeFi, real use cases, and what it takes to scale credible, compliant digital finance.
Researchers, business leaders, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and students gathered at CHIJMES on 30 September 2025 to debate how digital assets are reshaping finance and society, while focusing on the regulatory compliance of the market.
Across the day, speakers tested real-world asset tokenisation, institutional infrastructure, and evolving rules, sharing what already works and how leaders can move from pilots to production with clear utility, sound compliance, and user experiences that match traditional finance. We cover a few of the conversations below.
Digital Assets: A New Paradigm for Value
Penny Chai, VP of APAC | Sumsub
When governance fails, trust doesn’t just erode, it collapses. Penny Chai, Vice President of APAC at Sumsub, believes that Web3 needs to earn back the trust of its users by aligning innovation with responsibility, creating a compliant environment that people can understand and rely on. Regulation can accelerate progress when companies actually follow it, turning safeguards into a competitive advantage.
Chai highlighted Singapore’s Project Guardian, a Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) initiative, as a key example of real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation done right, and concludes that the future of finance is built collectively and scales only when users can trust the Web3 space again.
Navigating the Global Regulatory Maze
Suvashree Ghosh, Cryptocurrency reporter for APAC | Bloomberg
John Ho, Global Head of Legal, Financial Markets | Standard Chartered Bank
Jason Chan, APAC Government Relations Lead | Sumsub
Benjamin Gaw, Director | Drew & Napier
Chia Shih Yun, CEO | VerifyVASP
Moderated by Suvashree Ghosh, the panel kicked off by looking at shifting policies in the US and Asia reshaping the digital assets regulatory landscape. John Ho, Global Head of Legal for Financial Markets at Standard Chartered, noted that competition for talent and capital in the US is pushing APAC regulators to move faster, especially in the digitalisation of finance. For the first time, there is keen interest in creating safeguards and clarity, but scaling the industry requires a ‘highway’ of well-defined rules.
Benjamin Gaw, Director at Drew & Napier, observed that while the US has long been the go-to market, Asian regulators are now catching up and aligning with global standards. The key obstacle, however, remains the trust deficit. He pointed to the GENIUS Act and Singapore’s active stance on stablecoins as signs of progress, though more consistency is needed.
Yet Chia Shih Yun, CEO of VerifyVASP, highlighted the challenges of compliance fragmentation. Regulations vary widely, but since crypto is borderless by nature, global connectivity is still crucial. Jason Chan, Sumsub’s APAC Government Relations Lead, agreed, adding that while regulators have grown more knowledgeable, it has also led to greater complexity and hurdles for firms operating across jurisdictions.
Gaw ends the panel by concluding that countries like Dubai and Singapore will remain a strong hub, with upcoming countries like France emerging with its own push toward pro-crypto regulation.
Building the Bedrock: Institutional-Grade Infrastructure
Elsa Qiu MD, Payments & Innovation, DeCard by DCS
Deborah Algeo, MD of Solution | Zodia Custody
Jag Foo, Partner | SafeHeron
Samar Sen, SVP, Head of APAC | Talos
Daniel Lee, Head of Web 3 | Banking Circle
What is the biggest challenge to bringing payments with transaction finality? For Elsa Qiu, Managing Director for Payments & Innovation at DeCard by DCS, blockchain remains borderless and efficient, since moving value across markets gets simpler when settlement lives on shared rails and confirmation is deterministic.
Yet on the topic of institutional demand, Deborah Algeo, Managing Director of Solutions at Zodia Custody, drew a line between retail curiosity and institutional adoption. Conversations have shifted from “should we invest” to “how do we operate”, with firms seeking to learn and partner with specialists who understand both technology and regulation.
When asked what clients want most, Samar Sen, SVP and Head of APAC at Talos, said institutions need tools to manage the asset class at scale, and they gravitate toward workflows that mirror traditional finance since familiar order management, connectivity, and controls shorten the learning curve.
On the topic of payment rails, do credit cards and stablecoins compete, or are they two sides of the same coin? Qiu said users tend to care more about being able to deposit and spend with their card, while a growing set of merchants accept stablecoins and some providers now offer on- and off-ramps, which makes the two rails increasingly complementary.
Tokenisation in Action: Case Studies on Successful RWA Implementations
Dr. Bo Bai, Chairman & Co-Founder | Alpha Ladder Group
Dr. Sabrina Tachdjian, VP, Financial Markets & APAC | Hedera Foundation
Kelvin Tan, ED, Head of Tokenisation, Global Financial Markets | DBS Bank
Marwan Kawadri, DeFi Lead | BNB Chain
Samantha Yap, Founder & CEO | YAP Global
RWA tokenisation is the new talk of the town, but which asset can be tokenised easily on-chain? For Dr. Sabrina Tachdjian, Vice President, Financial Markets and APAC at the Hedera Foundation, that’s money market funds and treasury bills, which may not be exciting, but they are usable.
For Kelvin Tan, Executive Director and Head of Tokenisation for Global Financial Markets at DBS Bank, the lower-hanging fruit for tokenisation is bonds, followed by structured notes issued on Ethereum.
The discussion briefly turned to market dynamics, with Marwan Kawadri, DeFi Lead at BNB Chain, noting that his user base remains largely retail, and expectations are still shaped by the high-yield culture of DeFi.
Dr. Bo Bai, Chairman and Co-Founder of Alpha Ladder Group, then brought the focus back to the fundamentals of viewing blockchain as a tool to make illiquid assets liquid. To him, adoption follows when tokenisation increases tradeability and liquidity.
The topic of compliance and regulations came up next, with Tan explaining that DBS reduced legal friction by updating its structured note programme and embedding KYC and AML controls in smart contracts. Bai also praised Singapore’s clarity across asset classes and likened RWA tokenisation to an IPO process.
Looking ahead, the panel concluded that stablecoins could become pervasive. Tachdjian expects broad adoption, while Tan described two paths. One view is that stablecoins replace dollar transfers outright. The other is that stablecoins and blockchains open a new liquidity outlet that traditional institutions can serve, and DBS is positioning products to meet that demand.
Expanding the Universe: Use Cases Across Real Estate, Fixed Income, and Commodities
Dr. Alvin Chia, Head of Digital Assets Innovation (APAC) | Northern Trust
Alex Odagiu, Investment Partner | YZi Labs
Dr. Rahul Banerjee, Co-Founder & CEO | BondbloX
Markus Thielen, Founder | 10x Research
Lily King Chief, Operating Officer | Cobo
Moderator Lily King opened with a simple prompt: if you could tokenise one asset class, which would you choose? Alex Odagiu, Investment Partner at YZi Labs, chose equities in a native form on a public blockchain, arguing that transparency and on-chain visibility beat wrapped representations.
Markus Thielen, Founder of 10x Research, focused on market plumbing, asking whether liquidity problems in illiquid markets are really about how dividends flow and how long it still takes to settle transactions, since closing a trade remains a key friction.
Dr. Rahul Banerjee, Co-Founder and CEO of BondbloX, nominated bonds, noting they are the world’s largest asset class and hard to digitise, which is precisely why the payoff is meaningful if you solve it.
Dr. Alvin Chia, Head of Digital Assets Innovation (APAC) at Northern Trust, pointed to carbon credits, which are fragmented and poorly tracked, where trust is essential and the urgency of climate goals creates both a need and an upside.
Asked for live use cases, Chia cited tokenised green bonds and the challenge of linking issuance to verifiable carbon outcomes, explaining that platforms that calculate credits against bond proceeds can put better data on-chain and enable smarter financing decisions.
Banerjee highlighted bond fractionalisation to broaden access and account segregation at scale using blockchain to simplify post-trade operations. Thielen turned to gold, saying buyer interest is real and the asset is verifiable, which makes tokenisation practical. Odagiu added stablecoins to the mix, arguing for tokenising other currencies rather than defaulting to USD only, since non-USD pairs can expand use cases.
On why builders are moving into RWA, Odagiu pointed to meaningful impact, since native tokenised equities can increase access, accelerate a company’s journey, and enable near-instant settlement on a T+0 basis.
Thielen said tokenisation attracts both institutions and smaller investors, especially when fractionalisation lowers the ticket size, bringing new buyers into legacy markets. Banerjee added a line that captured the thesis, “any place that you can see but cannot buy is called a museum”, and Odagiu closed by noting that demand and a willingness to sell are what ultimately drive markets, which is why practical liquidity and clear utility matter more than novelty.
The Next Frontier: The Future of Institutional DeFi and Tokenised Finance
Patrick Yeo, Head of Digital Assets, Global Financial Markets | DBS Bank
Chang Tze Ching, Deputy Group CEO | BPI Financial Group
Phil Barkett, Vice President of Enterprise | Blockstream
Konstantin Richter, CEO & Founder | Blockdaemon
Dr. Tanwa Arpornthip, Senior Technical Advisor | SCB 10X
Patrick Yeo, Head of Digital Assets for Global Financial Markets at DBS Bank, opened by arguing that DeFi broadens access where banking rails are thin and reduces information asymmetry through transparent settlement.
Konstantin Richter, CEO and Founder of Blockdaemon, agreed with that viewpoint, while Phil Barkett, Vice President of Enterprise at Blockstream, added that Bitcoin’s limited programmability pushes builders toward simple, composable DeFi primitives.
How does this determine what asset should be tokenised on-chain?? Dr. Tanwa Arpornthip, Senior Technical Advisor at SCB 10X, said the technology and regulations are no longer the main blockers; profitability at scale is. Teams need reliable on-chain data, KYC/AML processes, chain analytics, custody, and usable interfaces, and those ingredients typically arrive only once a project reaches major scale.
Richter added that institutional clients usually want assets on-chain with the ability to swap them and a user experience that mirrors traditional finance, yet risk assessment remains hard, and many firms still distrust smart contracts. Yeo noted that DBS understands how to scale DeFi products and plug into global networks, but wallet-level KYC is still a hurdle, especially when institutions interact directly with protocols.
Could AI accelerate DeFi adoption? Richter predicted AI agents will push regulations forward because they can parse smart contracts and execute transactions continuously, but Tanwa disagreed, arguing that indeterministic models are ill-suited to critical execution flows and that user behavior, not agents, will determine real uptake.
Yeo re-emphasised the need for common wallet KYC standards that banks can rely on, and Tanwa called for shared infrastructure so everyone can “drive on the same road,” whether or not blockchain technology forms the base for the ‘road’. Barkett reminded the room that finance follows profit, so firms stick with what makes money until better tech proves it can protect and grow capital.Looking at tokenised finance, Tanwa urged the industry to invent genuinely new instruments rather than repackage old ones, and Yeo agreed that many token products offer little incremental benefit.
Stay updated on the crypto space by following our socials
