The language of tokenized finance, decoded.

Real-world asset

RWA

A financial or physical asset whose ownership, cash flows or economic exposure is represented or managed using blockchain infrastructure.

Example: Government bonds, private credit and funds can all be represented onchain.

Putting asset rights on blockchain rails

Tokenization

The process of representing ownership, claims or economic rights to an asset with blockchain-based records or tokens.

Recorded on a blockchain

Onchain

Activity whose transactions or ownership records are written to blockchain infrastructure rather than existing only in conventional databases.

Bank deposit represented as a token

Tokenized deposit

A digital representation of commercial bank money. Unlike a typical stablecoin, the claim remains a deposit liability of the issuing bank.

The final exchange of money and assets

Settlement

The stage when a financial transaction becomes final and the buyer receives the asset while the seller receives payment.

Official ownership-record administrator

Transfer agent

An entity responsible for maintaining investor ownership records and supporting transfers, issuance and other administrative functions for securities.

The network layer transactions run on

Blockchain rails

A shorthand for blockchain infrastructure used to issue, transfer, settle or record tokenized assets.

Loans made outside public bond markets

Private credit

Debt financing negotiated privately between borrowers and lenders or investment funds rather than issued as publicly traded bonds.

Fund focused on short-term liquid debt

Money market fund

A fund that invests in highly liquid short-term instruments such as government securities, cash and repurchase agreements.

Blockchain-based programmable logic

Smart contract

Code deployed on a blockchain that can execute predefined rules for transactions, assets or applications.