Changpeng Zhao’s earlier online remark that 「IPOs will move on chain」 sparked debate when it first circulated. In a commentary published by Foresight, the author says the line initially did not feel especially striking. Read narrowly, it suggested only that future stock IPOs might take place partly on blockchain in addition to traditional centralized markets. In that case, the model would not differ much from today’s stock token trading, where part of an offline business is mirrored on-chain and activity continues in both places.
That reading changed after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission introduced an exemption rule last week. The article says the full effect of the SEC move may not yet be visible, but the combination of three elements could matter more than the market’s older, more limited understanding of real-world assets: room for stocks to trade on decentralized exchanges, room for market makers to provide liquidity, and a path for actual equities to trade fully on-chain.
RWA as more than an extra trading venue
The commentary says its earlier view of RWA was fairly conventional. In that framework, RWA meant an extension of offline business and trading structures onto blockchain. Assets that could already trade offline would simply gain one more venue on-chain.
The author argues that this framing leaves RWA with limited significance. The central question is straightforward: if these assets can already be traded conveniently offline, why move them on-chain at all? If the answer is only speculation, or only meme-coin style trading behavior, the case remains weak.
A historical parallel: from paper certificates to electronic markets
The article then turns to stock market history. In the early days, shares existed as paper certificates, and ownership was proven by holding the physical document. The author notes that even in China, where the stock market resumed in the 1990s, early issuance still relied on paper shares.
That changed quickly. Roughly two decades later, investors no longer need paper stock certificates. The article attributes that shift to the rise of electronic trading systems and the internet, which naturally displaced paper-based ownership records.
At the beginning of that transition, paper still had clear advantages. Electronic systems were less developed and more prone to failure, so investors often felt safer with a physical certificate in hand. But rapid technological progress erased that gap, and physical stock certificates were phased out as equities moved into fully electronic trading.
Could equities move one step further, onto blockchain?
From there, the commentary asks whether traditional stock trading systems could one day be displaced in the same way and replaced by fully on-chain markets. The author says that outcome is entirely possible.
The piece lists several features of on-chain trading that, in its view, give it an edge over traditional centralized systems:
- On-chain markets can run around the clock without the heavy maintenance costs associated with centralized infrastructure.
- Blockchain-based trading offers native ownership verification for tokens, especially ERC-20 tokens, with greater efficiency than the more cumbersome processes used by centralized exchanges.
- On-chain markets are global and can support trading pairs across arbitrary assets, expanding both product variety and liquidity.
According to the article, these are either difficult for traditional centralized exchanges to achieve or expensive to replicate, while blockchain systems have them by design.
The author does acknowledge that on-chain trading still faces technical and user-experience problems. Even so, the piece argues that those issues can be resolved as the technology improves, much as electronic systems eventually replaced paper stock certificates.
Two conditions: regulation and technical readiness
In the author’s view, the version of RWA with real long-term potential is not a partial on-chain IPO process, nor a simple blockchain mirror of offline stock trading. The larger scenario would be one in which all stock trading follows the same path that electronic systems once took against paper certificates and eventually displaces traditional centralized exchanges.
The article says that outcome depends on two conditions: regulators must allow it, and the technology must be mature enough to support it.
On the technical side, the author argues that Ethereum already has the capacity to carry this kind of activity and is still scaling and iterating, which should make the technical side less of a constraint over time. That leaves regulation as the decisive factor.
The commentary says that before the SEC exemption rule, such a permissive setup looked almost unimaginable. Now, the author writes, it has at least come into view. The piece also says Donald Trump still has time left in office and argues that this administration’s direction and confidence in promoting the crypto ecosystem will not change.
Based on that view, the article says the door to U.S. regulation will only open wider, and that there are no longer major obstacles to a future in which stock trading moves fully on-chain and traditional centralized exchanges are displaced.
The commentary ends by arguing that if such a scenario is realized, RWA could genuinely change how people trade and how markets function. The original article also includes a disclaimer stating that markets involve risk, the piece does not constitute investment advice, and readers should assess whether any opinion or conclusion fits their own circumstances before making investment decisions.
