Building on a16z Crypto’s 2026 Vision: RWAs Infrastructure

Overview

Earlier today, a16zcrypto outlined one of its most critical ideas for 2026: the next phase of real-world assets (RWAs) will be defined not by basic tokenization but by crypto-native origination — assets that are born on-chain rather than wrapped from traditional systems. This approach presents an exciting and directionally accurate thesis but also raises a vital question: What infrastructure makes on-chain origination of RWAs scalable, safe, and composable?

Tokenization Isn’t Enough

In recent years, the rise of on-chain asset-backed lending has been significant. However, most of these loans still originate in traditional environments and are only tokenized for distribution on-chain. While this offers some distribution benefits, it does not solve issues like:

• Reducing costs
• Improving transparency
• Enhancing risk controls
• Enabling composability across DeFi

As guywuolletjr of a16z mentioned, debt assets should be originated on-chain, not tokenized from off-chain assets. Yet, doing this at scale presents challenges.

Why On-Chain Origination Breaks at Scale

The idea of originating real debt on-chain seems straightforward, but when attempting to scale at an institutional level, several issues arise:

• Bespoke Instruments: Without shared standards, every loan becomes unique, with custom terms, risk logic, and compliance assumptions.
• Fragmentation of Liquidity: DeFi markets cannot underwrite thousands of structurally different credit assets safely.
• Trust-Based Models: Relying on PDFs and attestations as the primary source of truth isn’t scalable, leading to liquidity fragmentation, opacity, and systemic fragility — all issues that have led to financial market failures before.

The Missing Layer: Enforced Truth

A well-functioning financial ecosystem requires a neutral layer that enforces truth, standardizes representations, and removes bilateral trust. Similar layers have existed in traditional finance:

• SWIFT for global payments
• DTCC for securities settlement
• CCPs for derivatives markets

On-chain credit lacks such a foundation, and origination cannot scale without a shared layer of real-time, machine-verifiable truth.

What a Real On-Chain Credit Standard Requires

To scale on-chain debt beyond isolated experiments, the following structural requirements must be met:

1. Standardized Collateral Representation: Debt instruments must collapse into a recognizable, interoperable form to prevent re-underwriting in downstream markets.
2. Enforced Reserves, Not Reported Reserves: Supply expansion must be constrained by provable backing, not delayed attestations.
3. Machine-Readable Solvency: Protocols should integrate a common solvency interface, rather than relying on bespoke risk logic.
4. Compliance at the Edges: Compliance should be handled externally, preserving composability while respecting institutional constraints.

These are not features — they are market infrastructure, the same kind adopted by every mature financial system.

AFI’s Role: The Truth Layer Beneath On-Chain Credit

AFI doesn't originate loans or compete with asset managers. Instead, AFI provides the Proof-of-Reserve and solvency enforcement layer that makes on-chain origination viable at scale. AFI:

• Standardizes collateral representation
• Ensures supply is capped by reserves
• Exposes solvency in a machine-readable format
• Removes issuer trust dependency

AFI provides the enforced truth layer that underpins on-chain credit, enabling institutions and DeFi protocols to integrate seamlessly, without bespoke underwriting or manual verification.

Our Genesis Partner: Multipli

The truth layer is only effective if the collateral entering the system is standardized. That’s why AFI’s first integration is with Multipli, a team addressing one of the biggest structural issues in RWAs: fragmentation.

Today, every issuer brings a different tokenized asset with varying liquidity, redemption mechanics, and risk models. DeFi cannot list thousands of heterogeneous RWAs safely, and institutions cannot justify bespoke integrations. Multipli solves this by introducing rwaUSD — a unified collateral layer backed by diversified real-world assets grouped by liquidity profiles. Liquid assets back rwaUSD, while slower-redeeming assets back rwaUSDi, creating predictable and institution-friendly collateral behavior.

AFI sits beneath this unified collateral layer, enforcing continuous solvency and real-time reserve verification, ensuring safety and stability.

The Bigger Picture

As global fixed income and private credit migrate on-chain, the addressable scale could reach $20–40 trillion. This level of capital cannot be supported by periodic attestations, one-off dashboards, or trust-heavy designs. It demands a continuously enforced proof layer, the same structural upgrade every major financial system has eventually adopted.

On-chain origination is inevitable, but its success depends on whether the ecosystem builds the infrastructure to support it. AFI V2 ensures that it can.