RWAiFi Summit 2025 successfully concluded in Dubai, discussing the future of AI, RWA, and Decentralized Finance.

The RWAiFi Summit 2025 was successfully held on April 30 during Token2049 in Dubai. The summit attracted over 1,900 registrants and more than 400 attendees, gathering 17 top projects including OpenLedger, Sahara AI, Aethir, Solv, Kite AI, Lagrange, Symbiotic, OpenEden, Maple Finance, Mind Network, ICN Protocol, Tranchess, Balloon, and others. Several well-known investment institutions such as Hack VC, Spartan Group, Animoca Brands, MH Ventures, Bullish, CMCC Global, and L2 Iterative Ventures also participated. Attendees included numerous global AI experts and financial innovators who discussed the future development directions of AI, RWA, and Decentralized Finance.

Event Highlights

This summit set up 4 core roundtable discussions to explore in-depth topics at the forefront of the industry. Below are some insightful views and insights from the guests:

Round Table Discussion 1: AiFi: On-chain Finance and Real Returns

Host: Keira (MH Venture Portfolio Manager)

Guest Opinions:

• Kony pointed out that in the era of AI, the real profits mainly flow to underlying computing power assets, such as cloud service providers and data centers. Ordinary investors find it difficult to participate directly and can usually only get involved indirectly by purchasing stocks of related companies. They are promoting the financialization and tokenization of such computing assets, allowing investors to participate directly and share in the profits.

• Kartik stated that they are building a computing power market based on computing resources as collateral. The actual revenue generated from users renting GPUs will be distributed proportionally to the participants. This mechanism is based on real customers and transactions, inherently possessing the attribute of "real yield," providing sustainable and low-cost support for projects that require economic security.

• Felix emphasized that "composability" is the key for crypto systems to surpass traditional centralized models. Through modular financial and incentive components, they facilitate the free combination of new types of assets and protocols, aiding the efficient collaboration and accelerated implementation of RWA and computational resources in the Web3 ecosystem.

• Seb pointed out that they are building a key bridge connecting Web2 and Web3, establishing a "pay-per-use" mechanism to ensure that every party in the ecosystem participates based on real demand, thereby forming a sustainable computing power network driven by enterprise clients with an on-chain revenue closed loop.

Roundtable Discussion 2: Unlocking RWA Value: The Path to Innovation for On-Chain Assets

Host: Johanna (IDG Capital Web3 Investment)

Guest Opinion:

• Jeremy stated that they have launched a stable asset backed by U.S. Treasury yields, with plans to further expand to emerging market users and to provide access for crypto wallets to high-quality dollar assets.

• Jing pointed out that now is the best time to engage in RWA. Global regulation is in a crucial framework formation period, and the industry should actively participate in shaping the financial rules for the next five to ten years. Product and market demand have fully matured, and a product they recently launched even received Sharia compliance certification in Saudi Arabia, demonstrating the localization capability and real user appeal of RWA products in regional markets.

• Jack emphasized that now is the golden period for bringing various new assets onto the blockchain. As the position of the crypto market in the global financial system becomes increasingly solid, more and more "non-technical" financial professionals hope to leverage crypto technology to drive asset innovation. He hopes that the future of the crypto market can transform into a "democratized capital market", promoting the integration of public and private markets and breaking down investment barriers.

Roundtable Discussion 3: Decentralized Finance Liquidity and RWA Value: New Opportunities in On-Chain Finance

Host: Lionel Pek (Spartan Group Executive Director)

Guest Opinions:

• Ivan pointed out that compared to traditional markets, the "capital usage cost" in DeFi is more flexible. From the perspective of ETH, users earn additional returns through staking; from the perspective of USD, one must consider the capital volatility brought about by the fluctuations of ETH itself. To this end, they support stablecoins as pre-stored assets to help users hedge against ETH volatility risks, thereby reducing overall capital costs.

• Martin calls on the industry to promote a unified risk control and asset pricing system, and supports cross-asset, cross-chain combination collateral and liquidity mechanisms (cross-margining) to drive the capital release and scalability of RWA.

• Omar emphasized that DeFi liquidity can essentially be viewed as a "new form of venture capital" that can activate underlying assets with high potential that have not yet been fully discovered and financed. Through DeFi, small amounts of capital can be quickly mobilized to activate application scenarios such as market making and warehousing leasing, while also reducing the overall capital volatility of the industry.

Roundtable Discussion 4: AI Ecology: Building a True Future Foundation

Host: Mackenzie (Animoca Brands Portfolio Manager)

Guest Opinion:

• Katerina stated that they focus on addressing the issue of large centralized companies dominating the current AI industry, where data contributors lack compensation. They aim to break the status quo of "silent contribution," allowing developers, small teams, and individual users to participate fairly in the value distribution of the AI lifecycle, promoting a more open and equitable AI economy.

• Lei Lei pointed out that blockchain and smart contracts can introduce governance and audit mechanisms for AI systems, such as Service Level Agreements (SLA), scoring mechanisms, dispute resolution processes, and even explore "insurance and punishment mechanisms" based on behavioral performance. These mechanisms will make the behavior of AI agents more controllable, trackable, and verifiable, while emphasizing the importance of privacy protection and the need to find a balance between the verifiability of model training data and user privacy.

• Christian emphasized that blockchain inherently possesses the advantages of "open participation" and "economic accessibility," allowing individual users or non-institutional investors to participate in AI-related protocols and projects earlier, and to share in the economic dividends brought about by technological growth. Unlike traditional AI giants, Web3 projects have achieved fairer investment opportunities through on-chain issuance.

As global discussions around RWA, AI, and Decentralized Finance heat up, the RWAiFi Summit 2025 has become an important platform for promoting AI innovation. This event once again highlights the industry's commitment to integrating cutting-edge technologies to unlock the future of decentralized finance.