RWA risks, regulation, and strategy

• Issuer and custodian risk — the token has value only because the issuer (the company that created it) and the custodian (whoever holds the asset) genuinely hold the real asset 1:1; if the issuer goes bankrupt, you are not a shareholder but an unsecured creditor in line (you may recover part, cents, or nothing) → check the issuer's reliability and don't put everything with one issuer. This is the most fundamental risk: no amount of code quality helps if the promised backing simply is not there.
• Smart contract risk — for a tokenized stock to earn, it's placed in DeFiDeFiDecentralized Finance — financial services without intermediaries, operating through smart contracts.Read the lesson → protocols, Kamino SOL or Raydium SOL, and those are programs that can be hacked (remember Module 2 — code bugs, oracle manipulation, exploits); a real share held at a broker has no such layer → you only use audited, more mature protocols.
• Peg / depeg risk — the token price should track the real asset, but especially on weekends (when the real exchange is closed) or in thin pools, it can drift, so what looks like one value on paper might sell for another in reality → you trade in deep pools and check the price before a trade.
• Liquidation risk — if you post an RWARWAReal World Assets — real-world assets (stocks, bonds, treasuries) represented as blockchain tokens.Read the lesson → token as collateral and borrow against it (Module 3), a price drop can get you liquidated (your collateral forcibly sold), which is especially dangerous because crypto markets run 24/7 while the real stock exchange sleeps on weekends → you keep a low LTVLTVLoan-to-Value — the ratio of debt to collateral value. LTV 30% is considered safe. LTV 71%+ triggers liquidation.Read the lesson → with a buffer, or don't borrow against RWARWAReal World Assets — real-world assets (stocks, bonds, treasuries) represented as blockchain tokens.Read the lesson → collateral at all.
• Regulatory risk — in 2026 the US regulator, the SEC, made its position clear: tokenized securities follow the same rules as ordinary securities; the SEC paused plans for separate exemptions for tokenized stocks and is tightening oversight, warning about counterparty, operational, and insolvency risk, and in Europe crypto-assets are regulated by MiCA, but tokenized securities are generally treated as financial instruments and fall under MiFID II, not MiCAMiCAThe EU crypto-asset regulation (Markets in Crypto-Assets).Read the lesson → alone → follow the regulation and have an exit plan; the rules change fast, so check the current status in your own country yourself (the product can change or become unavailable).
• No SIPC protection — a traditional US brokerage account is partly covered by SIPC protection (if the broker fails), while tokenized stocks have no such protection, and in a bankruptcy you remain a creditor in line → treat this as part of the price and only hold what you can calmly afford to lose.
• Liquidity gaps — pools for less popular stock tokens tend to be thin (low liquidity); sell a larger position and the price drops out from under you (large price impact) → choose deep pools and a small size.

Every layer has a lever. Don't fear it — learn to see it and control it.