The Hong Kong Web3 Festival (April 20–23) is happening right now, and the mood feels very different from what we’ve seen lately.
One clear theme standing out is Real World Assets (RWA), projects that connect traditional finance with crypto yield products.
What I’m noticing is a divide in focus:
Western markets are still reacting to macro uncertainty
Asia seems more focused on yield and long-term infrastructure
On my radar are Pendle and Ondo Finance, as both are closely tied to the growing RWA and yield narrative being discussed here.
Ondo Finance is one of the leading RWA projects right now. It manages billions of dollars in assets (around $2B–$3B range) through products like tokenized U.S. Treasury exposure. This basically means it brings traditional finance products like government bonds into crypto form.
Pendle focuses more on yield, letting users trade and manage future earnings from crypto assets in a simple way. This connects well with the broader move toward on-chain yield products.
Hong Kong is increasingly positioning itself as a hub for regulated crypto and real-world asset tokenization, which is why these kinds of protocols are getting more attention in current discussions.