What Are Real-World Asset Tokens? What Backs Them, Who Checks, and Who Can Buy

A real-world asset token is a digital record of something that lives off the blockchain. The thing might be shares in a fund, a share of stock, a loan, or a bar of gold. The token moves on a blockchain. The asset stays where it is.

Issuers call this tokenization. The word is new, but the questions are old. What a holder owns depends on the promise behind the token. The issuer’s documents set out that promise.

Tokenized Wire asks the same four questions of every asset we cover:

1. What backs it? What does the issuer say sits behind each token?
2. Who holds the backing? Which firm has custody, meaning it holds the asset on the owners’ behalf?
3. Who checks it? Who, outside the issuer, reports that the backing is really there?
4. Who can buy or redeem it? To redeem means handing the token back to the issuer for cash or the asset.

Below, we walk those questions through named examples from the issuers’ own documents. A tokenized Treasury fund and a tokenized stock get the full treatment. Private credit and gold get shorter notes. The fourth question gets the most room. It is where these products differ most.

First, three legal terms

US securities law limits who may buy many of these tokens. Three terms come up again and again.

• Accredited investor. The SEC says a person qualifies with a net worth over $1 million, alone or with a spouse or partner, not counting their home. An income over $200,000 in each of the last two years also counts, or $300,000 with a spouse or partner, if they reasonably expect the same this year. Some licensed finance professionals qualify too.
• Qualified purchaser. A higher bar, set in the Investment Company Act. A person must own at least $5 million in investments. A company generally needs $25 million, with some exceptions for family companies. The SEC says private funds that rely on section 3(c)(7) of that law are limited to qualified purchasers.
• US person. A legal term from SEC rules, in Rule 902 of Regulation S. Issuers use it to keep a token away from US buyers. Each issuer’s terms say exactly whom it covers. Some go further, as you will see with xStocks below.

Tokenized Treasury and money-market funds

Most of these tokens stand for shares in a fund that holds short-term US government debt.

Our example: Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX). Its prospectus also calls the fund’s shares BENJI tokens.

What backs it? The fund’s prospectus is dated August 1, 2026. It says the fund invests at least 99.5% of its assets in government securities, cash, and repurchase agreements backed by them. A repurchase agreement is a very short loan secured by those securities. The fund intends to be a government money market fund under US rules. It tries to keep its share price at $1.00, but it says it cannot guarantee that. It is not insured by the FDIC. The fund reported net assets of about $844 million on March 31, 2026.

Who holds the backing? JPMorgan Chase Bank is custodian of the fund’s assets, according to its statement of additional information. The token records are kept by someone else. The fund’s transfer agent, Franklin Templeton Investor Services, keeps the official record of who owns shares. The prospectus says shares on its blockchain system are “under the unilateral control of the transfer agent.” The agent can correct errors and limit transfers. For wallets it hosts, it also holds the private keys, the secret codes that move a wallet’s tokens.

Who checks it? PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, an independent accounting firm, audits the fund’s financial statements. Those statements are filed with the SEC. That is an audit of the fund’s books, not a one-day reserve check. We explain the difference in Attestation, Audit, or Proof of Reserves.

Who can buy or redeem? Of the five products this primer walks through, it is the only one sold to US residents without a wealth test. The prospectus says Franklin Templeton funds are “intended for sale to residents of the United States.” Individuals buy through Franklin Templeton’s Benji app. Institutions use a web portal. The minimum first purchase depends on the blockchain your wallet uses:

• $20 on Stellar
• $100 on Aptos, Base, or Solana
• $1,000 on Polygon or Arbitrum
• $20,000 on Avalanche
• $5,000,000 on Ethereum

The prospectus says most investors will start on Stellar. Other networks need Franklin’s approval, and the fund may change these minimums without notice.

The fund is not offered in Canada, the EU, or the wider European Economic Area. It does not take IRAs or workplace retirement plans. Only wallets that the transfer agent created or approved may hold shares. Shares can pass between two such approved wallets. The prospectus says the fund has no current agreement for its shares to trade on a secondary market. Redemptions go through the app or portal. The fund pays them to your bank account by electronic transfer, within seven days of a proper request.

Same category, very different doors

Three other tokens tied to short-term Treasuries show how much the fourth answer can vary. Two are interests in funds. The third, USDY, is a note.

Ondo OUSG. The issuer is Ondo I LP, a Delaware limited partnership. Ondo says OUSG is “available solely to persons who are accredited investors” and who are also qualified purchasers. Its eligibility page says you must pass both tests. The minimum is $5,000 for instant purchases and redemptions in stablecoins, subject to daily limits. Otherwise it is $100,000 to invest and $50,000 to redeem. Ondo says OUSG tokens may be freely transferred between investors who have already passed its onboarding.

OUSG also shows that a token can be backed by other tokens. Ondo’s portfolio table, dated October 16, 2026, showed about $320 million in underlying assets for the tokenized shares. About 47% sat in a State Street Galaxy fund, 32% in BlackRock’s BUIDL, and 12% in Franklin’s BENJI. The FAQ on the same page says the “significant majority” is in BUIDL. The table and the FAQ do not match. We report both as we found them.

Ondo says a fund administrator, NAV Consulting, has read-only access to the fund’s accounts each day. Ondo publishes the administrator’s reports, which can lag up to three days. It says the fund is audited every year, with results given to investors. The OUSG pages we read do not name the audit firm.

BlackRock BUIDL. The BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund is a company formed in the British Virgin Islands in 2023. Its Form D, a short notice of a private offering filed with the SEC, was last amended in July 2026. The filing itself says the SEC has not necessarily reviewed it. The notice claims exemptions under Rule 506(c) and section 3(c)(7), so buyers must be qualified purchasers. It lists a minimum of $100,000 for any outside investor.

The notice names Securitize Markets as the firm that receives sales compensation. Securitize’s website lists BUIDL with a $5 million minimum and “Qualified Purchaser” as the investor type. Securitize’s page says “Access to this offering is limited,” and offers documents on request.

BlackRock’s own launch announcement, dated March 20, 2024, answers more. It said the fund invests 100% of its total assets in cash, US Treasury bills, and repurchase agreements. It named Bank of New York Mellon as custodian and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as auditor for the period ending December 31, 2024. It said investors could transfer their tokens to other pre-approved investors. It also set a $5 million initial minimum, the same figure Securitize lists today. The July 2026 SEC notice says $100,000. The figures differ, and we report both. We could not read a current offering document to confirm the 2024 terms still apply.

Ondo USDY. This one is closed to US persons, as Regulation S defines them, and to anyone placing orders from inside the United States. Ondo says they may not subscribe for, acquire, or redeem it. Its prohibited list also names the United States and Canada. In the UK, the European Economic Area, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, and a few other places, only professional, qualified, or similar investors may buy.

The issuer is Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited. Ondo says USDY used to be issued by Ondo USDY LLC. Unlike the fund shares above, USDY is a tokenized note. Ondo says that, depending on when a token was issued, it may be secured by short-term US Treasuries, shares of the iShares Short Treasury Bond ETF, or bank demand deposits. Ondo also says USDY tokens “are not themselves US treasuries.” They give economic exposure to short-term Treasuries, it says, but no right to hold or receive them.

Tokenized stocks

These tokens track the price of a listed share or fund.

Our example: xStocks, issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited. It is a Jersey company registered with the Jersey Financial Services Commission.

What backs it? Each xStock tracks one stock or exchange-traded fund. The issuer says each token is backed 1:1 by the real share or fund unit. Legally, the token is a tracker certificate, a kind of debt instrument. You get the price exposure, not the share itself. The xStocks documentation says the token “does not confer shareholder voting rights.” Dividends are reinvested after taxes, through an adjustment to token balances.

Who holds the backing? “Regulated custodians and brokers,” in separate accounts for each product, the documentation says. It does not name them. A three-party agreement links the issuer, the custodian, and an independent security agent. If the issuer defaults, the documentation says, the security agent can take over the accounts and sell the shares. It then pays token holders under the prospectus terms.

Who checks it? xStocks says proof of reserves is publicly available on its own website. The xStocks documentation we read names no accounting firm that reports on the reserves. The only audit it mentions is of the smart contracts, the code that runs the tokens.

Who can buy or redeem? Not Americans. The documentation says xStocks are “not marketed, offered, or solicited in the United States” or to US persons. When we opened Backed’s legal-documents page from the US, it showed an access-restricted notice instead. That notice says Backed’s products are prohibited for US citizens, US residents, and anyone otherwise taxable in the US. So we could not read the prospectus itself.

In the European Economic Area, licensed distributors may sell xStocks to retail investors. That rests on a base prospectus approved by Liechtenstein’s Financial Market Authority, the documentation says. Unlike the fund tokens above, xStocks move freely between wallets and exchanges. On exchanges, the issuer sets no minimum. Dealing with the issuer directly takes identity checks and at least $5,000 per transaction. The issuer says retail users may redeem with it on those terms. It adds that most users go to secondary markets instead.

Private credit

Private credit means loans that are not traded on public markets. We looked for one private-credit token to walk through. In our checks today, we did not find one whose issuer publishes enough to answer all four questions. So we name none as our example.

Securitize’s fund list shows the pattern for credit funds. It lists the Securitize Tokenized Apollo Diversified Credit Fund for accredited investors, with a $50,000 minimum. It lists the Hamilton Lane Senior Credit Opportunities Securitize Fund for qualified purchasers, with a $10,000 minimum. The Apollo fund’s page showed a minimum and a fund size, but no offering documents. We will add an example when we can read a full one.

Gold

Gold tokens stand for metal in a vault. We cover them in depth in What Is Tokenized Gold? and PAXG vs. XAUT. The same four questions apply, and the answers differ just as much.

Who can buy: the short version

Token	Issuer	Who the issuer says may buy	Minimum, per the issuer side
FOBXX (BENJI)	Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, a series of Franklin Templeton Trust	US residents, individuals and institutions. Not Canada, the EU, or the EEA.	$20 on Stellar, up to $5 million on Ethereum
OUSG	Ondo I LP	Accredited investors who are also qualified purchasers	$5,000 instant; $100,000 otherwise
BUIDL	BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund Ltd.	Qualified purchasers	$100,000 in its SEC notice; $5 million on Securitize’s site
USDY	Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited	Non-US persons only; professional or qualified investors in the UK, EEA, and some other places	$5,000 to mint or redeem on some networks; see Ondo’s terms for others
xStocks	Backed Assets (JE) Limited	Not US persons; retail in the EEA through licensed distributors	None from the issuer on exchanges; $5,000 to deal with the issuer

Eligibility and minimums change. Check the issuer’s current documents before you rely on this table.

Eight things to check about any real-world asset token

1. What is it, legally? A fund share, a note, a certificate? That decides what you own if something goes wrong.
2. What backs it, in the documents? Look for a prospectus, terms, or an SEC filing, not only a marketing page.
3. Who holds the backing? Look for a named custodian.
4. Who checks it, and how? An audit of the whole entity, a reserve report, or a page the issuer runs itself?
5. Are you allowed to buy it? Find the investor test: anyone, accredited, qualified purchaser, or non-US only.
6. Can you redeem, and from what size? In one fund above, minimums run from $20 to $5 million.
7. Can the token move freely? Some can sit only in wallets the issuer or its agent approved.
8. Do the issuer’s own pages agree? If two say different things, ask which one is binding.

Where an issuer’s public documents do not answer one of these questions, we say so in our coverage.

We did not open an account, test a purchase, or test a redemption with any issuer named here. This article explains how these products work. It is not advice to buy, hold, or sell any of them.