[DigitalToday reporter Jinju Hong] Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky (브라이언 체스키) cited "trust" rather than "technology" as the key competitive strength in the real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation market. The market is growing fast, but he said the platforms that ultimately attract regulated capital and users will be those that prove the underlying assets are real, are operated properly and can be redeemed.

On July 14 (local time), major foreign media outlets including blockchain media U.Today and Cryptopolitan reported that Chesky said in a recent public thread on X, formerly Twitter, that he has watched the RWA tokenisation market for a long time. "Most of it is close to noise, but underneath it something real is happening," he said.

Chesky said discussions of tokenisation focus too much on blockchain technology or tokens themselves. What he focused on was not technology but a "change in the way ownership works". He said that if an environment is created where people can buy and sell portions of buildings, bonds and funds as easily as sending a message, ownership would become not a privilege for some people but a basic right accessible to anyone.

RWA is a method of issuing traditional financial assets such as real estate, U.S. Treasuries, private credit and funds as blockchain-based digital tokens. Investors can hold partial stakes without buying an entire asset, and can expect greater efficiency than traditional financial markets, including 24-hour trading, faster settlement and expanded cross-border investment access.

Chesky stressed that the market will not succeed on those advantages alone. He cited Airbnb's early days, saying the reason a service that lets strangers rent homes from each other was possible was trust in the platform. He said tokenised assets also need confidence that the underlying assets actually exist, are managed properly, and can be redeemed normally when investors want to cash out for the market to grow.

He said "global, divisible and instant ownership" will become a new standard, but added that "in the end, trust will separate winners from debris".

The market is expanding rapidly. Reports said the size of tokenised real-world assets has risen about 44 percent, to about $65 billion from about $45 billion at the start of the year. Ethereum has established itself as key infrastructure, accounting for about one-third of the RWA market.

Figures vary by data provider, but the growth trend is commonly confirmed. RWA.xyz put the size of tokenised real-world linked assets at $34.08 billion as of mid-July, with the number of holders surpassing 1 million. BlackRock's tokenised U.S. Treasury fund, BUIDL, has also grown to about $2.87 billion across multiple blockchain networks, leading expansion of an institution-led market.

Institutional investors are also expanding their interest. Bybit's head of traditional finance and global RWA, Yoi Wang (요이 왕), said at a recent LEAP East 2026 event that institutions are no longer at the stage of doubting whether blockchains work, but are evaluating how much they can trust the infrastructure. He said regulatory clarity, stable infrastructure and cooperation with financial institutions are key factors that will determine platforms able to attract institutional money over the long term.

Chesky did not make specific comments about Airbnb entering the RWA business or any cryptocurrency-related plans. He said tokenisation has the potential to fundamentally change how assets are owned and transferred, just as the internet changed how information moves. He concluded that the RWA market's outcome depends not on flashy technology demonstrations but on how reliably asset verification, operating systems and redemption structures are built.

Separately, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (창펑 자오) has urged governments to move stock markets onto blockchains. Changpeng Zhao said tokenised stocks could enable 24-hour trading, faster settlement and fractional ownership. In this trend, the key question in the RWA market is increasingly who can first secure a trust structure capable of receiving regulated capital, rather than a simple race to issue assets.