Oracles and Custody

RWAs depend on off-chain truth — the asset exists, custody is secure, payments were received. Oracles and custodians bridge the physical world to smart contracts; trust does not disappear, it relocates to qualified third parties.

Qualified custodians hold physical assets or fund shares. Issuers must match token supply to custodied assets through regular attestations and audits. Failure mode: tokens without backing — the RWA version of unbacked stablecoins.

Chainlink Proof of Reserve, manual NAV updates, and fund administrator APIs publish values on chain. Stale or manipulated feeds misprice tokens and break DeFi integrations that rely on accurate collateral pricing.