I recently read a very interesting analysis by Mike Cagney, CEO of Figure Technologies, about a common misconception in the crypto community right now.

What does it mean? When giant financial companies like Visa, JPMorgan, Nasdaq are entering blockchain one after another, people think it's a sign of widespread adoption. But Cagney points out a sharp insight: if there are no actual fees, then real assets (RWA) on public blockchains are basically meaningless.

This is something many people overlook. They look at figures like TVL — that is, the total value locked in protocols — without considering whether it actually generates profits for token holders. What is TVL if it doesn’t generate fees? That’s the key question.

According to Cagney, the true value of tokens comes from three sources: yields (from network fees), real utility (reducing costs, better access), and governance rights. If there’s only activity without fees, then it’s just empty numbers.

There’s an interesting structural contradiction I see: if public blockchains truly replace companies like Visa or DTCC, why do they support them? Because they know they will pay very low or almost no fees. They keep their existing infrastructure, costs remain low, and blockchains don’t benefit from it.

Instead of simply moving part of the traditional system on-chain, blockchains need to completely replace old intermediaries. That’s the real way to create value.

On the stablecoin and payments side, Cagney believes that when combined with biometric wallets and multi-party computation, they can significantly reduce fraud. No more centralized card numbers, no more sensitive data stored in one place. Payments with stablecoins work like digital cash — settled instantly, non-reversible, without complex fraud prevention systems like current card networks.

For example, Provenance blockchain with the token HASH is a network focused on generating fees rather than just increasing TVL, limiting token issuance, and providing both utility and governance rights to holders.

Overall, the bigger issue is: RWA isn’t successful just because traditional financial companies are participating in blockchain. It succeeds when blockchain builds entirely new networks that replace old intermediaries, not just support them. That’s the real difference.