Debate: Is Ethereum Ready for Real World Assets? | Omid Malekan vs Austin Campbell (Crypto Professors)

Bankless

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Tech News, News, Technology

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2025

⏱️ 90 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Austin Campbell (NYU) and Omid Malekan (Columbia) debate a simple question: is Ethereum ready to host real-world assets? They walk through stress tests—what if an exchange is hacked, a stablecoin breaks, or a court order targets the chain—and whether the network should ever step in. You’ll hear where they agree and disagree, what protections are realistic today, and what still needs to be built before RWAs can scale. ------ 📣RONIN “ONCHAIN NINTENDO” | DOWNLOAD THE RONIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/RoninWallet ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAX | SELF SUFFICIENT DeFi https://bankless.cc/Frax 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🎩DEGEN | JOIN THE COMMUNITY https://bankless.cc/degen ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 6:13 Twitter Debate Genesis 8:58 Bybit Hack 17:56 Crypto vs RWA Immutability 29:29 Ethereum Validator Intervention 33:11 Dealing with Multiple Jurisdictions 52:23 Credible Neutrality for a Multipolar World 1:00:32 Blockchain Use Cases 1:13:40 Consortium Chains 1:24:57 Closing Arguments ------ RESOURCES Omid Malekan https://x.com/malekanoms https://www.omidmalekan.com/ Austin Campbell https://x.com/campbelljaustin https://zero-in.beehiiv.com/ ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Transcript

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0:00.0	the people, the users, the assets, the companies who issue those assets, and the governments
0:05.5	who regulate those companies will find themselves on a decentralized network because it's
0:11.9	the worst option except for every other one. And I think ultimately decentralization will
0:16.9	win by the fault. Austin. I don't think we could ever get away from the real world or the constraints of the real world
0:24.2	and humans are going to human.
0:26.1	I think as a result, if we want to bring the majority of real assets on chain,
0:30.3	we're going to be forced to acknowledge that reality.
0:32.9	But I think the value of decentralized store of value systems is by providing people an opt-out.
0:41.5	Welcome to bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance.
0:46.1	This is Ryan Sean Adams. I'm your only host today, David's out. So I'm here to help you become
0:50.8	more bankless. We have a debate episode today. I always love these. The debate is on
0:57.5	the question of, is Ethereum ready for real world assets? Got two professors. I'm going to tell you
1:04.4	first what they share in common because I think that's interesting. They are both previous
1:08.0	bankless guests. They are both crypto advocates. And they are both
1:12.6	longtime friends and also coworkers. So why is there a debate? Why is there daylight between these
1:19.2	two guests? Well, Austin, on the one hand, doesn't think Ethereum is a good home for real-world
1:25.0	assets like stable coins and tokenized equities and all of the things
1:28.3	we expect to come on chain. He thinks the attributes that make Ethereum decentralized,
1:32.8	things like immutability, the element of code is law. These aren't so much features for real world
1:38.5	assets. They're bugs, and he simply doesn't think Ethereum is the right architectural fit.
1:45.1	Omead, on the other hand,
1:50.9	thinks that the decentralization and the neutrality of Ethereum are exactly why the largest financial powers in the world are selecting and will select Ethereum. These are the institutions,
	...

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