The Spark

On 13 September 2025, barely 48 hours after ringing the opening bell, Nasdaq’s freshly minted “RWA First-Stock” Figure found itself under a blinding spotlight. DeFiLlama founder 0xngmi publicly accused the company of inflating on-chain metrics to juice its IPO narrative: Figure boasted US$12 billion of tokenized real-world assets, yet verifiable crypto reserves (BTC, ETH, stablecoins) totaled only ~US$30 million and on-chain activity was virtually ghost-town quiet.

The A-List Debut

Before the data storm, Figure’s flotation had looked like the perfect marriage of crypto pizzazz and Wall Street discipline. Priced at US$25, the stock opened at US$36, settled at US$31.11 and handed the seven-year-old startup a US$6.8 billion market cap—more than double its 2021 private valuation.

Investors were buying the RWA story: put trillions of off-chain assets—mortgages, Treasuries, credit, art—on a blockchain, unlock liquidity, cut settlement friction. Figure’s sandbox is the US$10 trillion home-equity-loan market. Using its own chain, Provenance, it shrank approval time from 42 days to 5 and booked a US$29.1 million first-half profit on US$190.6 million revenue. Big-brand mortgage shops and banks lined up as clients. CEO Mike Cagney declared Figure “the largest on-chain real-asset player in public markets.”

The B-Side: A Rashomon of Numbers

The glitter fades when you open the blockchain. In DeFi, TVL (“total value locked”) is sacred because anyone can audit the smart contracts. RWA is different: loans live in bank databases; the chain only holds tokenized IOUs. Figure’s internal ledger claims US$12 billion; DeFiLlama’s crawler sees at most US$140 million.

The spat went public when Cagney pre-emptively tweeted that DeFiLlama ignored Figure’s HELOC tokens for “lack of followers.” 0xngmi replied with a forensic thread: on-chain BTC + ETH < US$9 million, proprietary stablecoin YLDS only US$20 million, almost zero payment volume, most transfers driven by Figure-controlled wallets. In short, the gargantuan TVL could be an internal database mirror, not user-deposited, freely verifiable collateral. Anonymous sleuth ZachXBT piled on, warning that unverifiable RWA metrics risk becoming a “black-box marketing weapon.”

The Larger Collision

Figure’s drama is a case study in the pile-up between TradFi diligence and Crypto disclosure. This September saw the busiest US IPO week of 2025: Gemini’s space-station-themed listing was 20× oversubscribed; Klarna’s BNPL offering priced above range. With crypto-friendly legislation passed and regulators leaning toward clarity, capital is flooding into Web3 operating companies.

But old-school investors schooled in cash-flow models now must parse wallet addresses, token supplies and cross-chain bridges. Conversely, crypto natives who once prized anonymity must stomach quarterly filings and reconciliation audits. Figure’s Rashomon moment will not decide merely one company’s credibility; it will set the template for how on-chain claims are verified, how RWA is audited, and whether the next wave of Web3 listings earns lasting trust—or merely another headline.

The Spark

On 13 September 2025, barely 48 hours after ringing the opening bell, Nasdaq’s freshly minted “RWA First-Stock” Figure found itself under a blinding spotlight. DeFiLlama founder 0xngmi publicly accused the company of inflating on-chain metrics to juice its IPO narrative: Figure boasted US$12 billion of tokenized real-world assets, yet verifiable crypto reserves (BTC, ETH, stablecoins) totaled only ~US$30 million and on-chain activity was virtually ghost-town quiet.

The A-List Debut

Before the data storm, Figure’s flotation had looked like the perfect marriage of crypto pizzazz and Wall Street discipline. Priced at US$25, the stock opened at US$36, settled at US$31.11 and handed the seven-year-old startup a US$6.8 billion market cap—more than double its 2021 private valuation.

Investors were buying the RWA story: put trillions of off-chain assets—mortgages, Treasuries, credit, art—on a blockchain, unlock liquidity, cut settlement friction. Figure’s sandbox is the US$10 trillion home-equity-loan market. Using its own chain, Provenance, it shrank approval time from 42 days to 5 and booked a US$29.1 million first-half profit on US$190.6 million revenue. Big-brand mortgage shops and banks lined up as clients. CEO Mike Cagney declared Figure “the largest on-chain real-asset player in public markets.”

The B-Side: A Rashomon of Numbers

The glitter fades when you open the blockchain. In DeFi, TVL (“total value locked”) is sacred because anyone can audit the smart contracts. RWA is different: loans live in bank databases; the chain only holds tokenized IOUs. Figure’s internal ledger claims US$12 billion; DeFiLlama’s crawler sees at most US$140 million.

The spat went public when Cagney pre-emptively tweeted that DeFiLlama ignored Figure’s HELOC tokens for “lack of followers.” 0xngmi replied with a forensic thread: on-chain BTC + ETH < US$9 million, proprietary stablecoin YLDS only US$20 million, almost zero payment volume, most transfers driven by Figure-controlled wallets. In short, the gargantuan TVL could be an internal database mirror, not user-deposited, freely verifiable collateral. Anonymous sleuth ZachXBT piled on, warning that unverifiable RWA metrics risk becoming a “black-box marketing weapon.”

The Larger Collision

Figure’s drama is a case study in the pile-up between TradFi diligence and Crypto disclosure. This September saw the busiest US IPO week of 2025: Gemini’s space-station-themed listing was 20× oversubscribed; Klarna’s BNPL offering priced above range. With crypto-friendly legislation passed and regulators leaning toward clarity, capital is flooding into Web3 operating companies.

But old-school investors schooled in cash-flow models now must parse wallet addresses, token supplies and cross-chain bridges. Conversely, crypto natives who once prized anonymity must stomach quarterly filings and reconciliation audits. Figure’s Rashomon moment will not decide merely one company’s credibility; it will set the template for how on-chain claims are verified, how RWA is audited, and whether the next wave of Web3 listings earns lasting trust—or merely another headline.