From IPO frenzy to data mystery, what happened to Figure, the "first RWA stock"?

Written by: Frank, MyStonks Research Institute

On September 13, 2025, a storm of skepticism regarding data authenticity hit Figure, the "first RWA stock," just two days after its NASDAQ debut.

0xngmi, the founder of the crypto data dashboard DeFiLlama, publicly pointed out that Figure's on-chain asset data and trading volume were severely inconsistent, allegedly exaggerating metrics for its IPO: it claimed to have issued $12 billion in on-chain RWA, but the verifiable reserves of BTC, ETH, and stablecoins amounted to only about $30 million, with almost no real trading activity visible on-chain.

A series of doubts not only pushed Figure's constructed $10 billion RWA empire into the spotlight but also raised a core question that Wall Street must confront: How can an effective due diligence and verification system be established to penetrate the increasingly emerging on-chain narratives of Web3 companies flooding into the capital markets?

The Highlight Moment of the "First RWA Stock"

Before the storm of skepticism about data authenticity erupted, Figure's IPO was a highlight moment for the integration of crypto assets and traditional finance.

On September 11, Eastern Time, Figure, as a leader in the RWA sector, rang the bell on NASDAQ with an IPO price of $25, soaring to $36 at the opening, a 44% increase, and finally closing at $31.11, with a first-day increase of 24.4%. Based on the latest closing price, its market capitalization stood firmly above $6.8 billion, far exceeding its $3.2 billion valuation during private fundraising in 2021.

For a company established only 7 years ago, this is undoubtedly a tremendous success.

The market's high enthusiasm is also attributed to Figure's unique positioning as the "first RWA stock."

RWA, short for Real World Assets, aims to bring real-world assets such as real estate, U.S. Treasury bonds, consumer credit, U.S. stocks, and artworks onto the blockchain through tokenization to release liquidity and improve trading efficiency. This is a sector with immense imaginative potential.

Taking the U.S. consumer credit market, where Figure is deeply engaged, as an example, the total scale exceeds $10 trillion, while the penetration rate of blockchain technology is nearly zero. Recognizing this blue ocean, Mike Cagney, the former CEO of the "P2P star company" SoFi, founded Figure in 2018, with the core business of innovating loan services, particularly Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) business, using blockchain technology.

Leveraging its self-developed Provenance blockchain, Figure has moved processes like loan approvals and asset securitization on-chain, reducing the average loan approval cycle from 42 days in traditional banks to just 5 days, significantly lowering operational costs and providing investors with higher liquidity.

This model has proven to bring not only an attractive narrative but also solid financial fundamentals, as seen in the financial documents submitted to regulators:

• Performance: In the first half of 2025, it achieved a net profit of $29.1 million and revenue of $190.6 million, successfully reversing last year's losses during the same period;
• Business Growth: The U.S. has $35 trillion in home equity stock, and in the 12 months ending June 30, Figure facilitated about $6 billion in home equity loans, a year-on-year increase of 29%;
• Quality Customers: The weighted average FICO credit score of its loan customers exceeds 750, demonstrating robust risk control capabilities;

Its strong market position has also received industry endorsement. According to Mike Cagney, 10 of the top 20 mortgage companies in the U.S. are using Figure's technology, and more than 20 major banks are utilizing its Provenance blockchain.

Because of this, Mike Cagney stated in the prospectus, "Figure is the largest player in the public blockchain space for real assets, and no other peers can surpass it." It is this enormous market potential and the rarity of its business model that jointly grant Figure a significant valuation premium.

A star company with disruptive technology, vast market prospects, healthy financial status, and a successful IPO—this was the glamorous image Figure presented to the world before the controversy erupted.

The B Side of Figure: A RWA Data Authenticity Dilemma

However, the glamorous financial data and successful IPO narrative represent the A side of Figure shown to Wall Street, while its B side—the authenticity of on-chain data—has triggered this storm regarding the authenticity of RWA data.

To understand the core of this controversy, one must first grasp the significance of TVL (Total Value Locked).

In the crypto world, TVL initially refers to the asset scale locked in a DeFi protocol (decentralized finance project) and is a common metric used to measure the scale of DeFi business, representing how much real money the market is willing to "put at risk" to trust the project.

The key issue lies here: the TVL of RWA is fundamentally different from that of DeFi:

• DeFi assets are real assets like ETH and stablecoins stored in on-chain contracts, and anyone can verify balances and transactions through a blockchain explorer;
• In contrast, RWA involves complex off-chain modules such as custody, debt rights, and compliance, primarily recording the scale of loans and debts in internal systems (databases) and then generating corresponding token "certificates" on the blockchain;

Therefore, whether the on-chain issuance scale of RWA truly corresponds 1:1 to off-chain real-world assets is difficult to conclude based solely on on-chain information. This inherent "two-layer" nature of on-chain and off-chain even allows project parties to simply "map" numbers from internal databases to a few controlled addresses with no transaction records, fabricating hundreds of millions of dollars in TVL out of thin air.

This makes the oversight and statistical monitoring by third-party data platforms particularly important. As one of the most commonly used dashboards in the crypto field, DeFiLlama's metrics have long been regarded as a reference by institutions, researchers, and project parties—the fuse was lit here, as DeFiLlama's TVL statistic for Figure was only about $140 million (other business lines' TVL also concentrated in the tens of millions to $1 billion range), which is significantly different from the hundreds of billions in RWA issuance scale publicly claimed by Figure.

Interestingly, the first spark igniting this public debate over the TVL metric actually came from Figure itself.

On September 10, the night before Figure's IPO, its co-founder Mike Cagney suddenly attacked DeFiLlama on X, pointing fingers directly at them:

"We have migrated HELOC loans (one of the first native consumer loans on public chains) to CoinGecko (note: CoinGecko is a crypto market and data website), but DeFiLlama refuses to count them in TVL just because we don't have enough fans to support a $13 billion TVL… This is contrary to the authenticity and transparency represented by blockchain."

This "preemptive" statement quickly fermented on social media, placing DeFiLlama in the spotlight of "unprofessionalism and opacity," with some even suggesting that DeFiLlama might have a hidden rule of charging for listings.

Two days later, DeFiLlama founder 0xngmi published a lengthy article titled "The Problem in RWA Metrics" in response, clarifying that the so-called "fan count" was not the reason for refusal to include, but rather the real issue was the serious inconsistency between Figure's on-chain data and its claimed scale:

• Figure claimed to have issued $12 billion in on-chain RWA, but the visible BTC and ETH assets on-chain were only $9 million, and its own stablecoin YLDS had a total supply of only $20 million;
• Most loan business is still settled in fiat currency, with on-chain payments being nearly invisible;
• The transactions driving asset liquidity are mostly operated by accounts unrelated to the asset holders;

In other words, since Figure does not use public chains like Ethereum or Solana but is based on its proprietary blockchain platform, the so-called huge TVL may not exclude the possibility of being a mapping from the internal database on-chain, rather than real assets that users can freely circulate and independently verify.

0xngmi also revealed that before Mike Cagney's public attack, the DeFiLlama team had privately communicated with the Figure team about these doubts in a Telegram group for several weeks, but Figure did not respond directly, instead choosing to amplify the "fan count" accusation through social media on the eve of the IPO, attempting to pressure DeFiLlama to relax its inclusion standards to endorse the data before its IPO.

Subsequently, well-known on-chain "white hat" detective ZachXBT in the crypto field also joined the fray, publicly supporting DeFiLlama and stating that Figure was using a set of RWA metrics that could not be fully verified on-chain to shape its scale and exert pressure on third-party platforms.

Thus, a "Rashomon" surrounding data authenticity and metric standards officially unfolded.

A Required Course for TradFi and Crypto

It is worth noting that Figure's controversy coincides with a grand backdrop—Web3 companies are collectively and rapidly embracing the capital markets.

Last week was dubbed the busiest IPO week in the U.S. since 2025. This is especially true for crypto-listed companies; following the benchmark case of stablecoin issuer Circle, several crypto companies across different business lines have recently gone public, and the capital markets have responded with unprecedented enthusiasm.

This includes the IPO of the well-known cryptocurrency exchange Gemini Space Station Inc. (GEMI), led by billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, which received over 20 times oversubscription, with the issuance price range adjusted multiple times, ultimately pricing at an unexpectedly high $28 per share, and soaring over 60% on the first day of trading.

On the other hand, European "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) giant Klarna Group Plc (KLAR) also completed its pricing at $40 per share on September 10, raising $1.37 billion. This pricing not only represents an 8% premium over the originally planned upper limit of $35-37 but also received over 20 times subscription, making it highly sought after.

It can be said that under the dual backdrop of the Trump administration showing a friendly attitude towards the crypto industry and the passage of stablecoin legislation, investor enthusiasm is no longer limited to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and their related reserve companies, but is beginning to spill over into Web3 companies with specific business scenarios.

This essentially represents the first large-scale collision between the parallel worlds of TradFi and Crypto, and for both sides, before the fervor of paying high premiums for the sexy narratives of Web3 ends, this is an expensive required course.

For TradFi, which is accustomed to reading financial reports and analyzing price-to-earnings ratios, Crypto companies bring a completely new valuation language and due diligence dimensions. Figure has vividly exposed the enormous risks brought by this "language barrier":

Traditional due diligence can verify Figure's impressive off-chain financial data—revenue growth, profit turnaround, quality customers. However, the core support for its $10 billion valuation comes from an on-chain narrative that is somewhat unfamiliar to TradFi. Wall Street must catch up and learn on-chain metrics and verification methods to avoid being captured by a sexy "RWA narrative" and a string of attractive TVL numbers.

The same applies to Crypto, which is eager to embrace the mainstream. Going public means accepting more transparent metrics and stricter disclosures. Attempting to leverage information asymmetry may win temporarily, but in the crypto world where on-chain data can be scrutinized at any time, it is akin to walking a tightrope. Once exposed, it will not only destroy the credibility of a single company but also deepen the mainstream world's negative stereotypes about the entire industry.

Regardless of how Figure's Rashomon ultimately concludes, it will serve as a significant case of convergence between TradFi and Crypto in terms of valuation logic, transparency standards, and trust systems.