Identify the claim
Record issuer, asset pool, custodian, administrator, seniority, governing law, currency, fees, maturity, transfer restrictions, and insolvency treatment. Similar labels can conceal materially different rights. A platform record, fund share, and special-purpose-vehicle claim should not be compared as identical instruments.
Eligibility may determine who can hold, transfer, subscribe, or redeem. A direct convergence route available to an institution may not be available to every secondary-market participant.
Reconstruct reference value
Official net asset value may update daily while tokens trade continuously. Include accrued income, management fees, currency conversion, and transaction charges. During underlying market closures, token prices may incorporate information absent from the last official value.
Private or illiquid assets depend on models and appraisals. Onchain transparency of token transfers does not create continuous observability of offchain credit or collateral.
Model redemption and calendars
Redemption may require notice, minimum size, approved wallets, banking details, business-day cutoffs, and compliance review. Funds can gate or suspend withdrawals. Expected return should include the timeline to final cash and a stress case for delay.
Weekend and holiday gaps are not automatically free arbitrage. The token market may be repricing while the underlying market is closed. Financing and hedge availability change with the calendar.
Treat settlement assets separately
Stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and bank money have distinct issuers, redemption rules, networks, and risks. A token priced at 100 stablecoin units does not always equal 100 immediately usable bank dollars. Model conversion and concentration explicitly.
Permissioned transfer functions and venue custody can fragment liquidity. Verify that an asset purchased in one location can be transferred or redeemed through the intended channel.
Stress the complete settlement chain
Scenarios include a wider discount, stale valuation, redemption delay, compliance hold, underlying market closure, settlement-asset deviation, issuer pause, and banking interruption. Position size should reflect both market depth and approved redemption capacity.
RWA arbitrage is settlement-aware relative value. The price difference becomes meaningful only after the legal and operational path from token to enforceable proceeds is explicit.