Bankless Debate: Is Ethereum Ready for Real World Assets? | Omid Malekan vs Austin Campbell (Crypto Professors)
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Sep 3, 2025 
In this enlightening discussion, Austin Campbell, a stablecoin advocate and NYU professor, duels with Omid Malekan, a blockchain expert from Columbia. They delve into whether Ethereum is equipped to manage real-world assets, tackling potential vulnerabilities like hacks and regulatory interventions. The pair debates decentralization’s role and the need for stronger protections before scaling integrates with traditional finance. Their contrasting views highlight both the promise and hurdles of Ethereum's journey toward mainstream asset tokenization.
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Immutability Clashes With Real Legal Claims
- Real-world assets create tension between immutable ledgers and legal reality, because off-chain authorities can always enforce outcomes.
- Austin warns that without responsiveness to courts, tokenized assets risk becoming unusable or legally invalid.
Bybit And Tether: Failure-Mode Examples
- Austin uses the Bybit hack and a hypothetical Tether compromise to illustrate failure modes for on-chain RWAs.
- He emphasizes InfoSec failures will happen and asks how networks should recover without bricking DeFi.
Neutrality As A Competitive Feature
- Omid argues the Bybit hack proved neutrality is valuable because the community chose not to intervene.
- He says predictable, non-political finality attracts participants who want guaranteed outcomes.