On-chain tokenization of real-world assets surpasses $25 billion, nearly quadrupling in one year

Gate News reports that as of March 9, data shows that the on-chain tokenized real-world assets (RWA), excluding stablecoins, have surpassed $25 billion, nearly quadrupling from about $6.4 billion a year ago. Over the past year, several traditional asset management firms have accelerated their deployment of tokenized products, including BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, and WisdomTree, all of which have launched related tokenized fund products.

Currently, six types of assets have an on-chain scale exceeding $1 billion, namely U.S. Treasuries, commodities, private credit, institutional alternative funds, corporate bonds, and non-U.S. government bonds. Among these, U.S. Treasuries have seen particularly significant growth, with the number of related tokenized products increasing from 35 to over 50.

Industry data indicates that the current growth in the RWA market mainly comes from institutional issuance rather than secondary trading. A large volume of on-chain transfers are concentrated around $10 million, suggesting that institutions typically allocate funds through bulk transactions rather than continuous trading.

Meanwhile, the integration of RWA with decentralized finance remains limited. Of the approximately $8.49 billion in RWA-backed stablecoins, only about 12% are deployed within DeFi protocols, with the rest largely confined within relatively closed systems due to KYC, whitelisting, and compliance restrictions.