The total onchain value of real-world assets has almost doubled since the start of the year as financial institutions flood into the space.
Cryptocurrencies supporting the real-world asset tokenization space pumped 11% this week as the total value of tokenized RWAs hit a new record high.
Over the past seven days, the RWA token market cap has surged from around $67 billion to an all-time high of just below $76 billion on Friday, according to CoinMarketCap.
The category of cryptocurrencies relates to protocols and projects with a strong focus on tokenization, such as blockchain oracle provider Chainlink
, high-speed layer-1 chain Avalanche
, and institutional RWA DeFi platform Ondo Finance
, which has surged 9% on the day.
RWA token market cap hits a new peak. Source: CoinMarketCap
RWA onchain value peaks
The surge in RWA tokens has coincided with a sharp increase in the total value of tokenized assets onchain, which topped $29 billion for the first time this week, according to RWA.xyz.
Total value onchain has almost doubled since the beginning of this year as more financial institutions start offering products onchain.
Related: Ethereum added $1B of stablecoins almost every day last week
More than half of the total is tokenized private credit, and around a quarter is tokenized US treasurys, with the remainder being tokenized commodities, alternative funds, equities and bonds.
When stablecoins are included, the total value is at a record $307 billion.
RWA onchain value is at an all-time high. Source: RWA.xyz
More than three-quarters of this total value is tokenized on Ethereum and layer-2 networks.
Tokenization is “now being pushed by the US government in an effort to modernize US markets,” crypto investor Ryan Sean Adams said Thursday on X, adding that Wall Street and fintech firms are now incentivized to make this happen.
BlackRock to tokenize ETFs
Meanwhile, the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, is exploring tokenizing its exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the blockchain, according to recent reports.
The move follows BlackRock’s successful launch of the USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), a tokenized money-market fund launched on Ethereum in 2024 that has grown to around $2.2 billion in assets under management.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has previously stated that every financial asset can be tokenized, adding that it will “democratize finance.”
