Chris Yin stated that tokenized assets still lack institutional support, and he believes the real-world asset market is much smaller than currently estimated.
The co-founder and CEO of Plume, a RWA platform supported by Galaxy, Chris Yin said that in the increasingly competitive global race for real-world asset tokenization, the market is still in its early stages and not yet ready for institutional adoption.
Yin told Cointelegraph during the Token2049 conference in Dubai that institutional capital has not yet entered theRWA market, and institutions will need time to see its value.
"These things are progressing very slowly, you must first show value, you must first show adoption," Yin said, comparing the current development stage of RWA to the early stages of Bitcoin andstablecoins.
"Until now, ten years have passed, and they are just beginning to consider using stablecoins. The same thing will happen with tokenized assets or the tokenization field," Yin said.
Tokenized RWA Size Far Smaller Than $21 Billion
Yin questioned the accuracy of existing market valuations, which suggest the RWA field is worth over $21 billion.
"I tend to believe, first, that all the data is wrong; second, most people's views on this are wrong, I took away these $21 billion in assets," Yin said.
According to the executive, the actual RWA market value is "more like" $10 billion, mostly including Treasury bills and gold, and "a small amount of private credit".
Overall chart and main components of the Risk-Weighted Assets (RWA) market as of April 27, 2025. Source: RWA.xyz
RWA.xyzindicates that as of April 27, the total market value of RWA is approximately $17.4 billion, with private credit accounting for nearly 60% of all RWAs, while government bonds and commodities account for 27% and 8% respectively.
Private Credit Not the Main Driver of RWAs
Stobox co-founder Ross Shemeliak told Cointelegraph that estimating the global RWA market size is extremely difficult, especially in the private sector, because data is "dispersed and usually inaccessible".
According to Stobox's estimates, tokenized government bonds and bonds must currently account for 60-65% of RWAs.
Stobox's valuation of the Risk-Weighted Assets market. Source: Stobox
Shemeliak stated: "Critically, 99.9% of companies in the world are private, and almost all companies are undeveloped tokenization candidates." He added that such companies are typically difficult to obtain capital and liquidity.
He noted: "Tokenization provides an entirely new mechanism for fundraising, investor engagement, and equity structure transparency."
Institutions Exist to Make Money
Plume CEO Yin emphasized the nature of institutional capital, which tends to enter the market when its size expands to make some money.
"I think people tend to forget about institutions and what's happening in the real world," Yin said, "so they're interested in tokenized assets because they're looking for an angle to make money, not to save money or improve efficiency."
Plume CEO Chris Yin at Token2049 conference in Dubai. Source:Plume
"Nobody cares about this, especially Larry Fink managing a $12 trillion asset management company," Yin said, adding that BlackRock's money market fund was successful, but its$2.5 billion in assets is negligible relative to the company's net assets.
Yin said that given the current moderate size of the RWA market, the industry should currently rely more on local communities, and added:
"No institution is putting funds on-chain. They are actually trying to drain funds from the ecosystem. Their products are trying to sell new things to crypto, not put money into it."
Stobox's Shemeliak acknowledged: "Yes, the RWA tokenization scale is small today, just like Bitcoin in 2013."
However, tokenized assets are "fundamentally institutional from day one" because they provide regulated securities, yield instruments, and financial contracts that require legal compliance and governance.
He stated: "Tokenizing RWAs without institutional involvement is like trying to build a securities exchange without regulators, custodians, or a settlement layer."
"Innovation may begin with startups and Web3 protocols, but to achieve scale, it requires institutions, fund managers, underwriters, legal advisors, and regulated platforms."
