Accelerating the on-chain integration of real assets
);)
According to data released by DefiLlama on the 30th, the TVL of the RWA protocol is estimated at approximately $17 billion (KRW 24.4239 trillion), a significant increase from approximately $12 billion (KRW 17.2404 trillion) in the fourth quarter of next year.
DeFirama explained that while RWA wasn't even in the top 10 DeFi TVL at the beginning of the year, it has achieved structural growth as tokenized US Treasuries, private credit, and commodity-based assets quickly become core on-chain infrastructure.
Vincent Liu, Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at Kronos Research, told Cointelegraph on the 30th that RWA growth is being driven by balance sheet-driven incentives, rather than experimental demand. He explained that the high interest rate environment has made tokenized government bonds and private credit attractive as on-chain yield assets, while improved regulatory clarity has lowered the barriers to entry for institutional investors.
Earlier this year, the RWA market, excluding stablecoins, grew to approximately $24 billion (KRW 34.48 trillion), driven by private credit and tokenized government bonds. Ethereum (ETH) maintained its dominant position as the primary settlement layer for on-chain debt and fund structures.
However, RWA issuance and operation are concentrated among a small number of large issuers and vehicles. According to RWA.xyz data, BNB Chain (BNB), Avalanche (AVAX), Solana (SOL), Polygon (POL), and Arbitrum each account for a low-single-digit percentage of public chain RWA value. In contrast, permissioned infrastructures like Canton Network have emerged as major institutional hubs, accounting for over 90% of the total market share.
The leading product currently driving RWA inflows is tokenized US Treasury securities. As of this month, tokenized government bonds, including BlackRock's USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), Circle's USYC, Franklin Templeton's BENJI, and Ondo's OUSG, have expanded the market for tokenized government bonds to several billion dollars.
"The constraint is no longer tokenization technology, but liquidity and integration with traditional finance," Liu said. "Next year, the key evaluation criteria will be the issuer, control structure, collateral utilization, and secondary market flow, rather than the TVL number."
Rising gold and silver prices are also fueling the proliferation of RWAs. Recent data suggests the market capitalization of tokenized products is approaching $4 billion (KRW 5.7468 trillion), with Tether Gold and Paxos Gold leading the market. Liu analyzed that "tokenized products are transitioning into macro assets with 24/7 on-chain accessibility and payment demand," and that "true acceleration will begin when cross-chain portability and neutral collateralization are secured."
