Trillion-dollar assets are on the horizon.
Article author: Mesh
Article source: TechFlow TechFlow
Frankly, the development of institutional-grade RWA (Real-World Asset) tokenization over the past six months deserves close attention. The market size is approaching $20 billion. This isn't hype; it's genuine institutional capital being deployed on-chain.
I've been following this area for a while now, and the recent pace of development is astonishing. From government bonds and private credit to tokenized stocks, these assets are migrating to blockchain infrastructure at a faster rate than the market anticipated.
Five protocols have become the foundation of this field: Rayls Labs, Ondo Finance, Centrifuge, Canton Network, and Polymesh . They are not competing for the same type of clients, but rather addressing different institutional needs: banks need privacy, asset management firms pursue efficiency, and Wall Street firms require compliance infrastructure.
This isn't about who "wins," but about which infrastructure institutions choose and how traditional assets can be migrated for trillions of dollars through these tools.
The neglected market is approaching the $20 billion mark.
Three years ago, tokenized RWA was barely a category. Today, on-chain assets deployed in Treasury bonds, private credit, and publicly traded stocks are approaching $20 billion. This growth is significant compared to the $6 billion to $8 billion range at the beginning of 2024.
To be honest, the performance of niche markets is more interesting than the overall size.
According to a market snapshot from early January 2026 provided by rwa.xyz :
- Government bonds and money market funds : approximately $8 billion to $9 billion, accounting for 45%-50% of the market.
- Private lending : $2 billion to $6 billion (smaller base but fastest growth, accounting for 20%-30%)
- Publicly traded shares : Over $400 million (rapidly growing, primarily driven by Ondo Finance)
Three driving factors accelerate the adoption of RWA:
- The allure of yield arbitrage: Tokenized Treasury bonds offer returns of 4%-6% and are available 24/7, while traditional markets have a T+2 settlement cycle. Private lending instruments offer returns of 8%-12%. For institutional treasury executives managing billions of dollars in idle capital, the math is simple.
- Regulatory frameworks are gradually improving: the EU's Crypto Asset Market Regulation Act (MiCA) has been enforced in 27 countries. The US Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Project Crypto is advancing an on-chain securities framework. Meanwhile, No-Action Letters enable infrastructure providers like DTCC to tokenize assets.
- The maturity of custodial and oracle infrastructure: Chronicle Labs has handled over $20 billion in total locked value, and Halborn has completed security audits for major RWA protocols. This infrastructure is mature enough to meet fiduciary standards.
Despite this, the industry still faces significant challenges. The cost of cross-chain transactions is estimated at as high as $1.3 billion annually. Because capital flow costs exceed arbitrage profits, the price difference for the same asset traded on different blockchains can reach 1%-3%. The conflict between privacy requirements and regulatory transparency demands remains unresolved.
Rayls Labs: The Privacy Infrastructure Banks Really Need
@RaylsLabs positions itself as a compliance-first bridge connecting banks and decentralized finance (DeFi). Developed by Brazilian fintech company Parfin and backed by Framework Ventures, ParaFi Capital, Valor Capital, and Alexia Ventures, its architecture is a public, permissioned, EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for regulatory compliance.
I've been following the development of Rayls' Enygma privacy technology stack for a while now. The key isn't the technical specifications, but its methodology. Rayls is solving problems that banks really need, rather than catering to the DeFi community's imagination of what banks need.
The core functionalities of the Enygma privacy technology stack:
- Zero-knowledge proofs : ensuring transaction confidentiality
- Homomorphic encryption : Supports computation on encrypted data
- Native operation across public blockchains and private institution networks
- Confidential payments : Supports atomic swaps and embedded "delivery-versus-payment".
- Programmable compliance : Data can be selectively disclosed to a designated auditor.
Practical application examples:
- Central Bank of Brazil : Used for CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) Cross-border Settlement Pilot Program
- Núclea : Regulated Accounts Receivable Tokenization
- Multiple undisclosed node customers : Deliverable Payment (DvP) workflow for privatization
Latest Developments
On January 8, 2026, Rayls announced the completion of a security audit conducted by Halborn . This provides institutional-grade security certification for its real-world asset (RWA) infrastructure, a certification that is particularly important for banks evaluating production deployments.
Furthermore, the AmFi consortium plans to achieve a $1 billion tokenized asset target on Rayls by June 2027, and will be supported by a reward of 5 million RLS tokens. AmFi, Brazil's largest private credit tokenization platform, brings immediate trading traffic to Rayls and has set specific milestones over an 18-month period. This is one of the largest institutional RWA commitments received in any blockchain ecosystem to date.
Target Market and Challenges
Rayls targets banks, central banks, and asset management companies that require institutional-grade privacy. Its public permissioned model restricts the participation of validators, allowing only licensed financial institutions to participate, while ensuring the confidentiality of transaction data.
However, Rayls faces the challenge of demonstrating its market appeal. With a lack of publicly available TVL (Total Value Locked) data or announced customer deployments beyond pilots, its $1 billion AmFi target by mid-2027 presents a critical test.
Ondo Finance: The Race for Cross-Chain Expansion
@OndoFinance has achieved the fastest expansion from institutional to retail in the RWA (Real-World Asset) tokenization space. Starting with a protocol that initially focused on government bonds, it has now become the largest platform in the tokenized public equity space.
Latest data as of January 2026 :
- Total Value Locked (TVL) : US$1.93 billion
- Tokenized stocks : Over $400 million, representing 53% of the market share.
- USDY holdings on the Solana blockchain : approximately $176 million
I personally tested the USDY product on Solana, and the user experience was incredibly smooth: the key is the combination of institutional-grade government bonds with the convenience of DeFi.
Latest news
On January 8, 2026, Ondo launched 98 new tokenized assets at once , covering stocks and ETFs in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), electric vehicles (EVs), and thematic investments. This was not a small-scale trial, but a rapid expansion.
Ondo plans to launch tokenized US stocks and ETFs on Solana in the first quarter of 2026, its most aggressive attempt to enter the retail-friendly infrastructure market. According to its product roadmap, the goal is to list over 1,000 tokenized assets as the expansion progresses .
Industry Focus:
- Artificial intelligence sector : Nvidia, Data Center REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts)
- Electric vehicle sector : Tesla, lithium battery manufacturers
- Thematic investing : Special sectors traditionally limited by minimum investment thresholds
Multi-chain deployment strategy
- Ethereum : DeFi Liquidity and Institutional Legitimacy
- BNB Chain : Covering native exchange users
- Solana : Supports large-scale consumer use and boasts sub-second transaction final confirmation speeds.
Frankly, the fact that Ondo's TVL reached $1.93 billion while its token price fell is the most important signal: the protocol's growth is taking precedence over speculative activity. This growth is primarily driven by demand for idle stablecoin yields from institutional bonds and DeFi protocols. The growth in TVL during the market consolidation period in Q4 2025 indicates genuine demand, not just chasing market trends.
By establishing custodial relationships with broker-dealers, completing a Halborn security audit, and launching products on the three major blockchains within six months, Ondo has gained a leading edge that its competitors are struggling to catch up with. For example, its competitor Backed Finance has only about $162 million in tokenized assets.
However, Ondo still faces some challenges:
- Price fluctuations outside trading hours : Although tokens can be transferred at any time, pricing still needs to take into account the exchange's business hours, which may create arbitrage opportunities during the US night trading hours.
- Compliance restrictions : Securities laws require strict KYC (Know Your Customer) and authentication checks, which limits the "licenseless" narrative.
Centrifuge: How Asset Managers Can Truly Deploy Billions of Dollars
@centrifuge has become the infrastructure standard for institutional-grade private credit tokenization. As of December 2025, the protocol's total value locked (TVL) has surged to between $1.3 billion and $1.45 billion , a growth driven by institutional capital in actual deployments.
Major institutional deployment cases
1. Janus Henderson Partnership (a global asset management company with $373 billion in assets under management)
- Anemoy AAA CLO Fund: Fully On-Chain AAA-Rated Collateralized Loan Security (CLO)
- It uses the same portfolio management team as the $21.4 billion AAA CLO ETF it manages.
- In July 2025, an expansion plan was announced, aiming to add $250 million in investment to Avalanche.
2. Grove Funding Allocation (Institutional Credit Agreements within the Sky Ecosystem)
- The committed funding allocation strategy reaches $1 billion.
- The initial start-up capital was US$50 million.
- The project's founding team comes from Deloitte, Citigroup, BlockTower Capital, and Hildene Capital Management.
3. Chronicle Labs Oracle Partnership (Announced January 8, 2026)
- The Proof of Asset framework provides cryptographically verified holdings data.
- Supports transparent net asset value (NAV) calculation, custodial verification, and compliance reporting.
- Provides dashboard access functionality for limited partners (LPs) and auditors.
I've been following the oracle problem in the blockchain space, and Chronicle Labs ' approach is the first solution to meet institutional needs: providing verifiable data without sacrificing on-chain efficiency. The announcement on January 8th also included a video demonstration showing that this solution is already in practical use, rather than just a future promise.
Centrifuge's unique operating model:
Unlike competitors who simply repackage off-chain products, Centrifuge tokenizes its credit strategy directly during the issuance phase. The process is as follows:
- The issuer designs and manages the fund through a single, transparent workflow;
- Institutional investors allocate stablecoins for investment;
- Funds flow to borrowers after credit approval;
- Repayments are distributed proportionally to token holders via smart contracts.
- AAA-rated assets have an annualized return (APY) between 3.3% and 4.6%, and are completely transparent.
Multi-chain V3 architecture supports the following networks : Ethereum; Base; Arbitrum; Celo; Avalanche
The key is that asset managers need to demonstrate that on-chain lending can support deployments worth billions of dollars, and Centrifuge has already done just that. The partnership with Janus Henderson alone has provided billions of dollars in capacity.
Furthermore, Centrifuge's leadership in setting industry standards (such as co-founding the Tokenized Asset Coalition and Real-World Asset Summit ) further solidifies its position as infrastructure rather than a single product.
While the $1.45 billion TVL demonstrates institutional investment demand, the target annualized yield of 3.8% pales in comparison to the higher-risk, higher-return opportunities historically in DeFi. Attracting DeFi-native liquidity providers beyond the Sky ecosystem will be Centrifuge's next challenge.
Canton Network: Wall Street's Blockchain Infrastructure
@CantonNetwork is an institutional-grade blockchain response to the permissionless DeFi concept: a privacy-preserving public network backed by top Wall Street firms.
Participating organizations
- DTCC (Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation)
- BlackRock
- Goldman Sachs
- Citadel Securities
Canton's goal is to target the $3700 trillion in annual settlement traffic that the DTCC will handle by 2024. Yes, that's a typo.
DTCC Partnership (December 2025)
The partnership with DTCC is crucial. It's not just a pilot project, but a core commitment to building the U.S. securities settlement infrastructure. By obtaining a No-Action Letter from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), this collaboration allows for the native tokenization of a portion of U.S. Treasury securities held in DTCC custody on Canton, with plans to launch a controlled-production MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in the first half of 2026 .
Key details:
- DTCC and Euroclear jointly serve as co-chairs of the Canton Foundation ;
- Not just participants, but leaders in governance;
- Initially, the focus was on government bonds (lowest credit risk, high liquidity, and clear regulation).
- After the MVP stage, it may expand to corporate bonds, stocks, and structured products .
Initially, I was skeptical of permissioned blockchains. But my collaboration with DTCC changed my mind. This wasn't because of their technological superiority, but because they represent the infrastructure that traditional finance will truly adopt.
Temple Digital platform launch (January 8, 2026)
Canton's institutional value proposition is further clarified by Temple Digital Group's private trading platform, launched on January 8, 2026. This platform is already live, not "coming soon."
Canton Network offers a Central Limit Order Book with sub-second matching speeds and a non-custodial architecture. It currently supports cryptocurrency and stablecoin trading and plans to launch support for tokenized stocks and commodities in 2026.
Ecosystem Partners
- Franklin Templeton : Manages $828 million in money market funds.
- JPMorgan : Achieving Delivery-to-Pay (DvP) Settlement via JPM Coin
Canton's privacy architecture
Canton's privacy features are implemented at the smart contract level using Daml (a digital asset modeling language) :
- The contract clearly specifies which participants can see which data;
- Regulatory agencies have access to the complete audit log;
- The counterparty can view the transaction details;
- Neither competitors nor the public can see any transaction information;
- State updates propagate atomically across the network.
For institutions accustomed to using Bloomberg terminals and dark pools for confidential trading, Canton's architecture, which offers blockchain efficiency while avoiding the disclosure of trading strategies, is particularly reasonable. After all, Wall Street would never expose proprietary trading activities on a transparent public ledger.
Canton Network's more than 300 participating institutions demonstrate its appeal among them. However, much of the reported trading volume may be more of a simulation of pilot activities than actual production traffic.
The current limitation lies in development speed : the MVP, planned for delivery in the first half of 2026, reflects a multi-quarter planning cycle. In contrast, DeFi protocols typically launch new products within weeks.
Polymesh: A Securities Blockchain Network Built for Compliance
@PolymeshNetwork stands out through protocol-level compliance rather than the complexity of smart contracts. As a blockchain designed specifically for regulated securities, Polymesh performs compliance verification at the consensus level, without relying on custom code.
Core features
- Protocol-level authentication : Authentication is performed through a licensed Customer Due Diligence (CDD) provider;
- Embedded transfer rules : Non-compliant transactions fail directly during the consensus phase;
- Atomic Payment Delivery (DvP) : Transactions are finalized within 6 seconds .
Production-level integration
- Republic (August 2025) : Supports private placement of securities;
- AlphaPoint : Covering over 150 trading venues in 35 countries ;
- Target areas : regulated funds, real estate, corporate equity, etc.
Advantages
- No custom smart contract auditing is required;
- The agreement automatically adapts to regulatory changes;
- Unable to execute non-compliant transfer operations.
Challenges and the Future
Polymesh currently operates as a standalone chain, isolating it from DeFi liquidity. To address this, an Ethereum Bridge is planned for launch in the second quarter of 2026. Whether it will materialize on schedule remains to be seen.
Frankly, I underestimated the potential of this "compliance-native" architecture. For security token issuers struggling with the complexities of ERC-1400 , Polymesh's approach is indeed more appealing: embedding compliance directly into the protocol, rather than relying on smart contracts.
How do these agreements divide the market?
These five agreements do not compete directly because they each address different problems:
Privacy solutions:
- Canton: Based on Daml smart contracts, focusing on counterparty relationships on Wall Street;
- Rayls: Employs zero-knowledge proofs to provide bank-grade mathematical privacy protection;
- Polymesh: Protocol-level authentication, providing a one-stop compliance solution.
Extension Strategy:
- Ondo: Manages $1.93 billion across three chains, prioritizing liquidity speed over depth;
- Centrifuge: Focuses on the $1.3 billion to $1.45 billion institutional credit market, prioritizing depth over speed.
Target market:
- Banks/CBDC → Rayls
- Retail/DeFi → Ondo
- Asset management company → Centrifuge
- Wall Street → Canton
- Security Tokens → Polymesh
In my view, this market segmentation is more important than people realize. Institutions don't choose the "best blockchain," but rather the infrastructure that addresses their specific compliance, operational, and competitive needs .
Unresolved issues
Inter-chain liquidity fragmentation
Cross-chain splitting is extremely costly: estimated at $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion annually. The exorbitant cost of cross-chain bridging results in a 1%-3% price difference when the same asset is traded on different blockchains . If this problem persists until 2030, the annual cost is projected to exceed $75 billion .
This is one of my biggest concerns. Even if you build state-of-the-art tokenization infrastructure, the efficiency gains will be completely negated if liquidity is distributed across incompatible chains.
The conflict between privacy and transparency
Institutions require confidentiality of transactions , while regulators demand auditability . In multi-party scenarios (such as issuers, investors, rating agencies, regulators, and auditors), each party needs different levels of visibility. There is currently no perfect solution.
Regulatory Divide
- The European Union has adopted the MiCA (Crypto Asset Market Regulation), which applies to 27 countries.
- In the United States, a No-Action Letter needs to be applied for on a case-by-case basis, which can take several months.
- Cross-border capital flows face the challenge of jurisdictional conflicts.
Oracle risks
Tokenized assets rely on off-chain data. If the data provider is attacked, the on-chain asset performance may reflect incorrect reality. While Chronicle's Proof of Asset framework offers some solutions, risks still exist.
The path to a trillion dollars: a key catalyst for 2026
Catalysts to watch in 2026:
Ondo's Solana launch (Q1 2026)
- Testing whether retail-scale distribution can create sustainable liquidity;
- Success metric: Over 100,000 holders , proving the existence of genuine demand.
Canton's DTCC MVP (First Half of 2026)
- Verify the feasibility of blockchain in the settlement of US Treasury bonds;
- If successful: It could potentially transfer trillions of dollars in funding to on-chain infrastructure.
The US Clarity Act passed
- Provide a clear regulatory framework;
- This will enable institutional investors who are currently on the sidelines to deploy their capital.
Centrifuge Grove Deployment
- The allocation of $1 billion will be completed by 2026;
- The actual capital operation of credit tokenization in testing institutions;
- If the transaction proceeds smoothly without any credit events, it will boost the confidence of asset management companies.
Market Forecast
- 2030 target : Tokenized assets will reach a scale of 2-4 trillion US dollars ;
- Growth demand : 50-100 times from the current $19.7 billion ;
- Assumptions : Regulatory stability, cross-chain interoperability readiness, and no major institutional failures.
Industry-specific growth forecasts:
- Private lending : from the current $2-6 billion to $150-200 billion (small base, highest growth rate);
- Tokenized government bonds : If money market funds migrate to the blockchain, the potential could reach $5 trillion+ .
- Real estate : Expected to reach $3-4 trillion (depending on whether the real estate registration system adopts blockchain-compatible title registration).
A $100 billion milestone:
- Expected implementation time : 2027-2028;
- Expected distribution :
- Institutional credit: $300-400 billion;
- National debt: US$300-400 billion;
- Tokenized stocks: $200-300 billion;
- Real estate/commodities: $100-200 billion.
This would require a five-fold increase from current levels . While the target is ambitious, it is not out of reach given the institutional momentum in the fourth quarter of 2025 and the upcoming regulatory clarity.
Why are these five agreements so important?
The institutional real-world asset (RWA) landscape in early 2026 reveals an unexpected trend: there is no single winner because there is no single market.
Frankly, this is exactly the direction infrastructure should be developing in.
Each protocol addresses a different problem:
- Rayls → Banking privacy;
- Ondo → Tokenized stock distribution;
- Centrifuge → On-chain deployment by asset management companies;
- Canton → Wall Street infrastructure relocation;
- Polymesh → Simplifies securities compliance.
The market size has grown from $8.5 billion at the beginning of 2024 to $19.7 billion , indicating that demand has surpassed speculative behavior.
The core needs of institutional players:
- Financial Officer : Profitability and operational efficiency;
- Asset management companies : Reduce distribution costs and expand the investor base;
- Banks : Compliant infrastructure.
The next 18 months are crucial.
- Ondo's Solana goes live → Testing its scalability in the retail market;
- Canton's DTCC MVP → Testing institutional-level settlement capabilities;
- Centrifuge's Grove deployment → Testing credit tokenization with real capital;
- Rayls' $1 billion AmFi target → Testing the adoption of privacy infrastructure.
Execution takes precedence over architecture, and results trump blueprints. That's the key right now.
Traditional finance is undergoing a long-term migration to on-chain infrastructure. These five protocols provide institutional capital with the necessary infrastructure: privacy layers, compliance frameworks, and settlement infrastructure. Their success will determine the future path of tokenization—whether it serves as an efficiency improvement over existing structures or as a completely new system to replace traditional financial intermediation models.
The infrastructure choices made by institutions in 2026 will define the industry landscape for the next decade.
Key milestones in 2026
- Q1 : Ondo's Solana is launched (98+ stocks are listed);
- H1 : Canton's DTCC MVP (Tokenization of Treasury Bonds Based on Wall Street Infrastructure).
- Ongoing : Centrifuge's $1 billion Grove deployment; Rayls' AmFi ecosystem development.
Trillion-dollar assets are on the horizon.
NFA.
