Understanding RWA in One Article: A Comprehensive Analysis of Global RWA Market Trends in 2025

Table of Contents

1. Definition and Development History of RWA II. Market Size and Growth Trends
2. RWA Technical Path and Core Standards
3. Typical RWA Asset Categories and Practical Applications
4. The current development status and representative projects of RWA in the global and major markets
5. Regulatory policies for RWA in various regions
6. Future Outlook and Potential Forecast

Introduction

With the rapid development of the global digital economy, RWA transforms traditional assets into digital tokens through blockchain technology, significantly enhancing the liquidity, transparency, and accessibility of assets. This innovation is considered a key force driving the digital transformation of financial markets. Especially in 2025, as institutional funds flow in rapidly and the regulatory environment becomes clearer, the RWA market is showing a rapid growth trend. This report aims to provide you with a comprehensive analysis of RWA, including its development history, current status, and future potential.

1. Definition, Development History and Technical Path of RWA

1.1 Definition of RWA

RWA refers to the process of utilizing blockchain technology to transform real-world assets (such as real estate, commodities, debts, intellectual property, etc.) into digital tokens. These tokens represent ownership or revenue rights of the assets and can be traded and managed on the blockchain. The core objective is to address issues in traditional asset transactions, such as difficulties in ownership confirmation, low circulation efficiency, and insufficient liquidity, through the immutability, traceability, and programmability of smart contracts provided by blockchain.

From a technical implementation perspective, RWA tokenization includes three key stages:

• Off-chain rights confirmation: Completing asset ownership confirmation and value assessment through legal compliance procedures.
• On-chain mapping: mapping asset rights to the blockchain to generate corresponding tokens.
• On-chain governance: Automated management of revenue distribution, staking settlement, etc. through smart contracts.

Compared to traditional asset securitization (ABS), RWA has similarities in risk isolation and cash flow restructuring, but its technological dependencies require additional assessments of factors such as blockchain architecture, smart contract security, and cross-chain interoperability.

1.2 Development History of RWA

• Early Exploration (2017-2020): The concept of RWA began to take shape around 2017, with early projects primarily focusing on the tokenization of real estate and artworks. For example, the Securitize platform attempted to put assets on-chain to explore the feasibility of tokenization.

• Institutional Entry (2021-2023): In 2021, DeFi protocols such as MakerDAO began to incorporate RWA into their ecosystems, allowing users to collateralize real-world assets for loans. By 2023, the RWA market size reached $5 billion, with traditional financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and Franklin launching tokenized products, marking the entry of RWA into the mainstream.

• Explosive Growth (2024-2025): Traditional financial institutions like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs accelerate their deployment in RWA, driving rapid market growth. The RWA market size surpasses $23 billion, becoming one of the important directions for blockchain applications.

2. Market Size and Growth Trends

2.1 Global RWA Market Size

As of the end of May 2025, the total on-chain RWA value worldwide is approximately $23 billion. In March 2025, the RWA protocol's TVL first broke through the $10 billion mark, reaching about $10.4 billion on March 21. During the same period, the RWA sector saw significant year-on-year growth, with a TVL growth rate of nearly 140% from the beginning of 2025 to the present. These figures indicate that the RWA market has experienced explosive growth over the past two years.

Main Protocol TVL:

• MakerDAO (RWA Vaults): At the beginning of 2025, its RWA collateral vault TVL is approximately 1.3 billion USD.
• Ondo Finance: TVL is approximately $1.283 billion.
• Centrifuge: TVL is approximately $441 million.

In addition, BlackRock's on-chain U.S. Treasury fund BUIDL has also jumped to the top position with approximately $1.4 billion in TVL, followed closely by MakerDAO with about $1.3 billion. These figures reflect the dominance of institutional-backed projects and high-quality protocols in the RWA space.

2.2 Growth Trends and Forecasts

Several research institutions have made predictions about the market size of RWA by 2030 and provided corresponding estimates of the compound annual growth rate (CAGR). The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimated that the global asset tokenization market could reach approximately $16 trillion by 2030. McKinsey and others also forecast around $2 trillion. Citibank, a major international bank, expects the size to be in the range of $4-5 trillion by 2030, while digital asset management firm 21.co provided a wide range of $3.5-10 trillion. In the crypto industry, analyst Jamie Coutts pointed out that if the growth rate remains close to 121% as it has been for the past two years, the RWA tokenization scale by 2030 would be approximately $1.3 trillion. The corresponding annual compound growth rates for these predictions range from several percentage points (on the scale of $1 trillion) to several hundred percentage points (over $10 trillion), reflecting the coexistence of potential and uncertainty in the RWA market.

Main growth trends:

• Institutional participation accelerates: Traditional financial giants are entering the RWA space. Take BlackRock as an example, its Ethereum-based government bond fund BUIDL is set to launch in 2024, with a scale exceeding $2.5 billion by 2025 (accounting for 41% of the global on-chain government bond tokenization market share). Robinhood also submitted an RWA exchange framework proposal to the SEC in 2025, expecting to reach $10 billion in TVL within three years. In addition, institutions such as Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, and Franklin Templeton have launched or plan to launch compliant RWA products, driving market demand.

• Technological evolution drives efficiency improvement: The Ethereum ecosystem still occupies a dominant position in tokenized infrastructure. As of May 2025, tokenized assets on Ethereum account for approximately 55% of the global total. Meanwhile, various high-performance links and scaling solutions are emerging. For example, the RWA platform planned by Robinhood employs a hybrid chain architecture of Solana and Base, achieving sub-10 microsecond matching and 30,000 TPS throughput, significantly enhancing settlement efficiency and reducing costs. Additionally, Layer 2 networks (such as Arbitrum Nova) and zero-knowledge proof technologies are being used to reduce RWA trading costs and enhance privacy.

• Regulatory policies are tightening: Regulatory agencies in various countries are beginning to formulate rules related to RWA, providing institutional support for market development. Robinhood has submitted a complete proposal to the U.S. SEC for a tokenized asset federal license and on-chain audit compliance requirements, aiming to establish standards for token issuance and trading. Regulations such as the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) are also clarifying the classification and compliance standards for RWA tokens. At the same time, places like Hong Kong and the United States have piloted allowing investors with certain thresholds to participate in RWA through compliant platforms, such as investing in national bonds and real estate via compliant stablecoins and security tokens. Overall, the maturity of policy regulation has enhanced institutional confidence, providing key support for the rapid expansion of the RWA market.

3. RWA Technical Path and Core Standards

3.1 Technical Path

The technical implementation path of RWA typically includes the following key steps and modules:

1. Asset Tokenization Workflow

• Asset selection and rights confirmation: Clarify the value, ownership boundaries, and transferability of off-chain assets;
• Legality Audit and SPV Establishment: Asset custody through custodial institutions or the establishment of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for asset custody;
• Token Minting: Generate corresponding tokens according to standards such as ERC-20, ERC-721, or ERC-3643;
• Off-chain data integration (Oracle/IOT): Real-time updates of asset status through oracles, IoT, or third-party audits;
• Value Guarantee Mechanism: Maintaining the anchoring relationship between tokens and real assets through methods such as custody, insurance, and over-collateralization.

2. RWA Supported Protocol Stack (RWA Protocol Stack)

3.2 Core Standards and Tools

• ERC-3643 (T-REX): One of the most mature RWA token standards, supporting identity whitelisting, regulatory control, and permission management;
• ERC-1400: A compliance framework for security tokens that supports modular regulatory compliance design;
• Chainlink / Pyth Oracles: Provide reliable synchronization of off-chain data such as prices and asset status;
• Multi-signature/Custody tools: such as Gnosis Safe, Anchorage Custody, etc., to ensure asset security and governance compliance;
• TEE (Trusted Execution Environment): Ensures that sensitive off-chain data can still operate securely and privately during on-chain interactions.

The vision of RWA is to bring hundreds of trillions of dollars of real-world assets into the on-chain financial system, unlocking their liquidity and composability, and building a new generation of more efficient, transparent, and inclusive financial infrastructure. Its technological path must address the dual challenges of "on-chain programmability" and "off-chain trusted connections," while also considering legal compliance, auditing mechanisms, system security, and market participation pathways.

4. Typical RWA Asset Classes and Practical Applications

4.1 Typical RWA Asset Types

The on-chain path of real-world assets is diversifying, with mainstream RWA projects focusing on the following types of assets, relying on the credit and yield structure of real assets to achieve tokenized mapping. These assets can generally be classified into the following four categories:

1. Debt-type assets (real-world securities)

This type of RWA project is usually linked to real-world debt instruments (such as U.S. Treasury bonds, corporate bonds, accounts receivable, etc.), representing one of the most mature and mainstream tracks, characterized by high transparency, strong compliance attributes, and predictable returns.

Typical projects:

• Ondo Finance: Issues tokens such as OUSG with US Treasury bond ETFs as underlying assets.
• Maple Finance: Connects real-world credit demanders with DeFi liquidity providers through structured credit products.
• Centrifuge: Put accounts receivable, invoices, and other assets on-chain, and connect to the Tinlake protocol for lending.

2. Real estate assets (such as real estate)

By evaluating property values and rental income, property assets are divided into tradable tokens for DeFi staking or asset allocation, providing good asset security and cash flow foundation.

Typical projects:

• RealT: Provides tokenized ownership based on U.S. real estate, allowing Token holders to earn rental income.
• Propy: Real estate transactions and property registration on the blockchain, achieving transparency in the home buying process.
• Lofty: A real estate fractional investment platform that supports proportional dividends and asset management.

3. Commodity assets (gold, carbon credits, oil, etc.)

Issue tokens pegged to their value, supported by physical goods or certificates, for storage, risk hedging, or trading.

Typical projects:

• PAXG: A gold-backed stablecoin issued by Paxos, with each token corresponding to a certain amount of physical gold.
• OpenCarbon: A carbon credit tokenization platform that puts carbon reduction certificates on the blockchain.
• Tangible: Tokenizing physical assets such as alcohol and watches for trading and storage.

4. Other real asset classes (copyrights, insurance, invoices, intellectual property, etc.)

This is an innovative area in the early exploration of RWA, representing assets with weaker liquidity but strong innovation, suitable for incubation by specific vertical platforms.

Typical projects:

• Re: Insurance Risk Exposure Tokenization Platform, providing on-chain reinsurance for DeFi.
• IP3 / Story Protocol: Exploring solutions for putting intellectual property value on the blockchain.
• Goldfinch: A credit lending platform supporting microloans in developing markets.

4.2 Practical Applications of RWA

(1) Investment-oriented RWA: Yield anchoring of virtual assets

The practice of investment-oriented RWA can be traced back to the exploration of stable mechanisms in the DeFi ecosystem, where the typical model provides value support for virtual assets through the income of real assets. This "asset backing" logic has already shown its early form in MakerDAO's practices, where the protocol accepts real assets (such as U.S. Treasury bonds) as collateral to build a decentralized value foundation for its stablecoin DAI. With the traditional gold