Leading Crypto Projects Driving RWA Tokenization Growth in 2024-2025

The cryptocurrency market has witnessed a transformative shift with the rise of RWA tokenization, fundamentally reshaping how traditional assets move onto blockchain networks. This evolution represents one of the most significant developments bridging institutional finance with decentralized ecosystems. As of early 2024, the RWA tokenization sector has captured serious momentum, with the total market cap of RWA coins exceeding $8.4 billion according to CoinGecko, signaling a watershed moment for digital asset infrastructure.

The entrance of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, into RWA tokenization with its institutional fund BUIDL on Ethereum marks a pivotal validation of this market segment. BUIDL, formally the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, operates as a stable-value vehicle that distributes daily accrued dividends directly to investor wallets, demonstrating how traditional finance tools can seamlessly integrate with blockchain efficiency. The fund’s portfolio composition—featuring cash, U.S. Treasury bills, and repurchase agreements—underscores a conservative yet innovative approach to RWA tokenization that attracts both institutional and retail participants.

This market maturation has drawn backing from major ecosystem participants including Anchorage Digital Bank NA, BitGo, Coinbase, and Fireblocks, reflecting broad industry consensus around the strategic importance of RWA tokenization infrastructure.

Understanding Real-World Asset Tokenization and Its Market Potential

RWA tokenization converts physical and traditional financial assets into blockchain-based digital representations, unlocking unprecedented utility for investors and institutions. This process transcends the early experiments with colored coins on Bitcoin in the 2010s, only flourishing as a practical solution after Ethereum’s 2015 launch provided sufficient flexibility and sophistication.

The implications of RWA tokenization extend across multiple dimensions of finance:

Liquidity Transformation: Tokenization breaks down barriers to previously illiquid assets, enabling fractional ownership models that democratize access to high-value instruments like real estate, commodities, and treasury securities.

Portfolio Diversification at Scale: By removing geographic and institutional constraints, RWA tokenization empowers investors to construct globally diversified portfolios previously available only to elite financial players.

Market Growth Acceleration: As participation expands, RWA tokenization attracts new categories of market participants, amplifying overall crypto ecosystem expansion and mainstream legitimacy.

DeFi Innovation Wave: The integration of tokenized real assets creates novel financial primitives—allowing yield strategies, collateral opportunities, and hedging mechanisms previously impossible in traditional markets.

Institutional-Grade Security: Blockchain-based RWA tokenization provides immutable, transparent settlement records that enhance investor confidence and reduce counterparty risk compared to legacy systems.

How RWA Tokenization Unlocks New Investment Opportunities

The mechanics of RWA tokenization create cascading benefits across the investment landscape. By representing real assets as digital tokens, the market achieves something revolutionary: the ability to instantly trade, settle, and leverage these instruments within decentralized finance protocols.

This capability attracts sophisticated institutional capital into crypto ecosystems. Institutions previously confined to traditional markets suddenly gain access to DeFi yield farming, collateral strategies, and portfolio hedging mechanisms—all powered by tokenized versions of familiar assets like government bonds and corporate securities.

The transparency inherent in blockchain-based RWA tokenization eliminates information asymmetries, reduces settlement friction, and creates permanent, auditable records of ownership and transactions. This operational efficiency translates directly into cost savings and speed improvements across the entire investment chain.

Major Players Revolutionizing the RWA Tokenization Ecosystem

Ondo Finance (ONDO) - Pioneering Treasury Tokenization

Ondo Finance stands as a foundational player in RWA tokenization, offering solutions that bridge traditional fixed-income markets with DeFi flexibility. The protocol’s flagship product, OUSG (Ondo Short-term US Government), represents the world’s first tokenized US Treasury product, transforming government securities into blockchain-native assets.

Supporting OUSG is Flux Finance, a lending protocol that demonstrates practical RWA utilization by accepting tokenized treasuries as collateral. The ONDO governance token enables protocol stewardship through DAO voting on development priorities and resource allocation.

In a landmark strategic move, Ondo partnered with BlackRock in March 2024 to migrate $95 million of OUSG holdings to the BUIDL fund, establishing the first instance of a crypto protocol directly leveraging BlackRock’s tokenized fund infrastructure for instant settlement. This integration significantly amplifies OUSG’s utility as an on-chain collateral asset and store of value.

Current Market Snapshot (as of February 2026):

  • ONDO trading at $0.27 (+3.38% 24h)
  • Market cap: $1.31B
  • 24h volume: $759.96K

Ondo’s recent expansion into securities tokenization through Ondo Global Markets (Ondo GM), combined with strategic partnerships extending across Sui and Aptos networks, positions the project as an ecosystem builder transcending single-chain constraints.

Mantra (OM) - Mainstreaming RWA Accessibility

Mantra operates as a Layer 1 blockchain deliberately architected for RWA tokenization at institutional scale. Following a $11 million funding round led by Shorooq Partners—a prominent MENA-region technology investor—Mantra has positioned itself to address the infrastructure gap in RWA accessibility.

The OM token functions as both governance and utility instrument within Mantra Chain, enabling staking for passive yield generation and participation in protocol-level decisions affecting tokenization services.

Mantra’s strategic focus targets Asia and Middle East markets, expanding investment accessibility by increasing liquidity and enabling economic participation previously constrained by geographic barriers. The platform aims to become the foundational infrastructure layer for building RWA-centric protocols, attracting builders, institutions, and enterprises seeking to tokenize real assets on-chain.

Current Market Snapshot (as of February 2026):

  • OM trading at $0.07 (-11.25% 24h)
  • Market cap: $77.58M
  • 24h volume: $579.04K

Polymesh (POLYX) - Security Token Infrastructure Specialist

Polymesh operates as a specialized Layer 1 blockchain purpose-built for securities token infrastructure. Its public permissioned architecture elegantly solves the governance, identity, compliance, and confidentiality challenges inherent in tokenizing regulated securities.

Combining the institutional trustworthiness of private networks with the transparency of public blockchains, Polymesh offers an institutional-grade solution that accelerates RWA tokenization adoption by regulated entities.

The POLYX native token serves multiple critical functions: transaction fee medium, governance participation vehicle, staking mechanism, and security token creation/management tool. Polymesh’s unique tokenomics model approaches an asymptotic supply limit through algorithmic token generation, balancing incentive alignment with controlled inflation—ensuring long-term network sustainability.

Current Market Snapshot (as of February 2026):

  • POLYX trading at $0.04 (+2.66% 24h)
  • Market cap: $55.94M
  • 24h volume: $16.71K

OriginTrail (TRAC) - Trust Infrastructure for Real-World Data

OriginTrail revolutionizes RWA tokenization through its Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG) technology, integrating blockchain with AI-ready knowledge asset frameworks. This approach enables trusted data exchange across supply chains, healthcare, construction, and emerging metaverse applications.

By “supercharging” data with ownership, discoverability, and cryptographic trust, OriginTrail addresses the misinformation challenge plaguing digital ecosystems. The TRAC token (launched in 2018 as an ERC-20 with fixed 500M supply) powers all DKG operations—from publishing knowledge assets to collateralizing OriginTrail nodes to enabling delegated staking.

OriginTrail’s multichain deployment strategy ensures accessibility across diverse blockchain ecosystems, maximizing interoperability and reaching institutional actors operating across multiple networks.

Current Market Snapshot (as of February 2026):

  • TRAC trading at $0.34 (+1.23% 24h)
  • Market cap: $150.06M
  • 24h volume: $26.95K

Pendle (PENDLE) - Yield Tokenization Pioneer

Pendle revolutionizes yield management by tokenizing yield-bearing assets into Principal Tokens (PT) and Yield Tokens (YT), enabling sophisticated yield strategies previously unavailable to retail investors. Users can trade future yields and principals separately on Pendle’s AMM, unlocking speculation on yield curve movements and optimization opportunities.

The protocol’s recent integration of RWA tokenization support—including MakerDAO’s Boosted Dai Savings and Flux Finance’s fUSDC—signals Pendle’s evolution toward bridging traditional finance instruments with decentralized yield farming. By enabling on-chain access to tokenized Treasury Bonds and traditional asset yields, Pendle attracts both retail and institutional capital seeking sophisticated hedge mechanisms.

Current Market Snapshot (as of February 2026):

  • PENDLE trading at $1.22 (+2.34% 24h)
  • Market cap: $201.40M
  • 24h volume: $170.60K

TokenFi (TOKEN) - No-Code RWA Creation Platform

TokenFi democratizes RWA tokenization through a user-friendly platform requiring zero coding expertise. Targeting the anticipated $16 trillion RWA market projected for 2030, TokenFi provides tools for launching ERC-20, BEP-20, and other token standards alongside AI-powered NFT generation and direct marketplace connections.

The TOKEN utility token powers all platform operations—from token launching without requiring development skills to leveraging the AI Smart Contract Auditor for on-the-spot security validation. This democratization approach positions TokenFi to capture substantial user growth as RWA tokenization becomes increasingly accessible.

Current Market Snapshot (as of February 2026):

  • TOKEN trading at ~$0.00 (-2.06% 24h)
  • Market cap: $10.81M
  • 24h volume: $44.00K

Securitize - Regulatory-Grade Securities Tokenization

Securitize has established itself as the comprehensive platform for managing digital securities, combining compliance infrastructure, investor communication tools, and compliant issuance services. By 2022, merely three years post-launch, Securitize Markets ranked among the top 10 US stock transfer agents, serving over 1.2 million investor accounts across 3,000 clients.

While blockchain-agnostic, Securitize primarily leverages Ethereum infrastructure. BlackRock’s strategic investment and appointment of Joseph Chalom—BlackRock’s Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships—to Securitize’s board demonstrates institutional commitment to driving compliant RWA tokenization at scale.

Untangled Finance - Private Credit Tokenization

Untangled Finance, established in 2020, recently launched on the Celo network as a specialized RWA tokenization platform. The platform raised $13.5 million in October 2023, positioning itself to tokenize private credit assets and unlock liquidity for investors previously unable to access illiquid credit instruments.

By bridging traditional private credit markets with DeFi infrastructure, Untangled Finance expands the investable universe available to on-chain participants.

Swarm Markets (SMT) - TradFi-DeFi Bridge Builder

Swarm specializes in regulatory-compliant RWA tokenization, supporting securities, real-world assets, and cryptocurrencies across its platform. As of early 2024, Swarm maintained a TVL exceeding $5.4 million on DefiLlama, with the SMT token functioning as a payment/rewards mechanism.

The protocol’s July 2023 partnership with Mattereum created comprehensive, compliant infrastructure for on-chain asset securitization, reinforcing Swarm’s positioning as a TradFi-DeFi bridge.

MakerDAO (MKR) - DeFi Pioneer Integrating RWAs

MakerDAO represents Ethereum’s longest-established DeFi protocol, successfully integrating RWA tokenization into its ecosystem. Institutional investors now borrow the DAI stablecoin while tokenizing Treasury bills for protocol-based yield strategies.

By early 2024, RWAs comprised approximately 30% of MakerDAO’s balance sheet—representing over $2.06 billion of its $6.6 billion total value locked. This integration demonstrates how mature DeFi protocols can absorb RWA tokenization infrastructure while maintaining core economic model stability.

The MKR governance token enables protocol participation and risk management decisions affecting collateral types and stability parameters.

The Future of RWA Tokenization: Trends and Opportunities

The trajectory of RWA tokenization points toward accelerating adoption driven by multiple converging factors. Expanding asset class coverage—from traditional securities to commodities to alternative assets—creates an increasingly comprehensive on-chain financial ecosystem. Institutional participation through vehicles like BlackRock’s BUIDL validates market legitimacy while attracting regulatory clarity.

Improving market liquidity, evolving regulatory frameworks, and deepening DeFi infrastructure maturity collectively create conditions for exponential growth. The integration of real-world data oracle networks with blockchain infrastructure enhances the sophistication and utility of tokenized assets.

The projects driving RWA tokenization innovation stand positioned at the inflection point of a multi-trillion dollar financial transformation. As the crypto market continues mainstream integration, RWA tokenization will likely become a cornerstone of both institutional and retail investment strategies. The democratization of access to institutional-quality investments, combined with the operational efficiency gains from blockchain settlement, positions this sector for substantial expansion throughout 2025 and beyond.

The emerging ecosystem of specialized infrastructure providers, regulatory-compliant platforms, and institutional-grade participants suggests that RWA tokenization has transitioned from experimental concept to foundational financial infrastructure.

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