The Rise of Tokenized Real-World Assets
The tokenized real-world assets (RWA) sector has reached a significant milestone, surpassing $10 billion in total value locked (TVL) for the first time on March 18. This sector hit an all-time high on March 21, with nearly $10.4 billion TVL.
Growth and Performance
- The TVL of RWA protocols increased by 30% in 2025 and almost 140% year-on-year.
- Compared to March 2023, when RWA protocols had less than $1 billion in TVL, the growth has been exceptional, reaching 1,054%.
Leading Players in the Market
BlackRock’s tokenized money fund BUIDL is leading the market with over $1.4 billion in TVL, showing a 140% growth in the past 30 days. BUIDL is closely followed by MakerDAO’s RWA vault, with a market size of $1.3 billion, despite a 30% decrease in the same period.
Ethena Labs’ stablecoin USDtb is the third-largest RWA protocol by TVL, exceeding $1 billion almost three months after its launch and reaching almost $1.2 billion as of the latest data. USDtb has seen a massive 1,222% increase in TVL in the last month.
The Future of Tokenization
DefiLlama head of growth, Patrick Scott, believes that while most RWA protocols are currently tokenizing treasury bills, the future will see bonds, equities, and the entire financial markets moving on-chain. He emphasized that hyper-tokenization is already happening and it’s just a matter of how quickly it will scale.
DeFi Influence on Traditional Finance
The growth of BUIDL and USDtb is closely intertwined, with USDtb’s stablecoin holding 90% of its backing in BUIDL shares. Over $1 billion of USDtb’s backing consists of BUIDL, leading to almost 76% of BlackRock’s fund TVL being driven by a DeFi application.
Furthermore, BUIDL stands to receive a $500 million boost from MakerDAO’s Spark protocol. BlackRock, Centrifuge, and Superstate emerged as winners of the Tokenization Grand Prix competition, earning a potential investment from Spark, pending Sky governance approval.
RWA Sector Outperformance
Despite some RWA-related tokens experiencing a 1% decrease year-to-date according to Artemis data, the sector has outperformed the overall crypto market performance, which saw a negative 39% year-to-date.
Notable performers in the RWA sector include Mantra (OM) with an 83% price increase this year and Plume (PLUME) with a 30% rise in the past 30 days, making it the second-best-performing token in the sector.
When compared to other popular crypto narratives, the RWA sector’s performance stands out even more. Memecoins have dropped by approximately 47.5% on average this year, while AI-related tokens lost nearly 58% of their value over the same period.
