The market for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) is surging, reaching a new all-time high of $26.5 billion and growing 70% since the start of the year, according to industry tracker RWA.xyz.
This growth is driven by rising institutional confidence and signals a vast, untapped potential within the $400 trillion traditional finance (TradFi) market, according to an August research paper by Web3 digital property firm Animoca Brands.
Researchers Andrew Ho and Ming Ruan from Animoca Brands highlighted that the estimated $400 trillion addressable TradFi market—which includes asset classes like private credit, treasury debt, commodities, stocks, and global bonds—underscores the immense potential for RWA tokenization.
The current tokenized RWA sector, at roughly $26 billion, is a small fraction of the total addressable market, which is approximately 16,000 times larger than the current onchain market size, according to Animoca’s analysis.
The researchers note that large asset managers are in a “strategic race to build full-stack, integrated platforms,” with long-term value expected to accrue to those who can “control asset lifecycle.”
The current RWA landscape is heavily dominated by two categories—private credit and U.S. Treasurys—which together account for nearly 90% of the total tokenized market value.
While RWA activity is “unfolding across a multichain ecosystem,” the Ethereum network remains the market leader. Ethereum holds a 55% market share for RWA tokenization (including stablecoins) and accounts for $156 billion in onchain value. That share grows to 76% when including Layer-2 networks such as ZKsync Era, Polygon, and Arbitrum, per RWA.xyz.
Animoca’s researchers attribute Ethereum’s lead to its security, liquidity, and large ecosystem of developers. However, they also stated that this lead is being challenged by high-performance and purpose-built networks, emphasizing that interoperability will be key to long-term success.
The growth in RWA tokenization could also spur demand for related crypto assets like Ether and the oracle provider Chainlink, which have recently seen gains that outpace the wider crypto market. Animoca Brands itself recently launched its own tokenized RWA marketplace called NUVA.
