I think we’ll look back on 2025 and see it as the year where the tide turned for putting Real World Assets (RWAs) on blockchain.

For the last few years, it always felt like one of those ideas that was perpetually on the brink of breaking through but never quite able to cross the adoption curve and find real sustained traction in the market.

So why does this year feel like an inflection point? A few signals stand out for me:

First, the value of tokenized assets has surged to over $23B this year, nearly five times what it was three years ago and major institutions are beginning to get on board in more meaningful ways.

Next, the regulatory environment, particularly in the US, is clearer than it’s ever been before and infrastructure has also matured with the technical and legal “plumbing” needed for meaningful tokenisation finally getting up to speed.

Finally, the space just feels like it’s growing up. The conversation isn’t just about trading monkey JPEGs anymore (you know I love my @SolanaMBS!), it’s also about real estate, money markets, equities, gold and much more.

People now can and do manage almost all their assets on chain and many of these markets for RWAs are touch points with the TradFi ecosystem.

I believe over time this continued bridge building between on-chain infrastructure and legacy markets will ultimately enable mass adoption and move on chain RWAs from what looked like a niche experiment to a core part of the global financial system. 2025 feels like a critical year in that journey not because everything is solved, but because several big pieces are coming together at the same time, which I’ll be exploring in this piece.

Defining RWAs

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The definition of RWAs is a little bit slippery, so it’s probably worth getting clear on what we’re actually talking about for a minute. At the moment if you ask ten different people, you’ll probably get ten different answers.

A purist might think of RWAs as assets that exist in the physical world, like property, gold or commodities, but that’s far too narrow of a definition because it leaves out financial assets like stocks, bonds, and money markets, which are every bit as real and tradable, as well as a bunch of other important use cases.

I think a better way to think about them is in the broadest possible sense as assets that exist outside of Web3 but are increasingly mirrored and coordinated on-chain.

That includes all traditional financial assets, but it also makes space for things further out on the curve like collectibles, vaulted whiskey and wine (@BAXUSco), bandwidth (@PingNetwork_io), music royalties, luxury watches or even decentralized weather data (@end_corp).

Taking this broader view makes more sense because it captures the full scope of what’s happening and the entire spectrum of value that can be drawn on-chain, as well as leaving space for cases that don’t even exist yet.

My Take on Why 2025 Is Different

I’ve been close to the markets for several real-world assets during my career, so I’m very familiar with their inefficiencies. I know from experience how messy and broken many of these systems are and that’s why I believe blockchain is such a compelling solution to the problems they cause.

As a commodities broker working in freight and dry cargo at the start of my career, I saw multi million-dollar trades which relied on paper contracts and Bills of Lading that changed hands many times before settlement. Later when I moved into real estate and proptech, I ran into the bureaucratic nightmares of land registries, ownership disputes, and the joys of the UK planning system.

Of course, you could argue these kinds of inefficiencies could be solved by regular digital transformation but the problem with many real-world assets is not just that they’re analog, it’s that they’re fragmented and contested. Traditional digitisation makes processes faster but blockchain creates a shared, incorruptible ledger that’s resilient to dispute, abuse, and manipulation. That’s the fundamental difference.

Back in 2019, when I was at Pi Labs, a London based $100m proptech fund, we were already being pitched fractionalised real estate ownership on-chain. Fractional ownership was seen as fundamentally compelling because it already existed in traditional markets, and doing it more efficiently on-chain seemed like a logical evolution.

There were a few big sticking points though. The regulatory environment was too unclear, and there was doubt about whether enough liquidity would exist to make the model viable.

There was also reputational risk: without strong KYC/AML, it was all too easy to imagine a project doubling as a money-laundering front and no fund wanted to end up inadvertently backing the next headline scandal in crypto, the kind of situation that regulators would seize on and that could taint an entire sector overnight.

Overall the perception of crypto was just not there as an asset class and most funds had no appetite for it but fast forward a few years and a lot of those key factors have now changed:

1. Total Value On Chain & Liquidity

The most obvious indicator to look for is just how much value has been tokenized and how fast is that value growing year on year, and quarter on quarter. As of 2025, the RWA market has grown nearly five-fold over three years, hitting around $24 billion in total value by mid-year (Redstone Report). In just the first half of 2025 alone, tokenized asset value jumped from $8.6B to over $23B. That’s a serious curve even if it’s still small in the context of global TradFi markets.

Stablecoin adoption is a big part of this. I tend to lump stablecoins into the RWA conversation because they’re effectively tokenized dollars, a foundational real-world asset brought on-chain. Circle’s USDC, for example, is a gateway asset institutions are comfortable with: instead of earning 4% in TradFi, they can earn 8% on-chain, audit it, and dip a toe into digital assets without jumping straight into volatility.

Part of the reason this works is that stablecoins are simple to grasp for cautious TradFi players, who might be confused by all the technical elements of crypto. I see this response when I am talking to friends in the tradfi space, or family offices we deal with. Stablecoins are essentially just dollars with better efficiency and yield and that familiarity reduces uncertainty and makes them the natural starting point for institutional adoption. We’ve seen the stablecoin market approcahing $300bn this year and the trend isn’t stopping. (S/O @tamarincrypto for the amazing work she has been doing at the Solana Foundation for stablecoins and highlighting adoption).

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Liquidity for RWAs has long been a sticking point, but the picture is improving. A tokenized asset that can’t be traded or used is only a half-solution, and until recently many RWA tokens sat idle with thin or nonexistent secondary markets. That’s starting to change. More projects are working to actively integrate RWAs into lending, trading, and collateral systems. For example, protocols like @ethena_labs are weaving tokenized treasuries into stablecoin strategies, turning them from static tokens into assets with real utility with products like USDCtb.

It’s still early, but the trajectory is clear: RWAs are moving from being passively held placeholders to genuinely liquid parts of the on-chain economy.

2. Institutional Adoption

Another clear indicator that the market for RWAs is maturing is the level of institutional involvement. For years, tokenisation was seen as a niche experiment but now some of the biggest names in finance are not only acknowledging it but actively launching products. Franklin Templeton runs a money market fund on Solana (@FTI_US) . BlackRock launched its BUIDL fund on Eth, Fidelity has entered the tokenized fund space, and players like DBS and Goldman Sachs are also active. Digital asset treasuries are emerging as a normal part of portfolio management and quickly becoming par for the course. I would love to go deeper on DATs here, but we don’t have the time!

This is a big deal because, while crypto may have been born out of Cypherpunk ideals, when the world’s largest asset managers say “this technology has value,” it carries a lot of weight. Like it or not (I don’t love it), their endorsement legitimizes the space to a lot of people. We can argue the merits of this but I take a practical approach here. Just imagine if tomorrow BlackRock recommended that every portfolio allocate 10% to Bitcoin…that alone would reshape market flows and public perception overnight, including for the likes of your parents who might have dismissed crypto as a fad just a few years ago.

More institutional adoption also creates a virtuous self reinforcing loop: the participation of legitimate players brings credibility, liquidity, and more regulatory attention, which in turn lowers the risk (reputational & other) for other players to enter the space.

3. Regulatory Clarity & Legal Frameworks

The regulatory environment, particularly in the US, is as favorable as it’s ever been, and likely will remain so for a while yet. Whether you like Trump or not, his administration has brought a noticeably different attitude toward crypto.

You’ve now got firms like World Liberty Financial gaining traction, the SEC chair openly saying “crypto’s time is now,” and clearer pathways for things like ETPs and ETFs that were blocked under the previous regime. The Genius Act is also a landmark piece of policy for digital assets giving them clearer standing in US markets, providing guardrails for issuance, custody, and trading.

With the next election in 2028, that creates a real window of at least 3 years: a chance to build high-quality businesses, establish precedent, and set the tone for how this industry develops. It’s up to all of us in the industry now to prove we’re worthy of this opportunity and that this isn’t just another era of Bernie Madoff knock-offs running off with people’s money.

It’s not just the U.S either. The UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi) has become a crypto hub with dedicated regulatory frameworks, and Singapore is also increasingly welcoming. Together, the U.S., MENA, and Asia are shaping the global regulatory environment for RWAs, while Europe, by contrast, risks burying itself in endless bureaucratic resistance and the less we say about it the better…

4. Infrastructure Maturity

When it comes to infrastructure in 2025, the technology and UX are way ahead of where they were even a couple of years ago.

@Solana gets a lot of attention for obvious reasons because it’s fast, cheap, and has an active foundation, which is clearly trying to court more institutional and enterprise interest. Just this week Western Union announced they are building a stablecoin based settlement-network in partnership with Solana. The perception that SOL is just for degens (the so-called “Sol casino”) because of all the meme coin action often distracts from the fact that you’ve also got a lot of very practical people and builders doing great things on the chain. There are a lot of high-quality professionals -people who’ve run funds, published books, or had meaningful careers before this -who are now pushing the ecosystem forward and that shows up in activities like hackathons, grant programs and APEX events that are happening all over the world. Solana is making a concerted effort to attract institutional adoption, and is doing an excellent job at it. Internet Capital Markets is a statement of intention for Solana. I mentioned some teams earlier but there is a wealth of great projects like: -

• @orogoldapp - gold on chain
• @MetaWealth - tokenised real estate
• @AgriDexPlatform - bringing the $2.7 Trillion Agriculture Industry on chain
• @xStocksFi and @RemoraMarkets - buy tokenised equities directly from your wallet
• @Collector_Crypt - tokenised collectible cards
• @OndoFinance - institutional-grade financial products $1.4bn under mgmt
• @BAXUSco - tokenised whiskey and wine

But RWAs are not just a Solana story. Ethereum itself remains the other big player for RWAs thanks to its deep liquidity, the Lindy effect, and institutional comfort with its ecosystem and L2s. While its culture is full of what I’d call “technical hippies” (said with love) who are more focused on the philosophy and elegance of the system than on making it institution-friendly, I still think they’ll succeed, because of the decentralized nature of a lot of the communities. There are just too many smart people building on there who will bring their own networks for this not to work. Projects like Maple Finance (@maplefinance) speak to this, bringing private credit on-chain, or Mattereum (@mattereum) who pioneered the way for RWA tokenisation creating accepted legal frameworks across a range of assets.

As for the other chains, Avalanche is doing a lot to court institutional investment, positioning itself as the more “enterprise-friendly” alternative with strong outreach to TradFi players. Arbitrum is worth watching too, given its liquidity depth and role as one of the dominant Ethereum L2s, with projects like st0x.io (@st0x_io) already linking into its rails. For now it’s probably too early to call with Sui, Monad, or Aptos. Monad hasn’t even launched mainnet yet, and the application layer is still thin across those ecosystems however we’re working with a few Monad teams and the technical skill there is top draw. I am cautiously optimistic, regardless, taken together these emerging platforms are all part of the maturing technical and legal “plumbing” that tokenisation depends on: faster settlement, cheaper execution, clearer compliance frameworks, and ultimately more optionality for institutions and builders alike.

5. Cultural Awareness & Product Diversity

The breadth of tokenisation is expanding and while stablecoins and treasuries still dominate in terms of value, we’re now seeing activity across a wider range of assets.

In equities, xStocks on Solana is building products with clear institutional and retail application and foundation support. In real estate, MetaWealth is tackling fractionalized ownership while @collaterize experiments with tokenized property tied to LLC structures. Platforms like Baxus are issuing NFTs for vaulted whiskey and wine, while Mattereum pioneered this approach on Eth and does the same with watches and other collectibles, land or any item that can be vaulted or custodied. They were arguable too early in their approach, but directionally correct.

This diversity matters because the more types of RWAs that are brought on-chain, the more familiar people will become with the concept and the more robust and resilient the ecosystem becomes.

At the same time, cultural awareness is being reinforced by how people actually use these systems. More and more are beginning to live entirely on-chain, especially with the adoption of cards like @KASTcard and @GetPyra, which let you spend crypto directly, or services like @SP3NDdotshop, where you can use stables to shop on Amazon and elsewhere.

As stablecoins continue to gain adoption and companies like Stripe integrate them, the line between on-chain and off-chain will blur to the point where you won’t even think about it. If most of your wealth is already on-chain, it should feel natural to manage all of it there, whether that’s stocks, real estate, or whiskey, without distinguishing between the two worlds.

The Bigger Picture

If you zoom out, the story of bringing RWAs is really an extension of the story of the impact that better record-keeping has on development. The more secure and reliable a society’s ledgers are, the better that private property is protected and the more prosperous and fair that society tends to become. Blockchain is the next chapter in that story, because whilst it digitizes records, it also makes them more tamper-proof and transparent, as well as globally interoperable.

Of course, the benefits of RWAs on-chain aren’t new: convenience, efficiency, and access have always been the promise but what’s different in 2025 is that those benefits are finally becoming practical at scale.

• Convenience used to be theoretical but today, I can swap into stocks, money markets, or real estate tokens directly from Phantom, Solflare or MetaMask, paying a small swap fee, and I’m done.
• Efficiency is also a lot more than a hollow pitch deck claim with 24/7 markets, instant settlement, and broader pools of capital starting to show up in real-world products, from tokenized treasuries to platforms like MetaWealth or XStocks.
• When it comes to access, many multimillionaires and even billionaires live entirely on-chain. They’re not interested in KYC headaches or risking frozen bank accounts when moving $50–100K. If they can buy stocks or property directly on-chain, they will. If not, they just won’t bother with that asset class.

Zooming out, this all feels like part of a bigger historical arc. Every year, more of our lives shift into digitally native forms from money to media, and younger generations don’t just tolerate this shift, they expect it because it’s natural for them. (I could write a whole other piece about how I think the social contract for young people has changed and digital assets represent part of that shift). Real-world assets are simply the next frontier and within the next five to ten years, this will increasingly become the default. Once that cultural baseline tips, the acceleration won’t just continue, it will compound.

2025 is increasingly looking like that inflection point, with institutional adoption picking up, more and more higher-quality projects emerging, and regulators effectively parting the seas and saying: have a crack at it. Stablecoin adoption is growing fast, liquidity is deeper, and the technology and UX are far better than even a couple of years ago. With all that in mind, now is the time to build serious, high-quality businesses that set precedent and prove RWAs on-chain aren’t a niche experiment but a core part of the global financial system.

If you’re building in the RWA space, we want to speak to you, so reach out. Onwards 2026!