RWA Panorama Analysis: Global Market Trends and Outlook for 2025

1. Definition and Development of RWA

RWA is the process of utilizing blockchain technology to convert real-world assets ( such as real estate, commodities, debts, etc. ) into digital tokens. These tokens represent ownership or rights to income of the assets, which can be traded and managed on the blockchain. The goal is to address issues such as ownership confirmation difficulties, low transfer efficiency, and insufficient liquidity in traditional asset transactions through the features of blockchain.

The development of RWA has gone through the following stages:

• 2017-2020: Conceptual emergence, early projects focused on real estate and art tokenization.
• 2021-2023: DeFi protocols begin to incorporate RWA, traditional financial institutions launch tokenized products
• 2024-2025: Mainstream financial institutions accelerate layout, market size surpasses 23 billion USD.

2. Market Size and Growth Trends

As of the end of May 2025, the total on-chain RWA value globally is approximately $23 billion. In March 2025, the TVL of RWA protocols surpassed $10 billion for the first time, a year-on-year increase of nearly 140%.

Main Protocol TVL:

• MakerDAO(RWA Vaults): approximately 1.3 billion USD
• Ondo Finance: approximately $1.283 billion
• Centrifuge: approximately 441 million USD

Multiple institutions predict that the RWA market size will reach trillions of dollars by 2030. Key growth trends include:

• Traditional financial institutions accelerate participation
• Technological evolution enhances efficiency
• Regulatory policies are gradually becoming clear.

3. Technical Path and Core Standards

The implementation path of RWA technology includes:

1. Asset Onboarding and Tokenization Process

   • Asset Selection and Rights Confirmation
   • Legality Audit and SPV Establishment
   • Token Issuance
   • Off-chain data integration
   • Value Guarantee Mechanism

2. RWA Supported Protocol Technology Stack

Core Standards and Tools:

• ERC-3643(T-REX)
• ERC-1400
• Chainlink / Pyth Oracles
• Multi-signature/Custody Tool
• TEE( Trusted Execution Environment )

4. Typical RWA Asset Categories and Applications

Main RWA asset types:

1. Debt-type assets ( real-world securities )
2. Real estate assets ( such as real estate )
3. Commodity assets ( gold, carbon credits, etc. )
4. Other real assets ( copyrights, insurance, etc. )

Practical applications are mainly divided into:

• Investment-oriented RWA: providing yield anchoring for virtual assets
• Financing-oriented RWA: Enhance the liquidity of traditional assets

V. Current Status of Global Market Development

• United States: Institutions such as Ondo Finance and Franklin Templeton issue bond and fund tokens; DeFi platforms like MakerDAO promote on-chain lending.
• China: Pilot projects for on-chain energy and equipment assets, such as battery swapping cabinets, charging piles, and other projects.
• Hong Kong: The Monetary Authority launches the Ensemble project sandbox, covering multiple tokenization scenarios.

RWA ecosystem participants include asset issuance platforms, trading distributors, DeFi protocols, custodians, and more.

VI. Regulatory Attitudes and Policies in Different Regions

Hong Kong:

• From pilot innovation to dual-track regulation
• A regulatory system based on "the attributes of underlying financial assets as the main focus, with technological supervision as a supplement"

United States:

• Functional testing based on the Howey Test
• Fragmented regulation, lack of a unified framework

Dubai:

• VARA and DFSA dual-track regulatory system
• Actively support RWA innovation and establish a regulatory sandbox.

VII. Future Outlook and Potential

• It is expected that the global tokenized asset market size could reach 16 trillion US dollars by 2030.
• More institutional capital entering the market
• Diversification of asset types
• Technology and standards continue to upgrade
• The regulatory system is gradually improving.
• Deep integration of green finance and RWA

RWA is expected to become a key link between traditional finance and blockchain, opening a new era of digital finance.