The RWA market saw a rapid rise in the first half of 2025, but still faces many challenges.

In the first half of 2025, the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) experienced a significant rise. As of June 6, the total market capitalization of the global RWA market reached $23.39 billion (excluding stablecoins), an increase of 48.9% since the beginning of the year. Private credit and U.S. Treasury bonds have become the market leaders, accounting for nearly 90% of the total.

However, behind this impressive performance lie many issues. Factors such as high concentration of asset classes, limited liquidity, insufficient transparency, and low correlation with the native cryptocurrency ecosystem mean that RWA still has a way to go before becoming a truly mainstream track.

Private Credit and U.S. Treasuries Dominate the Market

Private credit has become the hottest asset type in the RWA market, reaching a scale of $13.5 billion, accounting for 57.7%. Among them, a certain blockchain fintech service platform ranks first with an active loan amount of $10.19 billion, primarily offering home equity line of credit (HELOC) services.

U.S. Treasuries are the second largest RWA asset class. A digital token issued by an asset management company, BUIDL, has a total value of approximately $2.9 billion and holds a dominant position. BUIDL has expanded to multiple blockchain networks, but 93% of the assets remain on Ethereum.

The asset class ranks third, primarily consisting of tokenized gold issued by various institutions, with a total market value of approximately $1.51 billion.

Changes in the Competitive Landscape of Public Chains

Ethereum remains the preferred network for RWA assets, accounting for 55% of the market capitalization. However, the rise of ZKsync and Stellar is noteworthy.

ZKsync has risen to second place with an asset issuance volume of $2.25 billion, mainly thanks to the contribution of a certain asset management company. However, there are certain doubts regarding the actual amount of assets on-chain from this company.

Stellar has become the third largest RWA network, with a total issuance of approximately $498 million, mainly relying on a monetized fund based on U.S. Treasury bonds issued by a certain asset management company.

Solana ranks fourth, with a circulation of approximately $349 million, showing a rapid rise.

Challenges Faced by the RWA Market

Despite the impressive data, the RWA market still faces numerous challenges:

1. The asset class concentration is high, mainly consisting of private credit and US Treasury bonds. Some leading project data is not transparent, and liquidity and transparency need to be improved.

2. Government bond-like RWA products face competitive pressure from stablecoins.

3. The degree of asset class diversification is low, with the proportion of products such as commodities, stocks, and funds still very small, and development is constrained by multiple factors.

4. The total market size is only $23.3 billion, far lower than the stablecoin market, and significantly deviates from the industry's expectation of a trillion scale.

5. The current RWA market is mainly dominated by institutions and large investors, making it difficult for ordinary investors to participate.

Overall, although the RWA market achieved a rise of nearly 50% in the first half of 2025, it still needs to make breakthrough progress in areas such as transparency, liquidity, and ecological integration to become a true engine of financial innovation.