Market Size, Growth Forecasts & Institutional Adoption of RWAs

1) Introduction: From experiment to infrastructure

Over the last two years, real-world assets (RWAs) moved from a DeFi thought experiment to a functioning piece of financial infrastructure. The story is simple: institutions want faster settlement, better transparency, and programmable distribution for assets that already exist—treasuries, private credit, funds—without sacrificing compliance. The on-chain share of these markets is still small, but the direction of travel is clear: tokenized cash equivalents are scaling first, with private credit, funds, and bonds following where legal and data rails are ready. Tokenization isn’t replacing finance—it’s modernizing the plumbing underneath it. (Financial Times)

2) Current market overview (2025)

How big is it now? The answer depends on definitions, but we can anchor on public trackers and mainstream sources:

• Total on-chain RWAs (ex-stablecoins): ~$34.2B as of Oct 20, 2025, per RWA.xyz’s global dashboard. (RWA.xyz)

  
  

• Tokenized U.S. treasuries & cash equivalents: ~$8.3B outstanding, with 50+ products tracked and 52k+ holders, reflecting the clearest product–market fit so far. Earlier in the year, the Financial Times reported these funds at $7.4B (up ~80% YTD), so the trajectory is consistent. (RWA.xyz)

  
  

• Tokenized government/corporate bonds outside money-market structures: ~$1.0B on chain. Smaller today, but growing as issuance and custody tools mature. (RWA.xyz)

  
  

What’s actually working right now?

• Money-market & T-bill wrappers (Franklin Templeton, BlackRock/Securitize, Janus/Anemoy) are seeing the fastest adoption because they marry familiar instruments with 24/7 operability and minute-level settlement, which is useful for treasury ops and crypto collateral flows. (Financial Times)

  
  

• Regulated tokenized funds are live: Franklin’s OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund publishes holdings and yields, showing this is not vaporware; it’s a registered fund with blockchain-based shareholder records. (Franklin Templeton)

  
  

• Platform momentum: BlackRock has leaned into tokenization via Securitize (BUIDL), while JPMorgan rebranded its tokenization/payments stack as Kinexys—both signal continued enterprise-grade infrastructure efforts. (CoinDesk)

  
  

Nuance that matters: Not every jurisdiction is green-lighting everything. For example, China’s CSRC recently asked some brokers to pause RWA activity in Hong Kong—evidence that policy remains a gating factor even as Hong Kong builds a digital-asset hub. (Reuters)

3) Growth forecasts: what credible sources say (and what they don’t)

Forecasts vary widely; the responsible way to present them is as a range with caveats:

• McKinsey (2024): $2T (base) to $4T (bull) in tokenized assets by 2030, stressing that broad adoption will be gradual and asset coverage limited at first. This is the most conservative high-quality estimate. (CoinDesk)

  
  

• BCG/ADDX (2022): headline $16T by 2030 (often quoted). Useful as an upper bound, but it’s older and assumes significant market readiness; treat as bullish scenario, not base case. (BCG)

  
  

• RWA sector trackers (2025): Near-term reality check—on-chain RWA value (ex-stablecoins) crossed the $25–30B band by mid-to-late 2025, led by treasuries and private credit. These snapshots align with the observed product momentum and institutional trials moving to limited production. (InvestaX)

  
  

Drivers behind the numbers:

• Product–market fit for tokenized cash equivalents (operational liquidity, collateral utility, faster treasury ops). (Financial Times)

  
  

• Institutional participation: BlackRock/Securitize, Franklin Templeton, Hamilton Lane, and bank platforms (e.g., JPMorgan’s Kinexys) are not pilots anymore—they’re iterating on real distribution and reporting. (CoinDesk)

  
  

• Data & compliance rails improving: permissioned token standards and fund reporting are maturing (a prerequisite for real AUM to migrate). (Financial Times)

  
  

Bottom line (objective framing):

• Near-term (2025–2026): growth remains concentrated in treasuries/cash equivalents and select private-credit programs; expect steady but measured expansion. (RWA.xyz)

  
  

• Medium-term (to 2030): reasonable range for total tokenized assets sits between low-trillions (McKinsey base) and high-single-digit trillions depending on jurisdictions, custody/accounting treatment, and standardized data. Treat anything above that as bullish scenario, not baseline. (CoinDesk)

4) Institutional adoption: who’s actually live (and why)

Asset managers.

• BlackRock: its tokenized money-market fund BUIDL (issued via Securitize) has emerged as a category leader and kept scaling through 2025; recent coverage highlights rapid AUM growth and expanding distribution to qualified purchasers. This isn’t a pilot — it’s in market with recurring yield distribution and institutional pipes. (The Wall Street Journal)

  
  

• Franklin Templeton: the OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) records share ownership on blockchain (Stellar primary, multi-chain capability) and has expanded into the EU as a UCITS product domiciled in Luxembourg — again, a fully regulated fund, not a demo. (SEC)

  

• Hamilton Lane: partnered with Securitize and others to tokenize private funds and credit, lowering minimums and moving toward multichain distribution with daily liquidity features. (Hamilton Lane)

  
  

Banks & custodians.

• J.P. Morgan rebranded its blockchain/tokenization stack to Kinexys, with applications like the Tokenized Collateral Network (TCN) and work toward on-chain settlements — a clear signal of intent to integrate tokenization into core treasury and payments workflows. (JPMorgan Chase)

  
  

Why they’re in: faster settlement, programmatic distributions, 24/7 treasury ops, and auditable data trails that reduce reconciliation overhead — without abandoning regulated wrappers. The adoption pattern is pragmatic: start with cash-equivalents and short-duration paper, then expand to private credit and funds as custody/accounting and reporting standards harden. (See Sections 2–3 for size and growth context.) (The Wall Street Journal)

5) Key drivers accelerating adoption

1. Regulatory clarity (especially in the EU).MiCA is now applicable (stablecoin/e-money rules from June 30, 2024; broader framework fully applicable Dec 30, 2024), giving issuers and service providers a pan-EU playbook. That doesn’t solve everything, but it lowers policy risk and helps compliance teams green-light controlled rollouts. (Norton Rose Fulbright)

   
   

2. Product–market fit for tokenized cash equivalents.Money-market/T-bill wrappers have obvious utility for corporate/crypto-native treasuries (intraday liquidity, programmatic sweep, near-instant settlement). Franklin’s on-chain fund and BlackRock’s BUIDL are representative: real funds with real reporting using blockchain rails. (Franklin Templeton)

   
   

3. Permissioned token standards.Standards like ERC-3643 (identity-gated, transfer-restricted tokens) let issuers enforce KYC/AML and jurisdiction rules on-chain, which is crucial for securities distribution, secondary transfers, and audit. (ERC-3643)

   
   

4. DeFi adjacency & collateral utility.Institutional investors increasingly want instruments that can interact with on-chain liquidity/tools while staying within risk limits. We’re already seeing RWA collateral show up in major systems (e.g., Maker’s reported RWA share) — a directional signal that composability is useful when risk is bounded. (CoinLaw)

   
   

5. Data plumbing is improving.Banks/asset managers are investing in indexing, reconciliation, and reporting (e.g., Kinexys/TCN; fund share registries on Stellar/Polygon), which lowers the operational cost of moving more products on-chain. (JPMorgan Chase)

   
   

6) Challenges limiting short-term scale (the honest view)

• Regulatory fragmentation.Progress isn’t uniform. Example: reports in Sept 2025 that China’s CSRC informally asked some brokers to pause RWA tokenization work in Hong Kong underscore that policy risk is real, and cross-border structures remain sensitive. (Reuters)

  
  

• Data fragmentation and verification.On-chain events are transparent; off-chain verification (valuation updates, covenant checks, custody attestations) still lives in private systems. Until standardized data schemas and automated reconciliations are widespread, scale will be deliberate rather than explosive. (This is precisely where specialized data infrastructure providers add value.)

  
  

• Custody, accounting & ops.Institutional wallet policies, segregation, and accounting treatment for tokenized holdings are evolving. That adds friction to approvals, even when the economic product is familiar (e.g., T-bills).

  
  

• Liquidity ≠ listing.Tokenizing a security doesn’t conjure buyers. Secondary markets are developing, but market-making and venue rules still gate deep liquidity — especially for private credit and real estate.

  
  

7) Outlook: the path to “boring” scale

Near term (2025–2027): expect steady growth in tokenized treasuries/cash equivalents and select private-credit programs as issuers lean on MiCA-style rulebooks and permissioned token standards. Distribution stays targeted (institutions/qualified purchasers), with incremental expansion as custody and accounting frameworks mature. (Norton Rose Fulbright)

Mid term (to 2030): credible forecasts put total tokenized assets in the low-trillions base case, with upside if more jurisdictions harmonize disclosure/custody and if secondary market infrastructure deepens. The throughline is not hype — it’s operational efficiency: faster settlement, lower reconciliation costs, and machine-readable reporting that regulators and auditors can actually use. (See prior section for examples: Franklin, BlackRock/Securitize, Kinexys.) (The Wall Street Journal)

Bottom line: tokenization won’t replace securitization; it will digitize its rails. The winners will pair regulated wrappers with on-chain transparency and automation, and they’ll invest in the data layer that keeps everything verifiable. That’s where durable adoption — and durable alpha — show up.