Top 5 projects from the RWA (Real World Assets) sector

The popularity of the RWA (Real-World Assets) sector is due to the possibility of tokenizing real-world assets, which has advantages such as lowering transaction costs and increasing the speed of transactions, especially cross-border ones.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) report indicated that about 10% of the world's GDP will be tokenized by 2027. RWAs can include assets such as precious metals, real estate, stocks and bonds, intellectual property, and art objects.

1. Chainlink (LINK)

The Chainlink platform is the leading blockchain oracle provider in the crypto market that provides critical data for decentralized exchanges and other DeFi protocols. Chainlink's services are used by well-known projects in the crypto industry, such as Lido Finance, Aave, Compound, Sushi, PancakeSwap, Frax, Synthetix, and many others.

Chainlink has quickly become a leader in its segment, having built up an extensive partner network of crypto projects in various sectors such as DeFi, NFT market, asset tokenization, insurance, and climate markets. Analysts believe Chainlink is leading the way regarding crypto project development activity in the RWA space. The protocol team provides a single platform through which developers can manage all aspects of RWA.

However, Chainlink also has a growing number of partners from traditional sectors. For example, in 2024, 21Shares, a prominent investment firm, chose Chainlink's platform to increase reserve transparency for its spot Ethereum-ETF (CETH). To achieve this goal, 21Shares utilizes the Proof-of-Reserve consensus mechanism developed by the Chainlink team.

Other major investment firms have joined the Chainlink ecosystem and launched their own Bitcoin-ETFs and Ethereum-ETFs. These include Sygnum and Fidelity. The latter is one of the top five investment firms in the world in terms of assets under management (AUM), which stands at $4.5 trillion.

2. Hedera (HBAR)

The Hedera team has developed a framework to streamline the tokenizing of real-world assets and increase transparency using blockchain. Hedera also introduced the Asset Tokenization Studio (ATS) tool to simplify RWA asset issuance, configuration, and management.

The technology introduced by Hedera's platform is already being used in various sectors, such as:

• Tokenization of carbon credits (DOVU);
• Equity ownership of real estate;
• Tokenized financial instruments such as stocks and stock indices.

For example, marketplace RedSwan, whose team participated in developing the ATS tool, uses the Hedera protocol to tokenize commercial real estate — making investments in this market accessible to a wide range of investors.

Regulated digital asset exchange Archax uses Hedera tools to tokenize traditional financial assets. For example, Archax used Hedera's technology to create its flagship multi-billion dollar Abrdn money market fund and tokenize shares of the nearly $25 billion BlackRock ICS US Treasury fund.

3. Avalanche (AVAX)

Avalanche is one of the highest-performing and most cost-effective blockchain platforms, capable of processing thousands of transactions per second. The platform provides a high level of decentralization and security for tokenization and efficient management of RWA assets.

In August 2024, investment firm Grayscale Investments launched a closed-end fund on the Avalanche blockchain. The launch of the fund, called Grayscale Avalanche Trust, indicates the high interest of institutional investors in the RWA sector and the Avalanche ecosystem in particular. Prominent companies such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Shopify, and Alibaba have joined the Avalanche ecosystem.

As of March 2025, Avalanche is one of the top three blockchain projects in the RWA sector and is ranked 16th in the overall cryptocurrency capitalization ranking.

4. Mantra (OM)

The Mantra team positions its blockchain platform as a "regulatory compliant" infrastructure for RWA assets.

According to the developers, one of Mantra's main goals is integrating high-performance decentralized tools into the traditional finance (TradFi) sector.

So far, the Mantra platform lags behind the leading RWA projects in terms of the number of large companies among partners but continues to increase its partner network. For example, Mantra has partnered with a UAE-based digital bank called Zand, and Google Cloud is one of the validators and infrastructure providers for the Mantra network.

As of March 2025, Mantra is among the top 30 blockchain projects and is ranked 4th in the RWA sector by capitalization, which is $6.78 billion.

5. Ondo (ONDO)

The Ondo platform has quickly become one of the leading players in the RWA sector, and its Ondo Chain blockchain was developed specifically for tokenizing RWA assets.

The developers of the Ondo platform have focused on U.S. Treasuries and money market funds. For example, one of the flagship products launched by the Ondo team was the OUSG (Ondo Short-Term U.S. Government Treasuries) fund, which stands out for its stability and predictable returns for investors.

World Liberty Financial, a company run by U.S. President Donald Trump, has partnered with Ondo Finance to integrate tokenized assets into its platform and develop the RWA market. In February 2025, the international payment system Mastercard added the Ondo platform to its Multi-Token Network (MTN), built on its private blockchain.

As of March 2025, the native cryptocurrency ONDO is the 5th most capitalized cryptocurrency in the RWA sector.

Conclusion

RWA has become one of the fastest growing markets in the Web3 industry. According to DeFi Llama, in the last two years alone, the total blockchain value (TVL) of the RWA protocol has grown more than 10 times from $888 million to $9.15 billion.

According to various estimates, the RWA market may reach $2-$5 trillion by 2030. Analysts at Blomberg and McKinsey make such forecasts.