The RWA market has seen a rapid rise in the first half of the year, but challenges remain.

In the first half of 2025, the tokenization market for real-world assets (RWA) experienced a significant rise. As of June 6, the total market capitalization of the global RWA market (excluding stablecoins) reached $23.39 billion, a rise of 48.9% compared to the beginning of the year. Private credit and U.S. Treasury bonds became the dominant forces in the market, accounting for nearly 90% of the share.

However, behind this remarkable rise, the RWA market still faces many challenges. Issues such as high concentration of asset classes, limited liquidity, insufficient transparency, and a low correlation with the native cryptocurrency ecosystem still exist, making it a long way for RWA to become a truly mainstream track.

Private credit has become the most popular asset type in the RWA market, with a scale of $13.5 billion, accounting for about 57.7%. Among them, a certain blockchain financial technology service platform ranks first with an active loan amount of $10.19 billion. This platform mainly provides Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) services, allowing users to obtain loans with a credit limit of 85% of their home's value.

U.S. Treasury bonds are the second largest asset class in the RWA market. This type of RWA converts traditional U.S. Treasury bonds, cash, and repurchase agreements, which are dollar-denominated assets, into digital tokens through blockchain technology. The tokens issued by a certain asset management company currently total approximately $2.9 billion, making it the largest issuer in this field.

In terms of public chains, Ethereum remains the most favored network for RWA assets, accounting for 55% of the market share. Surprisingly, a certain Layer 2 solution has become the second-largest RWA public chain with an asset issuance volume of $2.25 billion. This is mainly attributed to an asset management company that has introduced Web3 technology, allowing institutions to initiate investment opportunities on its platform.

A certain established public chain has become the third-ranked network in the RWA market, with an issuance volume of approximately $498 million. Although it has gradually faded from the mainstream public chain market in recent years, it has surpassed some popular public chains in the RWA field by launching a smart contract platform and facilitating cooperation with multiple contracting institutions.

However, behind the rapid rise of the RWA market lie some potential challenges:

1. The asset categories are overly concentrated, primarily in private credit and U.S. Treasury bonds. Some leading projects lack data transparency, and certain assets may not have true trading characteristics.

2. Government bond-like RWA products face competitive pressure from interest-bearing stablecoins, as both essentially offer similar yield effects.

3. The asset category is singular, with commodity, stock, and fund products still accounting for a relatively low proportion. The development of these assets is restricted by multiple factors, including physical storage, legal compliance, and costs.

4. The market size is still limited, far from the stablecoin market, and even less than the market value of some newly issued public chain tokens.

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

Although the RWA market achieved significant rise in the first half of 2025, how to break through the current bottleneck and improve transparency, liquidity, and ecological integration will be key factors determining its future development direction. Whether RWA can open a new chapter in finance still requires the joint efforts and innovation of market participants.