Tokenized real-world assets are showing steady growth despite a bearish market – a divergence that experts say reflects capital maturing within crypto rather than fleeing it entirely.
The RWA sector posted 8.68% growth in the value of distributed assets last month, reaching $24.84 billion, according to RWA.xyz.
Represented asset value, which tracks tokenized assets that cannot move between wallets or leave the issuance platform, remained largely flat, growing just 0.51% to $372.97 billion.
In contrast, the total value of DeFi has fallen 25% over the past month to $94.84 billion. DeFiLlama facts.
The decline comes as nearly every major protocol, including Aave, Lido, Eigen Layer, and Binance Staked ETH, posted double-digit declines over the past 30 days.
Still, the difference reflects a maturing market where capital is rotating rather than retreating, experts say Declutter.
“DeFi returns were depressed, so lending and staking fell along with the market,” Sergej Kunz, co-founder of 1inch, told me. Declutter. “At the same time, tokenized treasuries offer a 4% return on chain with minimal risk. People don’t leave the space, they enter in a slightly less risky way.”
In contrast to DeFi’s declining TVL, the distributed asset value of tokenized real-world assets, excluding stablecoins, has shown continued growth across multiple sectors.
Tokenized US Treasuries, commodities and private credit with $10.7 billion, $6.9 billion and $2.9 billion in distributed value are up 10%, 20% and 15% respectively over the past month.
The rotation, instead of the exit, makes the shift structural, according to Rico van der Veen, CEO of Programmable Credit Protocol.
“RWA protocols provide what DeFi never could: enforceable rights, regulatory clarity, and cash flows that are not dependent on token issuance,” he shared. Declutter.
Despite strong fundamentals for RWA assets, tokens tied to the sector have struggled – a dynamic that both experts said was a result of the broader market decline.
“Prices across the market have fallen. This is not specific to RWA projects,” Kunz said. “TVL is still growing, which shows that demand is still there. Sentiment has not yet caught up with fundamentals. If it does, these projects will likely be repriced very quickly.”
Van der Veen offered a more sobering view, explaining that the value belongs to the instruments, not the tokens.
“BlackRock’s BUIDL has over $1.5 billion under management. That value is in the fund, not in a governance token,” he said. “Most RWA tokens are still utility tokens with no claim on the revenue flowing through the protocol. Adoption and token price are permanently decoupled.”