What’s In Store for Real-World Assets in 2025

The tokenisation of real-world assets (RWAs) is gaining serious momentum in 2025, with industry experts predicting that $50 billion in total RWA on-chain value will be reached this year. Converting ownership of real-world assets such as bonds, real estate or commodities into digital tokens on a blockchain enhances liquidity and transparency. Financial institutions and retail investors both stand to benefit, but the RWA industry must address liquidity challenges and gaps in market intelligence for the sector to thrive.

The Real-World Assets (RWAs) Market

The total RWA on-chain market has expanded from less than $2 billion three years ago to approximately $13.9 billion today. With projections for 2025 even more ambitious, including a $10 trillion market size estimation for 2030, the exponential growth reflects the increasing adoption of tokenisation across a wide range of asset classes from U.S. Treasury debt and commodities to real estate and start-up investments.

Major financial institutions are embracing the RWA trend, as highlighted by BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, which now holds over $600 million in total assets, making it the largest tokenised U.S. Treasuries fund. Institutional adoption is one of the key drivers of market expansion and legitimacy.

Illiquidity Challenges and The Need for a Unified Liquidity Layer

Despite the RWA market’s rapid growth, there are still challenges related to illiquidity. Assets often suffer from limited liquidity and high transaction costs. The tokenisation process addresses these issues by creating a more fluid and accessible market for traditionally illiquid assets, tying ownership to on-chain tokens to enable transactions in seconds, not days, weeks or months.

The current RWA landscape is characterised by significant structural barriers that impede seamless asset trading; fragmented liquidity pools across multiple platforms and blockchains create substantial friction, preventing price discovery and smooth asset transfers. Regulatory uncertainty further compounds these challenges, with inconsistent and constantly evolving global frameworks creating additional complexity for institutional and retail investors alike.

A critical gap in the market is the absence of a unified liquidity layer that seamlessly connects these fragmented ecosystems. There have been numerous attempts to build liquidity layers, but each operates in isolation, creating silos that prevent the flow of capital. A unified liquidity layer would integrate these disparate pools, enabling smoother transactions, deeper liquidity and more robust market infrastructure. Increased liquidity across chains and marketplaces would drive the next phase of growth for the RWA market, fostering further adoption from both retail and institutional investors.

Democratising Market Intelligence with RWA Dashboards

As the RWA market matures, there is a growing need for transparent and accessible market data. Free-to-access RWA dashboards have gained traction, offering real-time insights into liquidity metrics, market trends and tokenised asset performance. This democratisation of market intelligence is crucial for attracting a broader range of investors and fostering a dynamic market ecosystem.

The dashboards go beyond simple data presentation, offering comprehensive analytical tools that contextualise market movements, track regulatory changes and provide comparative analyses across asset classes and tokenisation protocols. This holistic approach empowers users to understand not just the current state of the RWA market but also future trajectories.

Platforms like RWA.xyz and amberLens are at the forefront of this analytical revolution, demonstrating that advanced data visualisation can transform market participation. By making complex financial information accessible and comprehensible, these dashboards are playing a crucial role in expanding the RWA ecosystem’s reach and sophistication.

The Attention-Funding Disparity Unlocking Discounted Opportunities

An intriguing aspect of the current RWA market is the disparity between the attention it receives and the funds flowing into the sector. While tokenised assets have captured significant media and industry attention, the volume of investments has not always matched high levels of interest. This gap represents both challenges and opportunities for market participants.

This disparity, combined with the evolving nature of the RWA market, has created potential discount opportunities for astute investors. These opportunities arise from the mispricing of tokenised assets due to market inefficiencies, lack of proper valuations models for novel tokenised instruments, regulatory uncertainties causing temporary undervaluation and limited liquidity in certain cases creating price discrepancies.

Investors who can identify and capitalise on these discount opportunities may be well-positioned to achieve above-market returns as the RWA ecosystem matures.

Bridging Worlds: RWAs and the Future of Finance

As the RWA market matures, investors able to navigate the liquidity and market data challenges and capitalise on emerging opportunities may be well-positioned to achieve above-market returns. The continued evolution of regulatory frameworks, technological advancements and market infrastructure will be crucial in shaping the future of RWA tokenisation and its impact on global finance.

The RWA market represents more than a technological trend and is a fundamental reimagining of asset ownership, trading and accessibility. As regulatory frameworks evolve and blockchain technology matures, tokenised assets are set to become the cornerstone of modern financial infrastructure, offering unprecedented liquidity and democratised investment opportunities across multiple asset classes.