RWAOpinionBlockchainMarkets
|5 min ReadTokenization's $18B Breakout: The New Rails of Wall Street
Jax Morales
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 22, 2026
Real-World Assets (RWAs) have graduated from "fringe experiment" to structural necessity. Excluding stablecoins, "distributed" RWAs—assets you can actually hold in a self-custodial wallet—have surged 18x since 2022 to hit $18B. The narrative has shifted: it's no longer about putting stocks on a blockchain for the sake of it; it's about superior capital efficiency, 24/7 liquidity, and atomic composability.
With the GENIUS Act passing in 2025 and a crypto-friendly SEC under Paul Atkins, the regulatory moat is widening, not closing. The result? Traditional finance is being absorbed into the crypto regulatory perimeter, not left outside it.
The Base Layer: Tokenized Treasuries
The "risk-free rate" has officially moved on-chain. Tokenized U.S. Treasuries doubled in 2025, driven by institutional giants like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton.
BlackRock’s BUIDL: Now exceeds $2B in value, representing 25% of the entire sector.
The Utility: These aren't just investment vehicles; they are becoming the base collateral for the entire on-chain system. Why hold idle USDC when you can hold BUIDL, earn yield, and post it as margin in DeFi?
Network Shift: While Ethereum remains the settlement layer, capital is rotating. Solana, Avalanche, and Polygon are capturing flows from BUIDL and other institutional funds.
Equities: The "Walled Garden" vs. "Free Range" War
Tokenized equities are lagging in size ($1B vs $28B for debt) but leading in strategic conflict. Two models have emerged:
1. Walled Garden (Ondo, Dinari): Compliance is baked into the contract. Transfers are restricted to KYC'd wallets. It’s safe, compliant, and boring.
2. Freely Transferable (Kraken/Backed): Issued to KYC'd users but freely tradable in DeFi (except for U.S. persons). This is the "Holy Grail"—stocks that act like crypto.
Robinhood broke the dam in 2025 by launching tokenized stocks on Arbitrum for non-U.S. users, proving that retail demand exists if the UX is right.
Commodities & Private Credit: The Yield Hunters
While equities find their footing, other sectors are scaling fast.
Commodities: Gold tokens (PAXG, XAUT) dominate with $3B in value, but agriculture is the dark horse. JusToken has tokenized $500M in soy, corn, and cotton on Polygon, turning silo receipts into programmable collateral.
Private Credit: The giant in the room. Platforms like Figure (on Provenance) and Centrifuge are moving billions in loans on-chain. This is where the real yield is—offering institutional allocators a way to escape the "DeFi leverage loops" that blew up in 2024.
The 2026 Outlook
We are witnessing the bifurcation of crypto.
The Casino: Memecoins and "pure crypto" (BTC/ETH).
The Utility: Tokenized RWAs providing yield and collateral utility.
The correlation between these two is breaking. RWA flows are driven by interest rates and regulatory clarity, not Bitcoin's halving cycle. As banks like JPMorgan and UBS deploy their own tokenized funds, the question isn't "if" adoption happens—it's whether the crypto natives or the incumbents will own the rails.
Disclaimer: This document is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed in this document are not, and should not be taken as, investment advice or recommendations. Recipients should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, which are not considered here, before investing. This document is not an offer, or the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned.