Author: Zhang Feng
According to publicly available data, the global RWA market size has surpassed $10 billion by mid-2025, growing rapidly since 2022 and becoming one of the fastest-growing sectors in the cryptocurrency field. This explosive growth is the result of multiple forces working together across dimensions such as technological iteration, regulatory competition, industrial transformation, and capital pursuit of profit.
Who exactly is laying out the RWA market? Perhaps we need to sort out the strategic intentions and action logic of key participants within this complex ecosystem—these include technology developers betting on the future, regulatory agencies vying for institutional dividends, traditional industries seeking solutions to their challenges, and global capital pursuing returns. Together, these forces form the underlying support system for the current RWA market.
I. Technological Ecosystem Foundation: Building Next-Generation Financial Infrastructure
In terms of technological development, the core forces behind RWA layout come from technology pioneers and institutional alliances dedicated to building next-generation financial infrastructure. Their investments aim to solve key obstacles to asset tokenization, laying the technological foundation for the large-scale application of RWA.
Blockchain protocol developers and cross-chain technology breakthroughs. Ethereum, with its mature smart contract ecosystem, has become the main platform for RWA, accounting for over half of the market share. Public chains like Polygon, Solana, and Avalanche are competing for incremental markets through high scalability and low-cost advantages. For example, the total value of tokenized assets within the XRPL (XRP Ledger) ecosystem skyrocketed from $5 million to $118 million in the first half of 2025, demonstrating the significant pull of technological optimization for asset tokenization. The continuous evolution of these underlying protocols provides a secure and efficient on-chain operating environment for RWA.
Technology departments of traditional financial institutions. According to public information, BlackRock's BUIDL fund manages $2.9 billion in tokenized government bonds through multi-chain deployment, capturing 44% of this niche market. JPMorgan has completed over $1.5 trillion in distributed ledger technology (DLT) payments and settlements using its self-developed Kinexys platform and has partnered with Chainlink to advance cross-chain RWA pricing pilots. These institutions bring their asset management and risk control experience from traditional financial markets into the blockchain space, significantly enhancing the credibility and acceptability of RWA products.
Compliance and security technology providers. Privacy computing technologies (such as zero-knowledge proofs) have made breakthroughs in addressing RWA commercial confidentiality protection issues. Some companies have developed quantum-resistant cryptography to enhance the security of on-chain assets. Chainlink's compliance tools reportedly reduce the cost of connecting traditional finance to the blockchain by 90%. These technological innovations address the core pain points of RWA implementation in institutions—how to meet commercial confidentiality and compliance requirements while maintaining transparency.
The layout logic of the technology camp is gradually becoming clear. By preemptively laying out infrastructure, they aim to occupy a core position in the value chain of the upcoming multi-trillion-dollar RWA market. McKinsey predicts that the RWA market will reach $4 trillion by 2030, while Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has an optimistic estimate of up to $16 trillion. Faced with such a vast potential market, technological investment has become a necessary upfront bet.
II. Regulatory Arbitrage and Institutional Dividends: Strategic Layouts Under Global Policy Divergence
The significant differences in financial regulatory environments have made regulatory arbitrage an important driving force behind the global layout of RWA. The divergence in regulatory intensity, tax policies, and innovation support across different jurisdictions has given rise to three typical types of institutional layout participants.
Active applicants for regulatory sandboxes. Regions like Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UAE, characterized by "low taxes + flexible regulation," have become gathering places for RWA projects. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority was approved for $410 million in special funding in 2025 to support stablecoin and RWA project incubation, launching the "LEAP" innovative regulatory framework. Singapore promotes multi-type RWA asset on-chain settlement and cross-platform trading through "Project Guardian," implementing new regulations for stablecoin supervision. The common feature of these regions is that regulatory agencies actively provide "policy testing grounds" to attract global innovation resources.
Migrants avoiding high tax burdens. Japan and the United States face a dual constraint of "medium-low freedom + high tax burden." The U.S. SEC insists on the applicability of securities laws to tokenized assets, requiring RWA issuances to be registered or exempted, leading to high compliance costs. Although Japan has a clear legal framework, it maintains high tax rates for individual investors (with estimates reaching up to 55% before 2025, reduced to 20% after reforms). This environment has prompted project parties to turn to regions like Singapore and the UAE, which have no capital gains tax.
Chinese-style offshore explorers. Although cryptocurrency trading in mainland China is somewhat restricted, there are reports of plans to launch a "offshore stablecoin" pilot, while using Hong Kong as a pivot to connect with international rules. According to public media, at the "RWA + Stablecoin Compliance Innovation Development Summit" held in Beijing in July 2025, institutions like Central University of Finance and Economics and Xinhua News Agency jointly promoted the "RWA Ecological Partnership Action Plan," exploring stablecoin value realization paths based on fields like new energy and industrial internet.
The global RWA regulatory landscape is gradually showing a clear "three-polar differentiation." Hong Kong features a regulatory path characterized by "strict entry + low tax burden"; Singapore and the UAE adopt a more flexible "industry-attracting" strategy; the EU constructs a standardized regulatory framework through the MiCA legislation. These regions each offer unique characteristics that provide diverse options for RWA projects with different needs, and they also compel regulatory agencies to objectively optimize institutional design to compete for market share.
III. Industry-side Dilemma Breakthroughs: Liquidity Release in Traditional Industries
From the perspective of industrial relief, RWA layout involves traditional industry enterprises facing liquidity dilemmas or financing constraints. By tokenizing physical assets, companies open up new financing channels and business models. Here are some relevant cases based on publicly available information.
Value chain reconstructors in the automotive industry. Guanglian Technology Holdings (02531.HK) received HKD 1 billion in first-round funding from High West to launch the "Smart Connected Vehicle Asset RWA Service Platform," promoting the transformation of cars from "consumer goods" to "investment tools." Its strategy focuses on three main directions: building an on-chain financial ecosystem for "car owners-vehicles-industry chain assets"; designing application scenarios for "stablecoin + RWA + smart mobility"; and empowering the entire lifecycle of used car exports and battery recycling. This transformation aims to address the pain points of heavy assets and low turnover in the automotive industry, converting fixed assets into tradable digital assets.
Curve accelerators in insurance asset management. Taiping Hong Kong is innovating in the traditional asset management field. In 2025, the company launched Hong Kong's first $100 million on-chain money market fund "eStable MMF" and collaborated with silicon material giant GCL-Poly to package new energy assets into RWA tokens. This move directly addresses the "existence dilemma" of Chinese asset management in Hong Kong, attempting to achieve differentiated competition through RWA.
Digital rights explorers in the content industry. According to public media, Yisou Technology (02550.HK) plans to tokenize online literature and game IPs. The company has accumulated tens of millions of user behavior data, forming a dynamic knowledge graph foundation that supports precise rights distribution. This model addresses the challenges of valuing cultural and creative assets and poor liquidity, providing content producers with new paths for value realization.
The RWA layout logic on the industrial side focuses on solving issues of insufficient liquidity and low financing efficiency. Although there are doubts about whether "if the secondary market stocks lack buyers, will converting them into digital tokens attract investors," this exploration reflects the traditional industry's actual expectations for RWA empowerment.
IV. Capital-side Return Chasers: A New Choice for Global Capital Allocation
In terms of investment demand, RWA participants can be divided into two major camps: traditional capital seeking stable returns and crypto-native capital seeking high growth. Their common goal is to achieve a better risk-return ratio through asset tokenization:
Configuration optimizers in traditional asset management. Giants like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have made tokenizing U.S. government bonds a core strategy. The BUIDL fund manages nearly $2.9 billion in assets, while Franklin Templeton's BENJI fund is close to $800 million. These products address the long transaction settlement cycle (T+2) and low cross-border efficiency of traditional government bond trading, providing institutional investors with near-real-time asset liquidity and cross-border settlement capabilities.
Efficiency enhancers in private credit. The scale of private credit RWA has reached $14 billion, becoming the largest sub-market. Platforms like Maple Finance (managing $2 billion) and Morpho (with a TVL of $4.2 billion) are reconstructing the credit process through tokenization: converting loans into on-chain notes, achieving automatic interest payments and secondary market trading; introducing KYC and on-chain audits to enhance transparency; and reducing extension risks through fixed-rate structures. These innovations have shortened the average issuance cycle of private credit from weeks to days.
Return seekers in crypto-native capital. DeFi investors have a strong demand for low-volatility assets, driving explosive growth in government bond-type RWA—from $10.4 million in 2023 to $7.5 billion in 2025. IXS's BTC Real Yield product offers an annualized yield of 4% to 10%, significantly higher than traditional savings rates. These products have become a safe haven for funds during the crypto bear market.
Track betters in international capital. Barclays Bank continuously increased its stake in Yisou Technology from June to July 2025, indicating international capital's recognition of the RWA and AI integration track. This investment logic is not based on short-term profits but rather on the long-term potential of cultural IP tokenization. Similarly, High West, as a professional digital asset management institution, chose Guanglian Technology Holdings as one of the first partners in its Bitcoin financial accelerator program, reflecting crypto capital's optimism about the tokenization of automotive assets.
V. Diverse Layout Participants Co-creating the Ecosystem, Challenges Remain
The explosive growth of the RWA market is the result of multiple forces working together: technology developers building infrastructure, regulatory agencies providing institutional dividends, traditional industries seeking breakthrough paths, and global capital pursuing optimized allocation. These layout participants have their own demands yet are interdependent, collectively driving RWA from concept validation to large-scale implementation.
However, the development of RWA still faces multiple challenges: regulatory fragmentation leads to a severe shortage of participants in 74% of DLT projects; technological risks manifest in frequent cross-chain bridge attacks; insufficient market liquidity results in very low turnover rates for over half of fixed-income RWA tokens; and financial stability risks could lead to the potential collapse of leveraged collateral chains.
Nevertheless, the bridging role of RWA between traditional finance and blockchain has been validated. With institutions like BlackRock continuing to enter the market, deepening regulatory collaboration between Hong Kong and Singapore, and the acceleration of on-chain asset tokenization in sectors like automotive and energy, a more open, efficient, and transparent RWA ecosystem is forming. Layout participants across different dimensions will continue to invest over the next decade, pushing the $4 trillion market predicted by McKinsey from possibility to reality. Projects that can balance technological innovation with financial security, while considering both commercial value and regulatory compliance, will emerge as the true winners of this transformation.
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