RWA Protocols Locked in $8B Total Value: Messari

Real-world asset tokenization protocols have seen explosive growth in the past year, with the total value locked (TVL) in the sector reaching a new all-time high.

In a May 1 post for X, blockchain analytics and research firm Mesari wrote that TVL's real-world asset (RWA) protocols had risen to nearly $8 billion as of April 26.

The analyst firm noted that RWA protocols have seen a “tremendous revival” in the past year, with the sector's growth driven by “the market's preference for debt-based high-yielding investments.”

The $8 billion TVL figure excludes fiat-backed stablecoins such as Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) and includes tokenization protocols for bearer protocols, cryptographic stablecoins, commodities, securities, and real estate.

Since February, the TVL in RWA protocols has increased by almost 60 percent.

DeFillama, a decentralized financial analysis platform, presented a slightly lower figure of $6 billion for the combined TVL of RWA protocols. Since the beginning of 2023, there has been a huge growth of about 700% in the protocol TVL.

Notably, it's not the only metric where total value is locked in, which has seen impressive growth this year.

The number of active users on RWA protocols has increased since February – indicating the sector's increased popularity among small retail users, according to Dunn Analytics data.

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Protocols such as digital carbon market platforms Tucan and KlimaDAO and real estate tokenization protocols have seen the lion's share of that growth in terms of active users.

Tokenized Treasuries have seen significant growth as yields remain high in the United States in an environment of high inflation and interest rates.

Currently, $1.29 billion is locked in token-backed US Treasuries and bonds, RWA.xyz reports. This figure has risen by 80 percent since the beginning of 2024, driven mainly by protocols such as Securitize and Ondo.

The recent performance of BlackRock's Ethereum-based Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) — which just became the world's largest tokenized treasury fund — and Franklin OnChain's US Government Fund (FOBXX) have contributed significantly to the growth of this RWA corner. Market.

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