Major institutions are making bold moves into tokenized real-world assets, despite recent volatility in the crypto space.
It’s been another topsy-turvy week for the crypto industry, with ups and downs, but an overall flat trend.
Indeed, the TOTAL market capitalization is now back at $2.18 trillion — almost exactly where it was a week ago.
TL;DR…
- Market Recap: The crypto market's been up and down, ending flat at $2.18 trillion — slightly up from last week.
- RWA Movers: Some Real-World Assets (RWA) climbed while others dropped. Maker (MKR) took a big hit, losing $200M in market cap despite strong revenue.
- Top RWA Performers: MANTRA (OM) crushed it with a 4,000% return over the last year, while Quant (QNT) struggled, down 38% in the same period.
- New Developments: Tether’s new Dirham stablecoin, Ripple’s RWA push, and Polygon’s $30B ambitions are some of the big RWA moves this week.
- Market Sentiment: Fear's up, with the Crypto Fear & Greed index at 26.
But while things may seem somewhat dull right now, there’s a lot of shuffling behind the scenes in the world of RWA assets — with institutional heavyweights laying the foundations for further growth.
Here’s your weekly catchup on all things RWA.
RWA Gainers and Losers
Although the market is flat for the week, there has been some shuffling in the market cap league table recently, with some RWA climbing the ranks (showing relative strength) and others falling (showing relative weakness).
Let’s see how the biggest RWA projects have fared relative to the broader market since our first snapshot on August 4, 2024.
- Chainlink (LINK): Fall to rank #16 (⬇ 1 rank)
- VeChain (VET): Climb to rank #41 (⬆ 1 rank)
- Maker (MKR): Fall to rank #46 (⬇ 12 ranks)
- Ondo (ONDO): Fall to rank #67 (⬇ 3 ranks)
- Axelar (AXL): Climb to rank #123 (⬆ 8 ranks)
We can see that Maker has had a tough time this month, slipping a dozen places as $200 million was wiped off its market cap. Despite the protocol generating almost $90 million a year in revenue.
This may be because the MKR token does not (currently) accrue value from this revenue, leaving it with limited utility.
Want to see how your favorite projects are changing in the leaderboards? Check out the historical snapshots.
Overall, the MANTRA (OM) token is the best-performing RWA project in the last year, demonstrating a 4,000% return since August 2023. On the flip side, Quant (QNT) is the worst performer, down 38% over the same period.
What’s New In RWA?
The last week saw a wave of new developments in the RWA space, with both TradFi and crypto heavyweights building the infrastructure to make tokenized RWA ownership and deployment more secure and accessible.
Some of the biggest updates and announcements include:
- New Tether Stablecoin: Tether, the firm behind the popular USDt and EURt stablecoins, is set to launch a new fiat-backed stablecoin pegged to the UAE's Dirham (AED).
- Ripple's RWA Ambition: In a recent blog post, Ripple announced plans to work with collaborating firm Archax to "bring hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) to the XRP Ledger". The partnership aims to help position XRP Ledger as the primary choice for RWA tokenization.
- Institutional Interest Rising: U.S. financial services company State Street partners with Taurus to offer a real-world asset tokenization service.
- Polygon’s RWA Ambitions: In a recent interview, Polygon exec Colin Butler highlighted the growth potential of tokenized RWAs, noting that Polygon is already making waves in this space with the tokenized BH Master Fund, positioning itself to tap a potentially $30 billion+ industry.
- Clearpool Launches Ozean: DeFi credit platform Clearpool just revealed a real-world asset chain built on Optimism. The platform features a yield-bearing stablecoin and a new liquidity layer known as 'Oxygen'.
- MANTRA to Tokenize Aviation: After announcing plans to tokenize $500 million of Dubai real estate last month, MANTRA is now collaborating with Novus Aviation to tokenize aviation assets and "revolutionize the way aircraft assets are owned, traded, and financed."
How’s the Market Feeling?
After an unsteady week, many of you are probably wondering if you’ve picked the wrong horse or if everyone else is in the same boat.
Let’s get a broad overview of the market.
The Crypto Fear & Greed index currently sits at 26 indicating a fearful market. This is up from its 2024 low of 17 hit in early August.
DefiLlama's narrative tracker shows that the RWA sector is performing relatively poorly compared to others — with the category down 23% over the past 30 days.
For comparison, the CEX category is performing best, down just 5.8% over the same period.
Meanwhile, according to CryptoKoryo's alt buy signal indicator, the market is firmly in 'sell your house' to buy crypto territory. This situation was last seen in October 2020, right before Bitcoin gained 500% in five months.
We wonder if it’s possible to tokenize your house before you sell it…
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