In 2025, real world assets (RWAs) stopped being a crypto narrative to become an actual sector with billions on-chain. According to Pink Brains estimates, the tokenized RWAs market grew over 260% in 2025 reaching $23 billion by mid-year. The growth was led by private credit and tokenized treasuries. In addition, other trackers have put the total RWA tokenization closer to $28 billion by October 2025 and this figure includes real estate, infrastructure and art. So, instead of wiring money into a bank or broker, everyday users connect a wallet and buy tokens that represent fractions of bonds, buildings or art works. The real ticker here is that, with RWAs, we can fractionate assets that were previously iiliquid and sell them very quickly. Now, let's dig in and look at how RWAs trading can be a bad thing for banks.
Looking at 2025’s bond tokenization wave
Now, a tokenized bond is just a blockchain token that represents a share in a bond fund or Treasury bill portfolio. Usually, the barriers of entry into such assets are pretty high that an ordinary person is unable to enter this field. The thing now is that tokenization makes everything easy for the retail investors as they can invest in fractions of the underlying assets. In this case, legal ownership is still handled by a regulated vehicle off-chain, but the claim on that vehicle is represented as a token.
CoinGecko’s 2025 RWA report shows that tokenized treasuries hit $5.6B by April 2025. This was a 545% increase since early 2024 and BlackRock’s BUIDL takes 44% of the total market share. Pink Brain’s RWA deep dive, placed total RWAs in the mid $20 billion range mid 2025 with T-bills being the fastest growing slice. Also, in June 2025, Forbes piece reported $24 billion in tokenized assets across 194 issuers and 205K holders with RWAs up 61% month over month at one point. This also means, by now, the total valuation has already surpassed this mid 2025 figure to the late 20 billion or early 30 billion range.
This feels like bypassing banks because instead of opening brokerage accounts, KYC’ing and buying a bond fund that settles in days, users do it differently on-chain. They just need to connect the wallet, swap stablecoins for a token like BUIDL, OUSG or BENJI and start earning bonds like yields 24/7 on chain settlement. Now, the legal bond still lives in the traditional system but the user experience has moved to DeFi rails. No, legal garbage, no painfully unhealthy fees, no massive bank charges, no time limitations, no bureaucracy; just buy and earn yield.
Fractional bonds are treasury slices for retail investors
The core value prop of RWAs is fractional access to previously inaccessible assets by retail traders. This has allowed retail traders to enter into high-value markets previously reserved for large accounts. For example A $1 million U.S. treasury bill portfolio is tokenized into 1 million tokens which cost roughly a dollar each and earns a share of the yields. Now, instead of requiring $1 million to buy the whole portfolio, the minimum ticket to participate becomes only a few dollars and the ticker is that you don’t even need a bank relationship.
The thing is that RWAs are no longer just on-chain for show. BlackRock’s BUIDL fund grew to about $2.9 billion by mid-2025 and is actively used by DAOs and corporates for treasury management. CoinDesk reports that in June 2025 BUIDL became accepted as collateral on Crypto.com and Deribit. So, traders can post tokenized treasuries as margin and still earn yield. And I believe these are some of the things that separate RWAs from other speculative crypto assets! It’s all on real world utility.
Tokenized art and fractionating high value paintings
In history, we have seen high value and rare art pieces as the classic asset for rich people only. Usually it's a multi million dollar work that is sold in opaque auctions with very slow sales. The tokenization process breaks each artwork into many fragments or digital shares so that many people can by a fraction.
A 2025 AInvest overview notes RWAs at $28B market cap, and explicitly calls out art tokenization alongside real estate and infrastructure. They highlighted platforms like Maecenas that enable fractional ownership of high value artworks. An example is that of Andy Warhol’s piece that raised $1.7 million via tokenized shares. RWAs focused reports project that art tokenization in the US/EU could reach around $2 billion by 2025. This development will mainly be driven by fractional ownership and improved liquidity.
Now, on a glance, owning 0.0003 of a Warhol sounds silly until you realize that you get exposure to the same price moves as a full owner. In addition, your share can be traded on the secondary markets instead of waiting years for a gallery sale. Tokenizing turns art into a liquid, globally accessible alternative investment, not just something that sits in a vault gathering dust or on billionaires.
Legal free perpetuals
Pink Brains highlights perpetual DEXs as a top 2025 narrative. They noted that on-chain perps now rival centralized exchanges on speed and they are starting to accept RWA backed margin including token backed by treasuries.
Now, legal free perpetual futures contracts live entirely in smart contracts and not in a 40 page legal document in the form of a pdf at a brokerage. And the good thing is that to trade these, you do not need to open a margin account with a bank. You only need to connect a wallet to a perpetual DEX, deposit collateral and contract logic enforces everything including funding payments, liquidations and collateral management.
This democratizes high value assets because traders can get leveraged 24/7 synthetic exposure to bond yields or indices linked to RWAs without a prime broker. If your collateral is a tokenized T-bill you are effectively earning bond yields while trading perps. Where else are you going to see this combo that used to be reserved for sophisticated funds only. Accordingly, RWAs have become safe yield base layers for DeFI while perps and other protocols build on top of that base.
Do RWAs really bypass banks
From the front-end view, no bank account or broker is required to hold a slice of treasuries or art tokens, you just need a self custody wallet. And also, the trading is done on a DEX or on DeFi apps, not on bank owned platforms. The backend reality on the other hand is a bit different. The actual bonds and artworks are usually held by regulated custodians, funds and SPVs. Compliance still exists with KYC’d investor lists and investor laws, but it's pushed into the background. However, the good thing is that the user experience feels bank less, border less and programmable.
Final thoughts and conclusion
There is no doubt that RWAs are a game changer in the blockchain space but investors should be wary of the risks involved. Bugs and hacks on smart contracts on the token or perpetual DEX are always a risk. The other thing is that the regulatory rules can easily change resulting in some RWAs being gated to qualified or regional investors only. In addition, there is a liquidity risk as academic work on RWA markets shows that many RWA tokens have thin secondary trading especially outside treasuries. Finally, those into tokenized arts need to understand that valuation is subjective, and their exits can be slow. Therefore it's easy for investors to be stuck there for years if the platform does not sell the piece.
So, my advice is to do your own research and please don’t chase the hype. RWAs sure look good and nice with all the correct signs, but who knows what happens tomorrow?
References
- Pink Brains – “Real-world Assets (RWAs): The Leading Crypto Trend in 2025” https://pinkbrains.io/explore-real-world-assets-the-next-defi-trend/
- Pink Brains – “Top 12 Crypto Narratives To Trend 2025” https://pinkbrains.io/top-12-crypto-narratives-to-trend/
- Forbes – “Real-World Asset Tokenization Hits $24 Billion As Wall Street Bets Big” (June 20, 2025)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/06/20/real-world-asset-tokenization-hits-24-billion-as-wall-street-bets-big/ - CoinDesk – “BlackRock’s $2.9B Tokenized Treasury Fund Now Accepted as Collateral on Crypto.com, Deribit” (June 18, 2025) https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/06/18/blackrocks-29b-tokenized-treasury-fund-now-accepted-as-collateral-on-cryptocom-deribit
- AInvest – “Real-World Asset Tokenization: Bridging TradFi and DeFi to Unlock Trillions in Liquidity” (Oct 18, 2025)
https://www.ainvest.com/news/real-world-asset-tokenization-bridging-tradfi-defi-unlock-trillions-liquidity-2510/
