The crypto market is rotating through narratives, seeking the next sector to counteract the downward price pressure. Real World Assets (RWA) are back as a narrative, opening up a series of tokens to renewed interest.
Real-world assets represent a niche trend that can, however, influence the price of both old and newer projects. According to recent data, there are 117,586 holders of Ethereum tokens associated with real-world value. As with other crypto trends, RWA may be used for niche experimental purposes such as merch tokenization or for rebranding older platforms.
Read: Chainlink (LINK) Integrates New Services for Six Blockchains
In an upcoming bull market, some of the assets tied to the RWA trend may line up among blue-chip tokens. Currently, most RWA projects are starting out small and fighting for prominence. Some are stressing the value of the underlying assets, others are selling their value as a platform to tokenize third-party assets, and others are taking the route of meme tokens, hyping their tokenized products.
In June, the trend accelerated enough to boost RWA as a top narrative. Some of the current leading DeFi projects may also add tokenization, in addition to their current liquidity based on dollar-pegged stablecoins.
Some of the known RWA tokens have highly liquid pairs on centralized exchanges, and may lead the trend, with expectations of significant value growth by 2025. One of the supports for the RWA narrative was the recent BlackRock decision to experiment with a tokenized money market fund.
What are the best RWA tokens by industry?
Some of the RWA projects that are closely watched are trying to replicate traditional finance. For tokenized real estate, active projects include Labs Group (LABS), Elysia (ELFI) and Propy (PRO).
Also read: How Is RWA (Real World Asset) Tokenization Disrupting Industries?
Securitization is another attempt of RWA projects, including Centrifuge (wCFG), StrikeX (STRX), and others. TrueFi (TRU), Maple Finance (MPL), and Ondo Finance (ONDO) tokenize equities and other financial instruments. Goldfinch (GFI) also added users in the past months and became one of the tokens with positive returns.
There is still no unified map of RWA assets, but the data shows a trend that is going beyond experimental launches.
The RWA moniker may become a new invitation to trade the most active tokens and coins.
The Coinmarketcap selection of RWA assets holds more dominant blue chips and even L2 and L1 platforms offering tokenization. Among those assets, ONDO is the more prominent one that also offers targeted tokenization for the financial industry. Ondo aims for true tokenization, where the asset can be traded and settled on the blockchain.
Other projects remain content to offer tokenized representations of off-chain asset pools. Those tokenized assets cannot be settled on-chain, or redeemed outside the blockchain. Instead, the tokenized element allows for the creation of synthetic markets, which represent the value of traditional assets. For those cases, projects like Chainlink aim to offer timely pricing information, to simulate stock or commodity exchange trading on the blockchain.
Which RWA projects are drawing attention in 2024?
Among hot projects for 2024, Mantra (OM) is currently a partner of Ondo, offering the most direct access to tokenized financial assets. Mantra is also building a presence on social media, and is one of the few tokens to expand in the past few days.
OM is also a promising token, and we are awaiting the announcement of the Mantra main net. Mantra mixes the approach of DeFi for easy access with the potential to invest in low-risk, low-yield assets. OM has gained prominence, trading near $1, its all-time high, as the project broke above the bearish trend in 2024. OM is also one of the top RWA assets represented on Binance, with the potential to react quickly to inflows in its main trading pair.
The trend started by Mantra may also affect its main competitor projects. Besides ONDO, those include Manta Network, Polymesh, Injective, and Fetch.ai, as well as Reserve Rights and Centrifuge.
Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Vasileva
