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Real World Assets Could Dominate Crypto in 2026, But Can They Finally Outperform Bitcoin?

MarketDash Editorial Team
6 hours ago
Real World Assets have lurked in crypto's shadows since 2015, mostly as experiments. Now with BlackRock and JPMorgan going all-in on tokenization, the $35 billion sector is poised for explosive growth. But there's a catch: these protocols still can't seem to beat Bitcoin.

Real World Assets have been kicking around the crypto universe since around 2015, mostly as conceptual playthings and early experiments that nobody took particularly seriously. That's changing fast. Investors are finally paying attention, and for good reason.

Jump to 2024 and Wall Street decided to crash the party. BlackRock launched BUIDL, its digital asset fund focused on tokenized Treasury bonds. The fund hit $500 million in assets under management pretty quickly in 2024, then rocketed to $2 billion in 2025. This year, BlackRock added BUIDL to the Solana (SOL) blockchain, looking to spread its tokenized Treasury fund across the crypto landscape. BUIDL lives on other blockchains too, because why limit yourself?

The consensus among industry watchers is clear: RWAs will become an even bigger play in 2026.

"That's because real-world asset tokenization stands out today as the institutional focus, with BlackRock and JPMorgan actively building in a sector that's grown to $35 billion," said Jonatan Randin, a trading-focused market analyst at PrimeXBT, an offshore crypto derivatives platform catering to active, high-risk traders.

Ben Elvidge, Head of Commercial Applications at Trilitech, the London-based R&D hub for the Tezos (XTZ) blockchain, thinks RWAs will continue seeing strong growth in 2026 because of stablecoin regulations taking shape in the West.

Elvidge said stablecoins and other digitized RWAs are being used "not only for basic issuance but also as collateral, lending assets, and liquidity sources inside decentralized finance programs."

The Product Pipeline Is Expanding Rapidly

The landscape has transformed dramatically. Back in early to mid-2024, the tokenized treasuries and RWA fund universe was concentrated among a relatively small set of issuers. Fast forward to 2025 and the picture includes a much broader range of U.S. asset managers and newer fintechs launching multiple funds each.

When BUIDL first launched, dozens of distinct tokenized RWA funds followed suit, with a smaller subset tied to U.S. fund sponsors like BlackRock whose underlying assets are tokenized Treasury bonds. The market was measured in just a few billion dollars at that time.

But 2025 brought a flood. Hundreds of new RWA products came to market globally, spanning everything from real estate to tokenized stocks, tokenized gold, and private credit. Total tokenized RWA value now sits in the tens of billions of dollars, with tokenized U.S. treasuries and money market funds being the most popular products after basic stablecoins. These tokenized Treasurys effectively allow investors from around the world to buy U.S. fixed income on-chain, which is a pretty big deal for international access.

By the third quarter of 2025, the tokenized real-world asset market crossed $30 billion, led by demand from investors seeking yield. Better regulatory pictures in the U.S., Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates helped drive the market, while Wall Street players led by BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Fidelity were the lead steers. At the same time, firms like DBS Bank and Binance expanded their use cases for tokenized RWAs. This market has grown approximately ten-fold since 2022.

Everything Gets Tokenized Next?

Some observers see real world assets moving well beyond tokenization of Treasuries and real estate, expanding into other segments of the economy. Basically, nothing is off-limits. Digital is going everywhere, or so crypto startups tend to believe.

"The rapid tokenization of real-world assets will make everything from energy credits to infrastructure and commodities tradeable on-chain, forcing a shift from politically inflated currencies to digitally collateralized ones," said Nima Beni, CEO of Bitlease.com, a crypto leasing and financing platform. "Crypto will move beyond being just an asset class to become the settlement layer for real economic output. The strongest growth will come from RWA-powered DeFi – like tokenized treasuries, bonds, and private credit – and that will unlock $10 trillion or more in institutional liquidity."

RWAs represent what many see as the perfect combination of traditional finance and blockchain technology, with traditional banking institutions slowly wading into asset tokenization either as fund issuers or by offering these products as portfolio investments to clients.

"Fiat-backed stablecoins operating under clear regulatory frameworks in the U.S. and Europe are best positioned for outsized growth in 2026," said Lux Thiagarajah, Chief Commercial Officer of OpenPayd, a banking-as-a-service platform. "These aren't speculative assets; they're already moving trillions of dollars. The opportunity now lies in distribution: enabling any payment service provider, marketplace or financial institution to mint, move and redeem stablecoins through a single licensed API that hides blockchain complexity."

Here's something to keep in mind: while several crypto projects have been designed with the intention of operating outside the scope of U.S. securities laws, the structure of most tokenized RWAs, with an explicit focus on yield generation and appreciation in value, will generally cause them to be treated as securities under the Securities Act of 1933, according to lawyers at Fenwick.

Translation: if you've got lower risk tolerance, you might want to stick with products run by traditional Wall Street names.

Different countries will have different rules, naturally.

"We believe the segments with the strongest potential in 2026 will be those that deliver real economic value and the first sector that comes to mind is 'Realfi', the convergence of real users, real assets, and real yield where blockchain begins to operate much closer to a global neobank infrastructure," said Wish Wu, co-founder of Pharos, a blockchain infrastructure company.

RealFi is short for "Real-World Finance." It refers to blockchain-based financial systems that are directly tied to real-world assets, which sounds redundant but actually clarifies an important distinction in crypto land.

The RWA universe today is dominated by stablecoins, followed by tokenized Treasury bonds. Private credit and real estate, which some have colorfully referred to as "the white whale" of tokenization, round out the top four tokenized real-world items.

For OpenPayd's Chief Commercial Officer, three areas will drive expansion next year. First, real-world payments and cross-border settlement, where businesses are hunting for alternatives to high card fees and shrinking correspondent banking networks. Second, on-chain foreign exchange and liquidity, with stablecoins increasingly forming one or both legs of currency trades. Third will be the rise of tokenized real-world assets more broadly.

"As regulatory clarity improves, institutional capital can finally enter at scale," said Thiagarajah. "Tokenized assets offer 24/7 settlement, fractional ownership and programmable cashflows, making them a natural bridge between traditional finance and digital assets and positioning the sector to evolve into regulated, high-volume infrastructure."

The Bitcoin Problem Remains

The RWA story will track the market mood for Bitcoin (BTC) next year. However, even in bull markets some major protocols in this space have failed to beat BTC, which is kind of a problem if you're trying to convince crypto investors to choose your fancy tokenized asset over just buying Bitcoin.

RWA protocols MakerDAO (DAO), Ondo Finance (ONDO) and the Polymesh Network (POLYX) underperformed Bitcoin (BTC) year-to-date ending Dec. 14, and over the last 12 months. At almost no time frame did the governance tokens of those protocols return more to investors than Bitcoin, which is awkward when you're pitching sophisticated financial innovation.

"Macro still drives the tempo," said Martins Benkitis, Co-founder and CEO of Gravity Team. Gravity Team supplies the buy and sell orders that keep crypto markets liquid and trading functional.

For 2026, Benkitis said if the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates and ETFs expand beyond mainly owning Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH), "then you'll see a broader risk-on rotation, but this time with more mature liquidity infrastructure underneath it. The days of markets seizing up on every volatility spike are fading."

That's the optimistic view, anyway. The RWA sector has momentum, institutional backing, and a compelling use case. Whether it can finally translate that into returns that compete with simply holding Bitcoin remains the big unanswered question heading into 2026.

The writer of this article owns Ethereum, and Bitcoin via the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

Back to News

Real World Assets Could Dominate Crypto in 2026, But Can They Finally Outperform Bitcoin?

MarketDash Editorial Team
6 hours ago
Real World Assets have lurked in crypto's shadows since 2015, mostly as experiments. Now with BlackRock and JPMorgan going all-in on tokenization, the $35 billion sector is poised for explosive growth. But there's a catch: these protocols still can't seem to beat Bitcoin.

Real World Assets have been kicking around the crypto universe since around 2015, mostly as conceptual playthings and early experiments that nobody took particularly seriously. That's changing fast. Investors are finally paying attention, and for good reason.

Jump to 2024 and Wall Street decided to crash the party. BlackRock launched BUIDL, its digital asset fund focused on tokenized Treasury bonds. The fund hit $500 million in assets under management pretty quickly in 2024, then rocketed to $2 billion in 2025. This year, BlackRock added BUIDL to the Solana (SOL) blockchain, looking to spread its tokenized Treasury fund across the crypto landscape. BUIDL lives on other blockchains too, because why limit yourself?

The consensus among industry watchers is clear: RWAs will become an even bigger play in 2026.

"That's because real-world asset tokenization stands out today as the institutional focus, with BlackRock and JPMorgan actively building in a sector that's grown to $35 billion," said Jonatan Randin, a trading-focused market analyst at PrimeXBT, an offshore crypto derivatives platform catering to active, high-risk traders.

Ben Elvidge, Head of Commercial Applications at Trilitech, the London-based R&D hub for the Tezos (XTZ) blockchain, thinks RWAs will continue seeing strong growth in 2026 because of stablecoin regulations taking shape in the West.

Elvidge said stablecoins and other digitized RWAs are being used "not only for basic issuance but also as collateral, lending assets, and liquidity sources inside decentralized finance programs."

The Product Pipeline Is Expanding Rapidly

The landscape has transformed dramatically. Back in early to mid-2024, the tokenized treasuries and RWA fund universe was concentrated among a relatively small set of issuers. Fast forward to 2025 and the picture includes a much broader range of U.S. asset managers and newer fintechs launching multiple funds each.

When BUIDL first launched, dozens of distinct tokenized RWA funds followed suit, with a smaller subset tied to U.S. fund sponsors like BlackRock whose underlying assets are tokenized Treasury bonds. The market was measured in just a few billion dollars at that time.

But 2025 brought a flood. Hundreds of new RWA products came to market globally, spanning everything from real estate to tokenized stocks, tokenized gold, and private credit. Total tokenized RWA value now sits in the tens of billions of dollars, with tokenized U.S. treasuries and money market funds being the most popular products after basic stablecoins. These tokenized Treasurys effectively allow investors from around the world to buy U.S. fixed income on-chain, which is a pretty big deal for international access.

By the third quarter of 2025, the tokenized real-world asset market crossed $30 billion, led by demand from investors seeking yield. Better regulatory pictures in the U.S., Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates helped drive the market, while Wall Street players led by BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Fidelity were the lead steers. At the same time, firms like DBS Bank and Binance expanded their use cases for tokenized RWAs. This market has grown approximately ten-fold since 2022.

Everything Gets Tokenized Next?

Some observers see real world assets moving well beyond tokenization of Treasuries and real estate, expanding into other segments of the economy. Basically, nothing is off-limits. Digital is going everywhere, or so crypto startups tend to believe.

"The rapid tokenization of real-world assets will make everything from energy credits to infrastructure and commodities tradeable on-chain, forcing a shift from politically inflated currencies to digitally collateralized ones," said Nima Beni, CEO of Bitlease.com, a crypto leasing and financing platform. "Crypto will move beyond being just an asset class to become the settlement layer for real economic output. The strongest growth will come from RWA-powered DeFi – like tokenized treasuries, bonds, and private credit – and that will unlock $10 trillion or more in institutional liquidity."

RWAs represent what many see as the perfect combination of traditional finance and blockchain technology, with traditional banking institutions slowly wading into asset tokenization either as fund issuers or by offering these products as portfolio investments to clients.

"Fiat-backed stablecoins operating under clear regulatory frameworks in the U.S. and Europe are best positioned for outsized growth in 2026," said Lux Thiagarajah, Chief Commercial Officer of OpenPayd, a banking-as-a-service platform. "These aren't speculative assets; they're already moving trillions of dollars. The opportunity now lies in distribution: enabling any payment service provider, marketplace or financial institution to mint, move and redeem stablecoins through a single licensed API that hides blockchain complexity."

Here's something to keep in mind: while several crypto projects have been designed with the intention of operating outside the scope of U.S. securities laws, the structure of most tokenized RWAs, with an explicit focus on yield generation and appreciation in value, will generally cause them to be treated as securities under the Securities Act of 1933, according to lawyers at Fenwick.

Translation: if you've got lower risk tolerance, you might want to stick with products run by traditional Wall Street names.

Different countries will have different rules, naturally.

"We believe the segments with the strongest potential in 2026 will be those that deliver real economic value and the first sector that comes to mind is 'Realfi', the convergence of real users, real assets, and real yield where blockchain begins to operate much closer to a global neobank infrastructure," said Wish Wu, co-founder of Pharos, a blockchain infrastructure company.

RealFi is short for "Real-World Finance." It refers to blockchain-based financial systems that are directly tied to real-world assets, which sounds redundant but actually clarifies an important distinction in crypto land.

The RWA universe today is dominated by stablecoins, followed by tokenized Treasury bonds. Private credit and real estate, which some have colorfully referred to as "the white whale" of tokenization, round out the top four tokenized real-world items.

For OpenPayd's Chief Commercial Officer, three areas will drive expansion next year. First, real-world payments and cross-border settlement, where businesses are hunting for alternatives to high card fees and shrinking correspondent banking networks. Second, on-chain foreign exchange and liquidity, with stablecoins increasingly forming one or both legs of currency trades. Third will be the rise of tokenized real-world assets more broadly.

"As regulatory clarity improves, institutional capital can finally enter at scale," said Thiagarajah. "Tokenized assets offer 24/7 settlement, fractional ownership and programmable cashflows, making them a natural bridge between traditional finance and digital assets and positioning the sector to evolve into regulated, high-volume infrastructure."

The Bitcoin Problem Remains

The RWA story will track the market mood for Bitcoin (BTC) next year. However, even in bull markets some major protocols in this space have failed to beat BTC, which is kind of a problem if you're trying to convince crypto investors to choose your fancy tokenized asset over just buying Bitcoin.

RWA protocols MakerDAO (DAO), Ondo Finance (ONDO) and the Polymesh Network (POLYX) underperformed Bitcoin (BTC) year-to-date ending Dec. 14, and over the last 12 months. At almost no time frame did the governance tokens of those protocols return more to investors than Bitcoin, which is awkward when you're pitching sophisticated financial innovation.

"Macro still drives the tempo," said Martins Benkitis, Co-founder and CEO of Gravity Team. Gravity Team supplies the buy and sell orders that keep crypto markets liquid and trading functional.

For 2026, Benkitis said if the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates and ETFs expand beyond mainly owning Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH), "then you'll see a broader risk-on rotation, but this time with more mature liquidity infrastructure underneath it. The days of markets seizing up on every volatility spike are fading."

That's the optimistic view, anyway. The RWA sector has momentum, institutional backing, and a compelling use case. Whether it can finally translate that into returns that compete with simply holding Bitcoin remains the big unanswered question heading into 2026.

The writer of this article owns Ethereum, and Bitcoin via the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.