RWA (Real World Assets) Sector Gradually Heats Up and Star Projects Perform Well

As 2025 approaches, many institutions have made predictions about the future of the crypto market. Among them, the real world asset (RWA) sector has become a hot topic.

Original: Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author: Fu Howe (@vincent 31515173)

As 2025 approaches, many institutions have made predictions about the future of the crypto market. Among them, the real world asset (RWA) sector has become a hot topic. Bitwise pointed out in its top ten predictions for the crypto market in 2025 that the market size of tokenized RWA is expected to reach 50 billion US dollars. This optimistic prediction makes the market full of expectations for the prospects of RWA.

Recently, the star projects in the RWA sector have performed particularly well, adding fuel to the heat. RWA projects that have issued tokens have ushered in a new round of growth: the price of ONDO tokens has exceeded 2.1 USDT, setting a record high; most RWA projects that have issued tokens, such as Maple and Swarm, have increased by more than 200%.

Although the market has high hopes for the RWA sector, the actual participation is in stark contrast to the discussion heat. Due to high barriers and complex compliance requirements, most investors' understanding of RWA remains at the conceptual stage. This situation has also led to a mixed market, with many projects under the banner of RWA emerging, trying to ride on the popularity but lacking real underlying support. This has caused confusion for ordinary investors, making it difficult to distinguish which are real RWA projects and which are just conceptual hype disguised as "blockchain + real assets".

According to the author’s understanding, the RWA sector covers a wide range and can be roughly divided into US Treasury bonds, private credit, commodities, stocks, stablecoins, global bonds, and institutional funds. However, most projects do not issue platform coins themselves, but tokenize their products. Due to regulatory and compliance factors, most of these products require KYC and other certifications, which are not suitable for the majority of small and medium-sized investors.

To this end, Odaily Planet Daily has taken stock of the projects that have issued platform coins from the many categories mentioned above and analyzed the fundamentals of these projects, which does not constitute investment advice.

US Treasury Bonds: Ondo Finance

Ondo Finance was founded in 2021 and initially focused on the LaaS (Liquidity as a Service) track. However, as the crypto market entered a bear market, the project development encountered bottlenecks. Faced with changes in the market environment, Ondo Finance strategically transformed into the RWA (Real World Assets) sector in January 2023. This move caught up with the start of the RWA track boom, significantly increased Ondo Finance's market attention, and grew into one of the representative projects of on-chain U.S. Treasury RWA in just two years.

Ondo Finance's RWA products are mainly designed around mainstream financial assets in the United States, with compliance and security being one of its core considerations. To ensure the compliance of its products, Ondo Finance has established a local company in the United States and established a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to provide legal protection and operational support for its RWA products.

In terms of returns, Ondo Finance reached a cooperation with BlackRock's tokenized fund BUIDL in April 2023 to replace the underlying assets of its products with the assets of the BUIDL fund. This cooperation not only provides a strong endorsement for Ondo Finance's products, but also significantly improves the timeliness and convenience of returns, creating a more efficient return experience for investors.

Currently, Ondo Finance’s RWA products have a total market value of US$623 million, and its core products include two tokenized assets:

OUSG (U.S. Treasury Bonds): The underlying assets come from BlackRock’s tokenized fund BUIDL, which provides an annualized yield of 4.44% and supports Ethereum, Polygon and Solana networks.

USDY (US Dollar Interest Rate): Secured by short-term US Treasuries and bank deposits, it provides over-collateralization and daily transparency reports, with an annualized yield of 4.65%. The investment threshold is as low as US$500 and supports Ethereum, Mantle, Solana, Sui, Aptos, Noble, and Arbitrum networks.

In addition, Ondo Finance launched the Flux Finance lending platform to provide investors with redemption liquidity for RWA products, further optimizing capital utilization.

Ondo Finance's native token ONDO was publicly raised through CoinList and unlocked for circulation in early 2024. According to Coingecko data, ONDO's current market value is approximately US$2.8 billion. Since the circulation of tokens is still small, accounting for only 15% of the total token volume, there is room for price increases in the short term. However, most of the tokens are concentrated in the hands of project parties and early investors, and