The Eulogy

We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. As we descend from another cycle top and endure yet another punishing bear market, we can't help but wonder where we are in that process.

There’s no sugarcoating anything. It is bad. Tokens are down. Sentiment is ugly. Prominent people have packed their bags and moved on – to AI, or wherever the next wave of enthusiasm is carrying them. Everyone is writing crypto's obituary again. And the eulogy is familiar: it's over.

So, what do we do? The standard crypto answer is to "HODL". Stay the course! Bear markets don't last forever! Institutional adoption is around the corner! It all feels very hollow right now. 

The truth is, no chart, no model, no expert can tell you with certainty that this isn't the end. That the entire premise wasn't wrong. That everything we've built wasn't in vain.

But we see something different. We stare at this data every single day, and it tells a very different story than the one everyone else is telling.

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The Evidence

At RWA.xyz, we track over 2,000 tokenized assets and nearly 100 stablecoins across every major blockchain network, tokenization platform, and asset class. We have been doing this since 2023, back when the tokenized asset market was still in its infancy. And today, we are fortunate to have one of the most comprehensive views into what financial institutions are actually doing onchain.

And what we see is unmistakable. 

‍The total value of tokenized assets is going up. Not in one asset class. Across all of them. Treasuries, sovereign debt, corporate bonds, private credit, commodities, institutional funds, stocks, and real estate. Quarter over quarter, the total onchain value has grown steadily, regardless of what crypto prices have been doing.

‍It’s not just one platform. Whether you look at Broadridge, Figure, Securitize, Ondo, Maple, Centrifuge, or Superstate, issuance is growing across the board. This isn't one company making a bet. This is an industry-wide migration.

It’s not just one network. Tokenized assets are being issued and settled across every major chain. Each network is racing to build the best infrastructure for institutional finance, and that competition is pushing the entire industry forward.

It’s not just value. Holder counts are rising. More wallets hold tokenized assets today than at any point in history. Institutions and retail investors are investing in tokenized products through both traditional platforms and DeFi.

And stablecoins tell the same story. Market capitalization and holder counts continue to set records even as the broader crypto market contracts. With the GENIUS Act signed into law, stablecoins aren't just crypto native tools anymore. They are part of the capital stack and the gateway through which institutions are entering tokenized finance.

We could keep going. We could show you charts for every asset class, every platform, every chain. We could break down quarter-over-quarter growth rates and compound annual figures. All of it would tell you the same story.

Every single metric we track points in the same direction: the adoption of blockchain infrastructure by financial institutions is accelerating.

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Are You a Believer?

But at the end of the day, it really comes down to this: are you a believer?

Do you believe that blockchain technology can become the foundational infrastructure of our financial and legal systems?

Do you believe that tokenization will remove friction, lower costs, and open access to everyone, everywhere?

Do you believe that just as information learned to travel at the speed of light, value will too?

‍We believe all of that.

In hard times like these, it helps to remember why we started building in the first place. 

Collectively, as an industry, we have spent the better part of a decade building the infrastructure for entire economies to run on open, programmable rails. To move the world’s value at the speed of the internet. 

That same vision is what motivated us to create RWA.xyz. We wanted to build a better standard for the industry. One that enables consistent analysis across products and platforms. One that bridges the gap between crypto and the traditional financial world.

We spend our days talking with global banks, asset managers, and government agencies. These are not people who are just curious about tokenization. They are providing us data on their tokenized products, and they are using our data to set strategy and decide which products to build. 

What we hear behind closed doors doesn’t match the widespread fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Beneath the price action, there is a quiet but steady – and very real – migration underway. The biggest names in finance are building concrete products. The most battle-tested DeFi infrastructure is maturing into platforms these institutions can actually use. And those two worlds are rapidly converging.

Bear markets always feel like the world is coming to an end. Then they inevitably pass. And the coming years will vindicate the crazy ones, because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. 

As one of the crazy ones, we feel it is our duty to tell this story to the world. And we remain committed to supporting the vision of a truly open and interoperable financial system.

History will be kind to us, for we intend to write it. Our fate is in our hands.

The best to you and yours,

RWA.xyz 

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