Just returned from the Web3 Carnival, and my biggest impression is that the RWA track is really about to take off. This isn’t just my opinion; it’s a consensus everyone at the event was discussing. I met with the Plume team offline, and after chatting, I’m even more confident about the development of RWA in 2025. This judgment has nothing to do with market ups and downs; it’s purely based on fundamentals.

Recently, I’ve observed an interesting phenomenon—DeFi yields are continuously declining, but RWA has become a new growth point. When traditional assets flow onto the chain, investors can not only achieve more stable returns but also diversify their portfolios. More importantly, RWA injects new liquidity and collateral sources into DeFi. Data also confirms this: the total locked value of RWA has reached $10.41 billion, with strong growth since mid-2024. Real-world assets are quietly changing the landscape of the crypto market.

Simply put, RWA is the tokenization of real-world assets, enabling circulation and trading on the chain. Fiat currency, government bonds, funds, stocks, real estate, art, IP, GPUs—almost everything valuable can be on-chain. USDT is actually a mapping of the US dollar on the chain and is the most successful RWA application.

Why choose now? The key is the explosive trading volume of stablecoins. It’s estimated that by 2025, the trading volume of stablecoins could reach 10% of dollar trading volume. What does this mean? It means the integration of traditional finance and the crypto world is accelerating. The advantages of bringing assets on-chain are obvious—more liquidity, real-time settlement, easier cross-border transfers, higher transparency, and significantly lower issuance costs. Most importantly, once on-chain, RWA can participate in various on-chain DeFi activities, which is the true power of RWAFi.

The RWA track is still very early; only US dollar stablecoins have achieved large-scale application. Although there are on-chain versions of US Treasuries and dollar funds, participation is limited—only 34 holders of the Ethereum version of a top-tier fund, with a minimum threshold of $5 million. Other types of assets are still in experimental stages, which precisely shows how much potential the RWA track has.

Of course, the RWA track also faces many challenges. Regulatory requirements, support for circulation channels, asset risk assessment—these are unavoidable issues. Especially how to evaluate and provide credit guarantees for off-chain assets, such as real estate, which is quite complex. But these challenges also present opportunities.

Looking ahead, the current RWA asset size is about $19.1 billion, and research institutions predict it will reach over $600 billion by 2030, a growth of 30 to 50 times. This is not wishful thinking; it’s a logical projection based on current trends.

How can retail investors participate? The most direct way is to participate in on-chain US Treasury projects, such as Ondo, Ena, etc., which can provide stable returns of 3-4%. For higher yields, you can focus on tokens related to the RWA track.

Regarding specific projects, Ondo, a leader in the RWA space, plans to launch a stock and securities RWA market this year—an area supported by the president himself, so stability is expected. From a fundamental perspective, it should have already been listed on a major exchange; arriving now is a bit late but still not too late.

Plume is a project invested in by a major exchange this year, treated as a flagship. It provides RWA infrastructure services, with many top RWA players as clients, establishing a solid foundation. The emerging "RWAFi" concept sounds trendy, but it’s essentially a new way to bring traditional assets on-chain. As a rising star, Plume has backing and is building an ecosystem that integrates top RWA, DeFi, and CeDeFi projects, promoting opportunities for RWAFi development.

MANTRA is one of the hottest tokens of 2024, with a 64-fold increase throughout the year, quickly becoming a leader in RWA Layer 1. Backed by investors like Waterdrip Capital, LD Capital, Laser Digital, and others.

Projects like RIO, CPOOL, HTS, PROPS, and RNB are also focusing on different aspects of the RWA track—some integrate real-world assets, some provide compliant capital access layers, some bring RWA into daily life through tokenized housing rentals, some simplify real estate investment, and others quietly build during low valuation phases.

Honestly, the development of the RWA track has just begun, and the performance in 2025 has already proven this. If you’re still debating whether to participate in RWA, now might really be a good time. You can start with stable-yield US Treasury projects and gradually pay attention to related tokens in the track.