❗ RWA is the only category that grew in the past 12 months (amongst the top 25 projects).

$XLM : $7B
$LINK: $5.6B
$ONDO: $1.6B
$ALGO: $700M
have all contributed towards it.
This is the data on sector-token layer, where narratives actually live and die.
Where it stands today:
→ DeFi : $77.9B. Still the base layer, still ~half the stack. But down from ~$105B a year ago.
→ RWA : $46.5B. The only category that grew.
→ Liquid staking : $16.3B. Roughly halved.
→ AI/DePIN : $10.6B. Off its Aug peak by more than half.
→ NFT/Gaming : $4.48B. The 2021 trade, now a rounding error.
→ Bridges : $1.32B.
A year ago RWA was a mid-tier band, ~15% of the category economy. Today it's the clear #2 behind DeFi at ~30%. Its share roughly doubled - in a market that shrank.
The read: when leverage drains out, the reflexive narratives compress first. AI/DePIN, liquid staking, gaming all down 50%+. What took share was the one category underwritten by cashflows and off-chain assets instead of pure token reflexivity.
RWA is growing because it is the only narrative that is pulling non-crypto people in too. Tokenized stocks are bigger deal than we can think of and everyone wants a piece of it.
RWA is no longer "optional".