Asset Tokenization in 2024: Leading Projects Reshaping Financial Markets

The real-world asset (RWA) tokenization sector has exploded into mainstream consciousness, with the total market capitalization of RWA-focused projects surpassing $8.4 billion as of March 2024. This surge reflects a fundamental shift: institutions and retail investors alike are recognizing that converting physical assets into digital tokens unlocks unprecedented liquidity and accessibility. The arrival of BlackRock—the world’s largest asset manager—into this space with its BUIDL tokenized fund on Ethereum represents not just a milestone, but a validation that traditional finance is ready to embrace blockchain-based solutions at scale.

Why Asset Tokenization Matters: The Core Value Proposition

Before diving into individual players, it’s worth understanding why asset tokenization has captured such attention. The technology addresses a critical inefficiency in global markets: traditionally illiquid assets become fragmented, slow to trade, and inaccessible to most investors. Tokenization flips this script entirely.

By converting real-world assets into blockchain-based tokens, investors gain fractional ownership of premium assets previously reserved for institutional players. A real estate portfolio, government bonds, or fine art—once locked behind high minimums—can now be divided into tradeable units. This democratization attracts global participants to the crypto market while simultaneously driving innovation in decentralized finance (DeFi), where these tokenized assets become collateral, yield-generating mechanisms, and hedging tools.

The transparency and immutability of blockchain technology create verifiable, tamper-proof ownership records, building investor confidence. And for DeFi protocols, tokenized real-world assets expand the collateral landscape far beyond cryptocurrency, creating new financial primitives previously impossible on-chain.

Market Leaders in RWA Asset Tokenization

Ondo (ONDO): Bridging Treasury Markets to On-Chain Finance

Ondo Finance stands as one of the earliest and most successful implementations of asset tokenization. Its flagship product, OUSG, represents a breakthrough: the world’s first tokenized US Treasury product available on blockchain networks. This isn’t a proxy or derivative—it’s genuine Treasury exposure wrapped in an ERC-20 token.

What distinguishes Ondo’s approach is pragmatism. OUSG serves a concrete purpose within DeFi: it functions as collateral in Flux Finance, a lending protocol that demonstrates the real utility of tokenized government bonds. Rather than existing in isolation, Ondo’s products integrate into the broader DeFi ecosystem.

The platform’s governance operates through the ONDO token, enabling holders to shape the protocol’s direction and resource allocation. More recently, Ondo Global Markets (Ondo GM) represents the next frontier—a securities tokenization platform complete with a broker-dealer infrastructure. By March 2024, Ondo demonstrated confidence in BlackRock’s BUIDL offering by migrating $95 million of OUSG assets to the institutional digital liquidity fund, marking the first instance of a crypto protocol integrating with a traditional asset manager’s tokenized offering.

Polymesh (POLYX): Enterprise-Grade Infrastructure for Securities

Polymesh emerged as a specialized Layer 1 blockchain explicitly designed for the securities tokenization sector. Unlike general-purpose platforms, every aspect of Polymesh’s architecture prioritizes the institutional requirements of securities—governance frameworks, compliance, identity verification, and settlement mechanics.

The network distinguishes itself by merging the trustworthiness of private financial systems with the transparency of public blockchains, creating what amounts to institutional-grade infrastructure for the DeFi era. POLYX, the native utility token, powers this ecosystem through transaction fees, governance participation, and staking mechanisms.

As of January 2026, POLYX trades at $0.06 with a market cap of $72.06M, reflecting the specialized nature of its addressable market. Despite modest price action (down 1.11% in 24 hours), the token underpins a comprehensive solution for bringing traditional securities on-chain, addressing the regulatory and operational challenges that have long prevented mainstream adoption.

OriginTrail (TRAC): Trust Infrastructure for Supply Chains and Beyond

OriginTrail takes a different angle on asset tokenization. Rather than focusing exclusively on financial securities, it builds a Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG) that verifies and tokenizes trusted data across supply chains, healthcare, construction, and emerging sectors.

The TRAC token (launched in 2018 with a fixed 500 million supply) powers this ecosystem, enabling users to publish, update, and collateralize assets on the network. Its multichain deployment ensures broad accessibility. Currently trading at $0.43 with a $192.46M market cap and relatively stable 24-hour performance (-0.23%), TRAC represents the infrastructure play—creating the trust layer that allows diverse real-world assets to be tokenized and verified across multiple blockchain ecosystems.

Pendle (PENDLE): Yield Tokenization as a Market Layer

Pendle introduced a novel approach: separating yield-bearing assets into Principal Tokens (PT) and Yield Tokens (YT). This decomposition enables sophisticated yield management strategies—investors can trade future yields independently of principal, creating novel speculation and hedging opportunities.

The protocol’s recent integration of RWA products like MakerDAO’s Boosted Dai Savings and Flux Finance’s fUSDC represents a significant evolution. Pendle now functions as a dedicated platform for managing yields on tokenized traditional assets, including US Treasury Bonds. For both retail and institutional investors, this creates a sophisticated mechanism to optimize RWA yield strategies over time.

Trading at $2.20 with a $371.31M market cap (down 0.94% in 24 hours), Pendle demonstrates growing institutional interest in yield infrastructure that bridges DeFi and traditional finance.

TokenFi (TOKEN): Democratizing RWA Creation

TokenFi pursues a distinct mission: lowering the barrier to entry for RWA tokenization. Its platform enables anyone to create and tokenize real-world assets without coding, using tools like its Token Launcher, generative AI for NFTs, and direct connections to institutional market participants.

This approach targets the anticipated $16 trillion RWA market projected for 2030. TOKEN, the platform’s utility token, currently priced at $0.01 with a $20.40M market cap, powers these tokenization operations while facilitating AI-driven smart contract auditing. The 6.14% 24-hour decline reflects broader market volatility, but the platform’s vision—democratizing asset tokenization—addresses a real market gap.

Mantra (OM): Regional RWA Infrastructure for Emerging Markets

Mantra positioned itself as a Layer 1 blockchain specifically engineered for RWA tokenization, with particular emphasis on accessibility in the Middle East and Asia. Following an $11 million funding round led by Shorooq Partners, the platform has developed regulatory-compliant infrastructure enabling developers to build RWA-centric protocols.

The OM token serves dual functions: governance participation and staking for yield generation. Mantra’s mission extends beyond technology—it aims to fundamentally restructure how global financial markets operate by bringing traditionally illiquid assets on-chain, thereby increasing market liquidity and fostering entrepreneurship in emerging economies.

Other Notable Players: Building the RWA Ecosystem

Securitize has evolved into a comprehensive digital securities management platform trusted by over 1.2 million investor accounts across 3,000 clients. BlackRock’s strategic investment—including board-level participation from BlackRock’s Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships—underscores institutional confidence in compliant, blockchain-based securities issuance.

Untangled Finance, launched on Celo, specializes in tokenizing private credit assets. Its $13.5 million funding round (October 2023) reflects institutional recognition that alternative credit markets represent a substantial opportunity for on-chain innovation.

Swarm Markets (SMT), operating with over $5.4M TVL as of March 2024, emphasizes regulatory compliance while bridging traditional finance and DeFi. The platform’s partnership with Mattereum enhances its capabilities for compliant RWA securitization.

MakerDAO (MKR), one of Ethereum’s oldest DeFi protocols, has aggressively integrated RWAs into its ecosystem. As of March 2024, real-world assets comprised just under 30% of MakerDAO’s balance sheet—over $2.06 billion of its $6.6 billion TVL—demonstrating institutional adoption of tokenized Treasury bills and other traditional assets within DeFi.

The Competitive Landscape: Asset Tokenization in 2024

The diversity of approaches across these projects reveals a maturing industry. Some focus on financial securities (Polymesh, Ondo), others on yield management (Pendle), supply chain verification (OriginTrail), or platform democratization (TokenFi). This specialization suggests the RWA sector is evolving beyond hype into genuine market segments with distinct value propositions.

The entry of traditional financial incumbents like BlackRock validates this trajectory. Their presence signals that blockchain infrastructure for real-world asset tokenization is no longer speculative—it’s becoming foundational to how global markets will operate.

Looking Forward: The Future of Asset Tokenization

Several trends will define the next phase of RWA development:

• Regulatory Maturation: Clearer frameworks will accelerate institutional adoption
• Asset Class Expansion: Beyond securities to real estate, commodities, and alternative credit
• Improved Liquidity: More sophisticated AMMs and trading venues for RWA-backed tokens
• DeFi Integration: Deepening connections between tokenized real assets and decentralized financial services
• Real-world Data: Oracle networks that bridge on-chain systems with external data sources

The projects leading this transformation—from Ondo’s institutional Treasury exposure to TokenFi’s accessibility-first approach—are collectively reshaping how billions in assets can be accessed, traded, and leveraged globally. As this ecosystem matures, asset tokenization will likely transition from niche opportunity to fundamental market infrastructure.