As we wave goodbye to a tumultuous week, the cryptocurrency and RWA markets demonstrate resilience and innovation.
TL;DR…
- Market Resilience: Despite Bitcoin's volatility, the crypto market rebounded strongly; altcoins led with a strong performance, setting a positive tone for 2025.
- RWA Token Surge: After initial struggles, RWA tokens like TokenFi and Dusk posted significant gains this week, contrasting with KlimaDAO's and Boson Protocol's heavy declines.
- Sector Dynamics: The RWA sector's total value locked remains around $8 billion, with the market cap rising to $66 billion.
- Strategic Developments: Key partnerships, such as Plume Network with Ondo Finance and GCL Energy's China project, highlight innovation and growth in the RWA sector.
As we wave goodbye to a tumultuous week, the cryptocurrency and RWA markets demonstrate resilience and innovation.
Here, we take a closer look at how the sector has evolved since last week’s RWA update.
Let’s dive in!
Market Overview
The last week has been turbulent for the vast majority of cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin (BTC) showing increased volatility.
Despite this, the market experienced a sudden turnaround earlier today, erasing several days of decline and leaving most cryptocurrencies in the green over the last seven days.
Source: Bitcoin (BTC) Coin Page
Bitcoin (BTC) is now up 1.2% for the week but has seen its dominance fall back to around 56.2% as altcoins put on a more impressive display.
The OG cryptocurrency is now hovering between $96,000 and $97,000.
The CMC Crypto Fear & Greed Index has fallen back to 51, indicating a neutral market—neither particularly bullish nor bearish.
Source: Altcoin Season Index Chart
Meanwhile, the Altcoin Season Index is now back at a more modest 48/100, meaning just 48 of the top 100 altcoins by market capitalization have outperformed BTC over the last. This indicates we are not yet in a full-blown altcoin season.
Overall, we’re off to a strong start in 2025.
RWA Market Recap
Like most sectors, the Real-World Asset (RWA) token sector was hit hard earlier in the week, before experiencing a strong recovery beginning today.
The vast majority of RWA tokens are in the green over the past seven days, though a handful haven’t been quite so lucky.
Some of this week’s worst performers currently include:
- KlimaDAO (KLIMA): lost 25.7%
- Boson Protocol (BOSON): lost 15.3%
- ELYSIA (EL): lost 13.2%
- Chintai (CHEX): lost 9.9%
As you might expect, some tokens have outperformed the market and put on an impressive display over the last week. Some of this week’s standouts currently include:
- TokenFi (TOKEN): gained 26.3%
- Dusk (DUSK): gained 22.2%
- RWA Inc. (RWA): gained 18.3%
- IOTA (IOTA): gained 12.1%
Source: Top Real World Asset Tokens Page
Overall, the RWA token sector has seen its market capitalization climb by 2.8% over the last week, reaching $66 billion.
Source: DefiLlama
Despite the recent market rally, the total value locked (TVL) in RWA protocols has stagnated recently as funds flow out of on-chain treasury bills and RWA-backed stablecoin protocols. Today, the TVL of the RWA sector is hovering around $8 billion, with most major protocols either seeing flat TVL metrics or slightly losing over the last seven days.
The RWA sector is still dominated by two major players, Hashnote USYC and the Usual Protocol, which together comprise around 42% of the market.
>> Click here to keep tabs on the most popular RWA tokens.
When it comes to relative performance, the RWA sector is still lagging behind most other sectors according to DefiLlama's narrative tracker.
The sector is currently ranked 17th of the 22 sectors tracked by the platform in terms of mcap-weighted returns. It achieved a mcap-weighted growth of +2.5% over the last seven days, whereas the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector achieved a 28.5% gain, with the meme coin category not far behind with +25.7%.
RWA News Roundup
With the RWA token market witnessing a strong recovery, and significant developments occurring behind the scenes, things are looking up for the sector.
Some of the most significant news stories this week include:
Plume Network Partners With Ondo Finance: Plume Network is partnering with Ondo Finance to expand its Real-World Asset Finance (RWAfi) ecosystem by introducing tokenized U.S. Treasuries. This collaboration will integrate Ondo’s institutional-grade financial products into Plume's modular blockchain platform, aiming to enhance access to stablecoin utility and yield generation through U.S. Treasuries.
Trrue Chain Completes $10 Million Private Token Sale: Trrue, an Ireland-based layer-1 blockchain focused on ESG compliance and real-world asset tokenization, has secured a $10 million investment commitment from GEM Digital. This funding will accelerate the development of Trrue's platform, which aims to enhance transparency and accessibility in asset transactions.
Usual Raises $10 Million in Series A Funding Round: Usual has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Binance Labs. This funding will support Usual's launch of a stablecoin backed by real-world assets, focusing on integrating seamlessly into decentralized finance and enhancing banking risk mitigation. The investment also aims to expand Usual's influence in the stablecoin and DeFi sectors.
GCL Energy Partners With Ant Digital for Tokenized Photovoltaics: GCL Energy Technology and Ant Digital Technologies have successfully launched the first blockchain-based Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenization project in China's photovoltaic industry. This initiative, which secured 200 million yuan in cross-border financing, involved the tokenization of two solar power plants in Hunan and Hubei with a combined capacity of 82 MW. (source)
>> And that’s a wrap for this week’s RWA update. Check in next week for more RWA news, developments and analyses ✌️
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