Private credit drives the $24 billion RWA market, Ethereum leading

The real assets encoded (RWA) have transformed from a niche concept into a mainstream application in institutional finance, with the private credit sector leading due to its ability to provide flexible programmable yields.

This is one of the key findings of the RWA Market Overview report for the first half of 2025 published by RedStone, in collaboration with the RWA.xyz data platform and the DeFi Gauntlet protocol.

Excluding stablecoins, the RWA market has grown by 380% since 2022, reaching a total value of approximately 24 billion USD.

Although much of the attention in recent times has been focused on government bonds being mã hóa – with the participation of "big players" like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton – the report indicates that private credit now accounts for more than half of the RWA market, equivalent to 14 billion USD.

Private credit (, also known as direct lending in the investment community ), is currently providing returns of 8% to 12% for RWA investors. The report highlights the role of products such as Apollo's ACRED fund.

According to FS Investments – an alternative asset management company – investors have long favored private credit due to its superior yields compared to the public credit market. RedStone believes that encryption has significantly improved payment speeds, liquidity, and accessibility, while also allowing for fragmented participation, something that the traditional private credit market has struggled to achieve.

The growth of private credit is encrypted | Source: RWA.xyz## Ethereum remains the leading RWA platform, but competition is increasing

Although Ethereum's dominant position is being "eroded" by faster and better-scaling blockchains, RedStone asserts that Ethereum remains the leading network for tokenized RWA. By mid-2025, Ethereum is expected to hold approximately 7.5 billion USD in tokenized asset value, corresponding to 59% market share, spread across 335 products.

Ethereum is dubbed the "standard of organizations" for storing most RWA activities | Source: RedStoneThe report states: "Although the decentralized governance mechanism has been a barrier for Ethereum to attract large organizations, the launch event of Etherealize in January 2025 marked a strategic turning point," – referring to the marketing initiative by the Ethereum Foundation aimed at attracting organizations to participate in on-chain.

However, Solana is emerging as a "high-performance challenge" as it increasingly plays a significant role in the market for government bonds that are mã hóa. As of June, Solana is holding approximately 351 million USD in assets that are mã hóa.

Aptos has also witnessed strong growth, with 349 million USD RWA, becoming the first non-EVM network chosen by BlackRock for the BUIDL fund.

Additionally, Avalanche currently holds 188 million USD in encryption assets, including KKR's encryption fund. XRP Ledger is also noted as a "managed newcomer" with 157 million USD in RWAs, according to the report.

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