The cryptocurrency market's downward trend continued today, with a total market value that has fallen by 3.17% in the last month due to persistent selling pressure. One segment is going against the tide: tokenized real assets (RWAs).
The distributed asset value has continued to rise, reaching a new peak despite challenging market conditions.
Bitcoin selling pressure continues while the RWA sector remains largely unaffected.
According to data from RWA.xyz, the sector now has a distributed asset value of $19.06 billion. This represents a growth of 4.59% in the last month.
At the same time, the represented asset value amounts to $414.6 billion, primarily driven by Canton Networks' management of $395.2 billion in institutional assets.
The number of asset owners has also increased, up 7.23% to 583,821. Stablecoins still dominate the segment and now have a total value of $299.17 billion and 212.54 million owners. This represents an increase of 4.12% during the same period.
Kevin Rusher, founder of RAAC, a lending and loan ecosystem for RWA, states that the market focus in the crypto sector still lies on Bitcoin prices, which have continued to decline. He noted that recent developments indicate that selling pressure may persist.
As usual, Bitcoin prices receive most of the attention in the crypto market, and it continues to slide out of 2025 as if it is glued to a sled... Yesterday's news that Strategy has stopped BTC purchases and placed over $700 million in cash indicates that this selling will likely continue. Crypto inflow to Bitcoin has also fallen significantly this year compared to last year — $27.2 billion vs. $41.6 billion in 2024," Rusher stated.
Tokenized gold appears to be an important growth driver
Despite this weakness, Rusher emphasizes that selling pressure has not spread to the segment with tokenized real assets. He points out that the sector is largely overlooked by the crypto market, while delivering some of the strongest returns of the year.
Growth has been partly driven by a global increase in demand for gold. The precious metal is constantly reaching new highs. Tokenized versions have gained particularly strong momentum as a result of this.
Tokenized gold has actually risen 227% from $1 billion to over $3.27 billion so far this year, and this sector — RWA commodities — is one of the major growth areas of the year. The sector started 2025 with only four gold products but ends the year with 15 products — not just in gold, but also oil, wheat, platinum, soybeans, and more," he notes.
Additionally, Shehram Khattak, legal leader at Trust Wallet, points out that tokenized gold could become a strong competitor to Bitcoin.
We are in a situation where people are starting to think about real assets — for example, tokenizing assets — and when you get tokenized gold, if it happens in the right way (and that is a big caveat), it is important. For Bitcoin, it is largely used as a store of value. If that is the case, tokenized gold could become a significant competitor to Bitcoin," he remarks.
At the same time, Rusher believes that the expansion in the sector is not only due to significant institutional demand but also increased participation from private investors. He explains that private investors are seeking stable assets on the blockchain instead of completely withdrawing from the market during periods of high volatility.
The turbulent year we have seen has truly shaped the sector and made it a robust and fertile growth area. This is a very positive sign for the growth of crypto in general, as RWA will provide a solid foundation and means that liquidity remains in crypto even when times get tough. RWA is definitely the future of crypto and deserves much more attention," he adds.
Market value for tokenization may reach $100 billion by 2026
Going forward, Jesse Knutson, operations leader at Bitfinex Securities, has predicted that the market for tokenization will grow to at least $100 billion by the end of 2026.
He expects that tokenized interest products will remain the dominant segment in the short term, while tokenized stocks will gradually increase their share of total tokenized assets.
Knutson added that the continued tokenization of stocks is likely to attract more private investors, thus expanding the investor base for tokenized assets.
Tokenization can open up regulated access to investment opportunities such as microfinance, legal financial products, or Bitcoin hashrate contracts — assets that are not available in traditional markets. We expect this momentum to continue into 2026, with more alternative assets, innovative fixed-rate products supported by Bitcoin mining, tokenized ETFs," he stated to BeInCrypto.
Previously, Plume CEO Chris Yin has also predicted a 10–20x increase in both value and number of users by 2026, even under conservative assumptions. Thus, the development of the RWA sector in 2026 is likely to be an important trend to follow.
