The Year of Tokenization: Key Trends and Insights from 2024

#US Treasuries

US Treasuries emerged as a cornerstone for tokenized assets, commanding $3.96B in AUM and representing 66% of the *adjusted market. This dominance reflects a growing institutional appetite for bringing traditional fixed-income products on-chain, particularly as elevated interest rates drive demand for low-risk yield opportunities.

Ondo Finance has pioneered a sophisticated multi-chain strategy with $612.02M in total AUM by the end of 2024. Their deployment across multiple chains demonstrates the evolving nature of institutional Treasury products, with $399.14M (65.2%) on Ethereum representing their core position, complemented by a significant presence on Solana ($128.76M, or 21%) and emerging chains like Mantle ($22.2M) and Noble ($18.62M) as of publish date. This diverse chain strategy has helped Ondo capture broader market opportunities while maintaining strong institutional relationships.

“Tokenized treasury bills are an exciting asset class to bring natively on-chain,” said Jelena Djuric, CEO & Co-Founder of Noble. “We are focused on ensuring that these digital assets are effectively managed from a liquidity, compliance, and security perspective so that a flourishing ecosystem of application developers can take advantage of these native asset properties.”

BlackRock’s BUIDL Treasury fund ($648.55M by end of 2024) also represents a significant milestone for tokenized US Treasuries. Their strategic multi-chain deployment concentrated most assets on Ethereum ($479.24M, or 73.9%), with balanced positions across emerging Layer 1s and Layer 2s, including Avalanche ($57.08M), Aptos ($52.64M), Polygon ($32.33M), and Optimism ($26.15M) as of publish date. This approach further cements Ethereum’s dominance in the tokenization landscape throughout the year. BUIDL leverages Securitize as its placement agent, transfer agent, and tokenization platform. This collaboration highlights the growing mainstream acceptance of tokenized government securities.

Alternatively, the category was led by Hashnote’s USYC, which has built a substantial $1.64B AUM exclusively on Ethereum by the end of 2024. This impressive growth has been significantly driven by the rapid ascent of the DeFi protocol Usual’s stablecoin, USD0. This single-chain strategy emphasizes the continued reliance on Ethereum’s security and liquidity for large-scale treasury operations.

On January 21, 2025, Circle announced their acquisition of Hashnote, marking their official entrance into the tokenization sector.

“We are really excited about the growth of the on-chain money market space,” said Leo Mizuhara, CEO and Founder of Hashnote, “The traditional money market space is a 10.6 trillion dollar industry, and US M2 money supply is 21.3 trillion. There is still tons of room for us and all our peers to grow, and we should get after it.”

Traditional finance giant Franklin Templeton made significant moves in the space, with their FOBXX managing $559.12M AUM by the end of 2024 across Stellar and, to a lesser extent, Arbitrum and Polygon. Their participation and OpenEden’s $83.7M T-Bills program on Ethereum and Arbitrum signals the growing mainstream acceptance of tokenized government securities.

Superstate has also established a significant presence with $189.2M AUM through its sophisticated approach to its tokenized Treasury product, Superstate Short Duration US Government Securities Fund (USTB). In late 2024, USTB rolled out the continuous pricing upgrade, which enhances traditional fixed-income strategies by providing real-time interest accrual and 24/7 transaction capabilities through blockchain infrastructure while maintaining institutional-grade compliance and security standards.

Additionally, USTB’s Protocol Mint and Redeem feature expands upon continuous pricing, enabling the asset to be used across a range of DeFi applications. This move introduces a level of composability rarely found in other tokenized Treasury assets and further bridges traditional and decentralized financial assets.

“In 2025, Superstate will enable institutional investors, DeFi protocols, and crypto-native investors to seamlessly earn yield,” said Robert Leshner, CEO and Co-founder of Superstate. “Our technology and funds bring blockchain’s efficiency and transparency to mainstream financial instruments. By bridging these worlds, we’re not just modernizing fund management—we’re shaping the foundation for the next era of global financial markets.”

Emerging protocols like Spiko ($46.38M - Dec 2024) and solutions from established lenders, such as Anemoy by Centrifuge ($36.35M - Dec 2024), further demonstrate the category’s growing diversity. Both protocols leverage Ethereum’s established infrastructure, with Spiko extending to Polygon and Starknet and Anemoy maintaining focused deployment on Ethereum.

“We launched the first tokenized UCITS money market funds mid-2024 and observed strong demand in Europe for tokenized products offering easy access to risk-free rates in dollars and euros, while enhancing transparency in the money market fund industry through real-time subscription/redemption flows and concentration ratios enabled by blockchain-based record-keeping,” said Paul-Adrien Hyppolite, Co-founder and CEO of Spiko. “We are very optimistic about the industry’s development in 2025, particularly thanks to MiCA, which provides regulatory clarity on stablecoins in the EU.”

The sector’s rapid growth suggests that tokenized Treasuries are evolving beyond the experimentation phase of development. Institutional demand for on-chain yield, combined with the operational efficiencies of blockchain settlement, positions this category for continued expansion through 2025.

#Institutional Funds

Institutional Funds represent 2024’s second-largest category in tokenized assets, with $364.39M AUM accounting for 5.96% of the *adjusted market by the end of 2024. This sector showcases the increasing comfort traditional finance has developed with blockchains, demonstrated through diverse offerings ranging from venture capital to private equity products.

Securitize has emerged as a leader in the institutional tokenization space, with over $1B in tokenized assets across all asset classes. Notable partnerships included BlackRock, KKR, Hamilton Lane, and ParaFi, which showcase Securitize’s ambition in bringing sophisticated financial products on-chain. Securitize also played a role in tokenizing Blockchain Capital III Digital Liquid Venture Fund, considered one of the largest tokenized institutional funds to date.

Superstate’s Crypto Carry Fund (USCC), has surpassed $100M AUM, reflecting its growing prominence in the tokenized fund sector. USCC offers qualified purchasers access to crypto basis strategies, optimizing yield through cash-and-carry trades across Bitcoin and Ether, including staking, alongside U.S. Treasury securities.

USCC has demonstrated DeFi utility as a yield-optimized stable collateral option within Morpho’s DeFi platform via Steakhouse Financial’s Steakhouse USDC RWA vault. Additionally, the Frax Finance community approved USCC and USTB as collateral for its stablecoin frxUSD, further expanding USCC’s role in decentralized finance.

Emerging players in the tokenized fund space included Sygnum’s FIUSD Liquidity Fund, which accumulated $44.17M (Dec 2024) on zkSync, and Republic, which managed $20.78M (Dec 2024) on Avalanche. These protocols demonstrate how new entrants leverage different blockchain networks to establish their presence in the institutional market.

The variety of institutional players in 2024 reflects the sector’s maturation. Private equity giant Hamilton Lane has brought portions of their portfolio on-chain, while KKR’s Health Care Strategic Growth Fund represents one of the first tokenized access points to specialized private equity strategies. ParaFi’s tokenized venture capital funds provide exposure to early-stage blockchain investments, showcasing how traditional venture capital models can be enhanced through tokenization.

This ubiquity underscores the importance of emerging tokenization standards and highlights experience in the process as a key differentiator.

“In addition to leveraging Securitize’s tokenization technology to streamline the administrative operations of our venture funds, we have also integrated additional tokenized instruments into our investment strategies. Take the Superstate Crypto Carry Fund, for example. We minted USCC as a tokenized instrument to capture the basis of Bitcoin and Ethereum in an inexpensive, regulated, and capital efficient manner,” said Kevin YB, Partner at ParaFi. “Looking ahead to 2025, I expect tokenized and regulated financial derivatives to expand beyond their current applications, pushing tokenization into uses beyond US Treasuries on-chain.”

As significant financial institutions continue to expand their tokenized offerings, this category demonstrates how blockchain can enhance traditional fund structures. The ability to significantly decrease issuance costs while maintaining regulatory compliance positions institutional funds for significant growth as more firms embrace tokenization strategies. Franklin Templeton recently stated that cost decreases measuring 30,000 times that of traditional issuance processes are achievable with tokenization.

#Commodities

Commodities established themselves as the third-largest 2024 sector in tokenized assets, with $1.06B market cap representing 17.3% of the *adjusted market. Unlike other categories demonstrating multi-chain strategies, tokenized commodities maintained a focused approach on Ethereum.

Paxos Gold is one of the significant players in the sector, with $522.25M AUM, deployed exclusively deployed on Ethereum. Their regulatory-first approach and direct integration with traditional gold markets have helped establish standards for commodity tokenization. The Protocol’s backing by physical gold stored in Brink’s vaults provides the kind of institutional-grade security that traditionally conservative commodity investors expect.

Tether Gold is the second contender to dominate the sector, with $508.65M AUM also exclusively on Ethereum by the end of 2024. As an extension of the largest stablecoin issuer, Tether’s gold offering benefits from established market infrastructure and institutional relationships. Their success in gold tokenization demonstrates how traditional commodity exposure can be simplified through blockchain technology.

The concentrated nature of the commodities sector, with just two major protocols focusing on gold and boasting the supermajority of AUM, highlights both the opportunities and challenges in commodity tokenization. While gold has proven to be a natural fit for tokenization due to its established custody solutions, the success of these protocols may pave the way for other commodities to follow suit.

#Private Credit

Private credit has proven to be a transformative force for tokenized assets. The category, and tokenization in general, is dominated by Figure’s $9.16B AUM in 2024, which significantly outpaced all other protocols in the space and represented 59.98% of all tokenized assets by end of 2024. When data is *adjusted to exclude Figure, the category accounts for $469.7M, or 7.69% of the market, demonstrating both its potential scale and current concentration.

Figure’s dominance stems from its successful Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) program, which originated more than $12.5B in equity for more than 165k households. The company’s ability to tokenize residential real estate debt at scale showcases how blockchain technology can enhance traditional lending markets through improved efficiency and accessibility.

“Public blockchain’s ability to displace trust with truth is a disruptive force in capital markets. Figure has demonstrated this in HELOCs - where we’ve been able to extract over 100 bps of cost savings using blockchain technology. The Figure Connect marketplace is using blockchain to bring unprecedented speed and efficiency into loan and loan security trading. In 2025, Figure and Figure Markets will be expanding to support loans to mortgage, DSCR, and other products as we continue our march towards building the ‘Exchange for Everything’,” said Mike Cagney, Figure Markets CEO & Figure’s Executive Board Chair.

Maple Finance has established itself as a significant player in institutional lending with over $266.85M in AUM and $2.4B in private credit arrangements since inception (as of end of 2024), demonstrating the growing adoption of tokenized lending markets. Their institutional focus and emphasis on traditional finance integration have helped bridge the gap between DeFi and established lending practices.

“Maple is rewriting the playbook for institutional credit—our vision is to be the go-to platform for private credit on-chain, fueling a transparent and accessible global financial system,” said Sidney Powell, Maple Finance Co-founder and CEO.

Centrifuge empowers asset managers to tokenize, manage, and distribute their funds on-chain, while providing investors access to a diversified portfolio of high-quality tokenized assets. They have been a driving force in the institutional adoption of tokenized assets and have championed industry initiatives including the Tokenized Asset Coalition, the Real-World Asset Summit, and the creation of widely recognized token standards. Centrifuge has deployed $671M in total assets financed and tokenized 1,585 assets across multiple chains including Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum and Celo.

“Today, we’re seeing our infrastructure power everything from private credit to public bond markets. It’s validation of what we’ve always believed - that tokenization creates real value by making markets more efficient, transparent, and accessible while meeting the high standards institutions demand,” said Bhaji Illuminati, CMO of Centrifuge.

Goldfinch maintains $99M in active loans (as of publish date) exclusively on Ethereum, emphasizing network security and proven market infrastructure. Their focused approach to private credit markets highlights how single-chain deployment can support institutional requirements while maintaining operational efficiency.

The significant disparity between Figure and other protocols in this category highlight both the potential scale of tokenized private credit and the importance of product-market fit. While Figure Markets has succeeded in tokenizing traditional consumer financial products, other protocols are exploring different lending markets, suggesting that private credit tokenization may evolve along multiple parallel paths.

#RWA-Backed Stablecoins

Real-World Asset (RWA)-backed stablecoins also gained significant traction in 2024. It’s important to note that RWA-backed stablecoins are distinct from the total stablecoin market cap, which is around $202.64B at the end of 2024. While maintaining some backing in the form of bank deposits, traditional stablecoins are not always as transparently backed by assets like short-term Treasuries or other collateral.

Sky’s (fka MakerDAO) RWA program led the category throughout most of 2024, exclusively on Ethereum. The program’s significance extends beyond its size, representing approximately 20% of USDS’s (fka DAI) total collateral base, demonstrating how traditional assets can be integrated into decentralized finance at scale. Their success has helped establish standards for how RWAs can be used as collateral in decentralized systems.

Usual Money (1.79B by Dec 2024) established itself through USD0, a permissionless stablecoin backed entirely by RWAs, including Treasury Bills. Their approach emphasizes user co-ownership through the $USUAL token, creating alignment between the protocol and its users while maintaining full asset backing. As of January 2025, Usual Money’s USD0 stablecoin experienced a contraction in supply, following recent protocol updates.

Mountain Protocol ($54.29M by Dec 2024) exemplifies the growing trend of Treasury-backed, yield-bearing stablecoins. Its stablecoin, USDM, operates under regulatory oversight while preserving permissionless access, with reserves held in segregated accounts through USDM Reserves Ltd, a bankruptcy-remote entity designed to provide an additional layer of protection. The reserve portfolio includes tokenized assets, such as those offered by Superstate.

“USDM aims to solve the business model problem of current stablecoins, where the issuer captures all the value while users earn nothing. With a yield-bearing stablecoin like USDM, users can generate yield simply by holding it in their wallet, making yield generation more accessible to everyone,” said Martin Carrica, CEO and Co-founder of Mountain Protocol. “Superstate plays a key role in this model by enabling immediate access to tokenized treasury products and offering near-instant 24/7 redemptions, enhancing our clients’ ability to redeem seamlessly.”

M^0’s $M ($100.17M by Dec 2024) focuses on being a stablecoin building block for the industry. M^0’s model allows multiple global institutions to mint stablecoins backed by short-dated Treasury Bills while avoiding traditional banking exposure. The Protocol’s on-chain validation and proof of reserves, which includes assets like Superstate’s USTB, demonstrate how stablecoins are evolving to incorporate deeper levels of transparency and backing compared to earlier iterations of the asset class.

“In 2025 we will empower any developer to build their own stablecoin, without having to worry about bootstrapping liquidity and integrations from scratch. Digital money will quickly become just an implementation detail for financial products and services, and M^0 is the most sophisticated stablecoin infrastructure player in the space to support that vision,” said Luca Prosperi, CEO of M^0. “M^0 enables owners of use cases and distribution channels to embed a safe, programmable, interoperable digital money stack, without depending on centralized issuers or cumbersome deals. A well-governed, multi-issuer, multi-stablecoin platform that any developer can leverage in minutes is going to greatly accelerate the pace of adoption of this type of architecture in fintech.”

Newer entrants showcased innovative approaches to asset backing and yield generation. Cygnus Finance ($88.43M - Dec 2024) pioneered RWA protocols on Base with their interest-bearing cgUSD, while Anzen Finance’s USDz ($95.8M - Dec 2024) uniquely leverages private credit assets and asset-backed securities for collateralization. Tangible ($41.73M - Dec 2024) differentiates itself by backing Real USD with tokenized, income-producing real estate alongside traditional assets like gold.

“At Anzen, we’re focused on bridging the gap between the $9 trillion institutional credit market and the crypto ecosystem,” said Ben, Core Contributor at Anzen. “Our goal is to provide users with a dependable way to navigate crypto market volatility while earning stable, uncorrelated returns, regardless of market conditions. It’s about bringing consistency and reliability to an otherwise unpredictable space.”

Chain-specific innovation is exemplified by Solayer USD’s $23.12M AUM (as of Dec 2024) on Solana, which provides yield-bearing exposure to Treasury Bills with a low minimum investment threshold. This development suggests that stablecoin adoption may increasingly align with specific blockchain ecosystems while focusing on RWA integration.

The diversity of approaches to stability, from Treasury-backing to real estate collateralization, indicates a maturing market where different strategies can coexist. As these protocols innovate in asset backing and yield generation, the stablecoin landscape appears poised for continued growth and specialization across different networks and use cases.

#Real Estate

Real estate tokenization is an increasingly popular subset of RWAs. While the diverse nature of tokenization in this sector makes discerning definitive figures difficult, on-chain estimates place this asset class around 3.1% of the *adjusted market in 2024 with approximately $200M AUM. This figure demonstrates how blockchain technology can enhance traditionally illiquid asset classes. The category showcases diverse approaches to property tokenization across different blockchain networks.

RealT led the category with $127.92M (Dec 2024) AUM on Ethereum, representing over 60% of the sector’s total assets. Their platform has pioneered the tokenization of rental properties, creating opportunities for fractional ownership of income-generating real estate while leveraging Ethereum’s established security and liquidity infrastructure.

Lofty has established a significant presence on Algorand with $50.64M AUM (Dec 2024), demonstrating how alternative Layer 1 networks can support real estate tokenization. Their choice of Algorand highlights how different blockchain architectures can serve specific tokenization needs, particularly in managing the complexities of real estate ownership and income distribution.

At Lofty, our mission is to revolutionize real estate investing by making every component 10x better for investors. Since launching our tokenization platform in 2021, we’ve iteratively achieved feature parity with the traditional market. In 2022, we introduced a secondary market for seamless peer-to-peer trading, followed by automated market makers and liquidity pools to enable instant real estate equity sales without middlemen. In 2025, we’re taking the next ambitious step: reimagining real estate loans on-chain,” said Jerry Chu, CEO of Lofty.

Vesta Equity maintained $20.59M AUM on Algorand, further validating the network’s capabilities for real estate tokenization. Their presence alongside Lofty suggests that Algorand may be emerging as a specialized platform for property tokenization.

The relatively modest AUM in real estate tokenization, compared to the traditional real estate market’s enormous size, suggests significant growth potential. As protocols refine their approaches to property tokenization and overcome traditional real estate friction points, this category appears positioned for substantial expansion.

#Other Categories

While most tokenized assets fall within the primary categories analyzed above, several emerging sectors demonstrate the expanding scope of asset tokenization.

Leading platforms like SegMint, backed by VanEck, are pioneering tokenization in the $458.2 billion collectibles market through their “Lock and Key” model, enabling fractional ownership of high-value collectibles previously accessible only to wealthy investors. This democratization of access is gaining momentum across diverse markets.

In the fine wine sector, GrtWines and dVIN Labs are tokenizing investment-grade wines, allowing enthusiasts to trade portions of their portfolio without moving physical bottles from secure storage. Similarly, platforms like Watches.io and Kettle Finance are transforming the luxury watch market by enabling tokenized access to prestigious timepieces.

“For years, trading investment-grade assets like stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies, gold, art, and even collectible watches and cars has been as simple as a few taps on a phone. Investment-grade wine has remained an exclusive domain, accessible only to only the most elite investors,” said David Garrett, Co-founder of dVIN Labs. “By tokenizing wine we will democratize the market, opening doors to a broader audience and ushering in an ocean of liquidity from both individual and institutional investors who have been on the sidelines.”

As the technology matures and gains wider acceptance, the tokenized collectibles market is poised for significant growth. This evolution creates a more liquid, transparent marketplace where investors can build diverse portfolios across categories, from fine art and sports memorabilia to wine and watches.