The accelerating demand for real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation has made it the trend that marks the modern financial age, with the market value of tokenised RWAs currently exceeding $24 billion.
Large institutions are competing to tokenise assets—US Treasuries to property—using blockchain to unlock liquidity, reduce settlements, and bring high-value investments to the masses.
In this rapidly evolving industry, there is a small set of funds placing big bets in RWA protocols, incentivising innovation, and defining the future of finance.
This article looks at five well-known funds that are leading this change, analysing their approaches and the effects they have on investors and the market as a whole.
How RWA Tokenisation Is Redefining Global Finance
Every token is a representation of an ownership stake or a particular right in the underlying asset and allows for fractional ownership, making investments with high value accessible to more people.
Tokenisation of real-world assets (RWAs) involves the conversion of physical and intellectual assets like real estate, commodities, bonds, and even intellectual property into digital tokens on a blockchain.
The RWA market is seeing explosive expansion as it integrates traditional finance with the power of blockchain technology, creating new dimensions of liquidity, transparency, and efficiency.
Institutional investors are investing meaningful capital in RWA protocols since these digital assets enhance tradability, minimise counterparty risk, and simplify settlement processes over traditional markets.
Tokenisation facilitates 24/7 worldwide trading, makes previously illiquid assets more accessible to the masses, and can hedge against crypto volatility by tying returns to real-world value.
The vision of monetising trillions of worldwide assets into programmable on-chain instruments is a mighty propellant for the present boom.
1. BlackRock
BlackRock, the global asset manager with the largest assets, has become a leading player in the RWA tokenisation market with its BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL).
Introduced in collaboration with Securitise, BUIDL is a tokenised money market fund investing largely in cash and U.S. Treasuries, delivering stable yields and daily dividends paid out directly to investors' wallets.
As of June 2025, BUIDL has become the world's largest tokenised treasury fund, with assets under management of over $2.89 billion—a number that almost tripled from March 2025 due to strong institutional inflows and increasing acceptance of regulated blockchain products.
The fund's quick take-up speaks to BlackRock's leadership in combining conventional financial solidity and blockchain innovation, providing a standard for institutional engagement in the RWA market.
Significantly, BUIDL tokens are now used as collateral on top crypto exchanges such as Crypto.com and Deribit, further integrating tokenised assets into mainstream finance.
This move speaks to BlackRock's deliberate focus on pushing forward RWA protocols and remaking the institutional finance landscape for the future.
2. Franklin Templeton
Franklin Templeton leads institutional adoption in the tokenisation of real-world assets (RWAs) in its Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund (FOBXX).
Introduced in 2021, FOBXX is the first and sole U.S.-registered mutual fund to transact and hold share ownership on a public blockchain, initially using the Stellar network and now expanding onto Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, Aptos, and Base.
Each share is a BENJI token that allows investors to digitally access the fund and makes it possible to transfer peer-to-peer and convert to USDC.
Within the first half of 2025, FOBXX's market capitalisation had reached more than $594 million, making it the world's third-largest tokenised money market fund.
The fund invests a minimum of 99.5% of its assets in U.S. government securities and cash, providing competitive monthly returns—recently 4.7%—with a stable $1.00 share price.
Franklin Templeton's groundbreaking strategy is fueling increasing institutional demand for blockchain-based treasury solutions.
3. Tether Holdings
Tether Holdings, most famously known for its USDT stablecoin—the largest in market cap—is now extending strategically into real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation, benefiting from its enormous liquidity and worldwide presence.
Going beyond fiat-backed stablecoins, Tether presently sells tokenised gold (XAUT), with every token representing entitlement to physical gold held within Swiss vaults, and has rolled out omnichain offerings such as XAUT0 in an attempt to improve interoperability across chains.
Recent developments also saw the USDT0 protocol, which introduces a combined liquidity layer for USDT on ten blockchains, with over $1.3 billion in circulating supply.
These steps are consistent with increased institutional appetite in RWAs and allow Tether to engage in larger decentralised finance (DeFi) ecosystems.
As Tether expands its portfolio, it is consciously erasing the boundaries between on-chain finance and traditional finance, emerging as a pioneer in the tokenisation of fiat and commodities, propelling the industry's growth, and integrating it further with on-chain finance.
4. ParaFi Capital
ParaFi Capital is a pioneer crypto venture capital firm managing more than $1 billion in assets, known for its strategic investments in blockchain infrastructure and RWA tokenisation.
As a leading player among the five funds spearheading the RWA boom, ParaFi proactively invests in platforms that enable asset managers and private credit lenders to tokenise and trade loans, notably through its support of Tradable.
The concentration on protocols that close the gap between traditional finance (TradFi) and DeFi, with a special emphasis on tokenising private credit and real estate, sets ParaFi apart from other investment strategies.
In order to facilitate easier settlement, lower expenses, and new liquidity prospects for a wider range of investors, the company has also adopted a hands-on strategy by tokenising a portion of its venture fund on the Avalanche blockchain through the Securitise platform.
5. Circle
Circle, which is most famous as the issuer of the $48 billion USDC stablecoin, is moving quickly in the real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation space through acquisitions and partnerships.
Its record-breaking $1.3 billion acquisition of Hashnote in 2025 placed Circle in the vanguard of tokenising traditional assets—like U.S. Treasuries, property, and bonds—into tradable digital tokens on blockchain platforms.
This integration enables smooth convertibility between cash (through USDC) and yield-generating collateral (like Hashnote's USYC token), which boosts liquidity and facilitates continuous settlements across multiple blockchains.
Circle's strategy fills the gap between legacy finance and DeFi, providing institutions and retail investors with improved transparency, efficiency, and access to high-value assets.
Circle is also using USDC on institutional blockchain networks such as Canton, further linking legacy financial markets with the fluid world of DeFi.
This strategy not only bolsters Circle's ecosystem but also fuels wider adoption of tokenised real-world assets.
The Future of RWA Investing
The destiny of RWA investing is also on the verge of paradigm-shifting growth, as the tokenised real-world assets market is expected to be worth $50 billion by the end of 2025, fueled by increasing adoption of U.S. Treasuries, real estate, private credit, and commodities.
Potential is vast as blockchain-driven tokenisation opens up liquidity, reduces barriers of access, and facilitates ease of global transactions.
Challenges abound nonetheless. Regulatory clarity continues to develop, with regulatory bodies around the world seeking to create frameworks that provide a balance between innovation and investor protection.
Compliance barriers and cross-chain interoperability can inhibit adoption, but operational and technological threats—like vulnerabilities in smart contracts—need solutions that are strong.
If these are overcome, RWA protocols can transform asset management to make high-value investing more accessible, efficient, and clear to a global audience.
Edited by Annette George
