Practically every cryptocurrency in the top 50 by market capitalization is having a rough time right now, led by a precipitous drop in the value of Bitcoin (BTC).
TL;DR…
- Bitcoin Sell-Off Impact: A severe downturn across the cryptocurrency market, led by a sharp fall in Bitcoin, influenced most altcoins.
- RWA Token Decline: Most real-world asset (RWA) tokens experienced significant losses this week.
- Fed Statement Effects: An unexpected Fed statement on Bitcoin contributed to market volatility, causing a brief BTC price crash.
- Market Cap Reduction: Over $1.5 trillion was wiped from U.S. stocks; RWA tokens' market cap is notably down; some individual tokens like LINK and ONDO outperformed others.
Red 🩸is the word this week. Practically every cryptocurrency in the top 50 by market capitalization is having a rough time right now, led by a precipitous drop in the value of Bitcoin (BTC).
Real-world asset (RWA) tokens haven’t escaped unscathed. The vast majority of RWA tokens have taken a significant blow over the last week.
Let’s take a closer look, shall we?
>> Did you miss last week’s RWA update? Check it out here.
Market Overview
Yesterday, the Fed cut interest rates by 25 basis points, as most analysts had anticipated.What was not anticipated, however, was Fed Chair Jerome Powell explicitly stating that the Fed "cannot hold Bitcoin" and was not seeking to change that.
This statement precipitated a flash crash that saw BTC briefly collapse below $100K before recovering to around $100,500 as of writing.
Despite the volatility, Bitcoin (BTC) is down just 0.3% for the week.
Meanwhile, over $1.5 trillion was wiped off the U.S. stock market yesterday as sentiment shifted bearish.
Source: CoinMarketCap Charts Page
Altcoins also took a beating. More than 90% of alts are in the red this week, with Ethereum (ETH) falling back to the $3,600 range and the average altcoin losing 10% in the last week.
The CMC Crypto Fear & Greed Index has dropped to 69, its lowest value since early November 2024.
RWA Market Recap
With the altcoin market taking a serious hit, it is likely no surprise that the vast majority of RWA tokens are also in the red this week.
As it stands, more than 90% of RWA tokens are in the negative over the last seven days, though a handful have weathered the storm surprisingly well.
These include:
- Chainlink (LINK): gained 4% to reach a $15.87 billion market cap.
- Ondo (ONDO): gained 2.1% to reach a $2.54 billion market cap.
Among smaller RWA tokens, some have managed to lock in significant growth over the measured timeframe. ELYSIA (EL) is leading the pack with an 87.5% gain, whereas CANTO (CANTO) secured a still-impressive 18.9%.
But not all projects fared quite so well. This week’s worst performers include:
- Goldfinch (GFI): lost 24.8% and fell to a $49 million market cap.
- Boson Protocol (BOSON): lost 24.5% and fell to a $47.5 million market cap.
Source: DefiLlama
Though RWA tokens are currently experiencing a broad sell-off, on-chain metrics appear to be improving. The total value locked (TVL) in RWA protocols increased to an all-time high of $7.3 billion today—though the vast majority is associated with on-chain yield coin providers like Hashnote and the Usual protocol.
According to DefiLlama's narrative tracker, the RWA token sector as a whole is roughly middle of the pack in terms of mcap-weighted performance. The RWA sector has an mcap-weighted return of -7.6% in the last week, compared to +191% for PolitiFi tokens, -2.6% for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) tokens, and -21.4% for NFT Marketplace tokens.
The total market capitalization of all RWA tokens now sits at $57.7 billion, almost entirely retracing last week's upward move.
Let’s hope next week paints a more favorable picture.
RWA News Roundup
Despite the crash, several significant developments have been made in the RWA space over the last week.
We’ve summarized some of the most significant stories below:
U.S. and E.U. T-Bill MMFs Launched on Starknet: Spiko, in collaboration with Starknet, has deployed U.S. and E.U. Treasury Bill (T-Bill) MMFs on the Starknet platform, marking the first tokenized T-Bill products on this network. They have risen to be among the top tokenizers of T-Bills, with significant ecosystem partnerships.
World Liberty Financial Buys ONDO: World Liberty Financial, associated with Donald Trump, has recently made significant cryptocurrency acquisitions, including a $250,000 purchase of ONDO tokens. This forms part of a broader crypto investment spree totaling nearly $45 million in December. The ONDO purchase involved 134,216 tokens at an average price of $1.86 each, acquired through the CoW protocol.
Sui Targets RWA Tokenization With New Partnership: Sui has formed a strategic partnership with Ant Digital Technologies to tokenize environmental, social, and governance (ESG) backed real-world assets. This collaboration aims to integrate these assets into the Web3 ecosystem, enhancing global investor access and expanding the scope of asset tokenization on Sui's blockchain platform.
Clearpool Launches New Testnet: The Ozean Poseidon Testnet is now live, advancing the integration of real-world assets (RWAs) into decentralized finance (DeFi) in a compliant way. This testnet provides developers and early adopters a platform to engage with and enhance the Ozean protocol, intending to enable automated on-chain yield.
>> That’s all for this week’s RWA recap. Join us next week for another dose of RWA action.
This article contains links to third-party websites or other content for information purposes only (“Third-Party Sites”). The Third-Party Sites are not under the control of CoinMarketCap, and CoinMarketCap is not responsible for the content of any Third-Party Site, including without limitation any link contained in a Third-Party Site, or any changes or updates to a Third-Party Site. CoinMarketCap is providing these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement, approval or recommendation by CoinMarketCap of the site or any association with its operators.
This article is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. It is important to do your own research and analysis before making any material decisions related to any of the products or services described. This article is not intended as, and shall not be construed as, financial advice.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s [company’s] own and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinMarketCap.
