RWA sector wiped out: $8B lost in market cap, down 14.9%; only 4% of top 100 RWA tokens stayed green, with major losses across the board.
TL;DR…
- Crypto crash deepens: Bitcoin dropped to ~$77K before a slight recovery; Ethereum plunged 14.7% to a two-year low, fueling market-wide fear.
- RWA sector wiped out: $8B lost in market cap, down 14.9%; only 4% of top 100 RWA tokens stayed green, with major losses across the board.
- Some resilience remains: Despite price drops, RWA total value locked (TVL) hit $9.2B ATH; Lumia (LUMIA) and OriginalTrail (TRAC) managed modest gains.
- RWA adoption grows: Securitize integrates RedStone Oracles; ATME launches gold-backed tokens; Mercado Bitcoin & Polygon Labs to tokenize $200M in assets.
In case you haven’t noticed, the cryptocurrency market is in a bad state right now.
Bitcoin (BTC) touched lows not seen since November 2024, most altcoins gave back all of their 2024 gains, and Ethereum fell to its lowest value in two years.
Understandably, fear pervades the market, with many long-term holders on the brink of capitulation and most recent entrants facing steep losses.
How did the RWA sector hold up during this bloodbath? Let’s take a closer look.
Market Overview
It was another punishing week for cryptocurrency holders.
Source: Bitcoin (BTC) Coin Page
In the last seven days, major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) suffered their worst declines in months. Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 7.7% this week, briefly falling to under $77,000 before recovering to its current value of ~$81,800.
Ethereum (ETH) was hit harder still, dropping 14.7% to fall under $2,000 for the first time in two years. ETH is now trading at ~$1,860, leaving holders worried.
Today’s positive Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers did little to ease the carnage seen across both traditional and crypto-finance—fueled by a mix of tariff uncertainty, geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe, and recession fears.
Source: CMC Crypto Fear & Greed Index
The CMC Crypto Fear & Greed Index now sits firmly in the fear range at 19, up from yesterday's state of extreme fear (15).
RWA Market Update
Following last week's muted performance, the RWA sector is a bloodbath this week.
Source: Top Real World Asset Tokens Page
In the last seven days alone, more than $8 billion was wiped off the market cap. The sector now has a market cap of $47.1 billion following a 14.9% drop—erasing an entire year of growth.
To put the meltdown into perspective, just 4% of the top 100 RWA tokens by market capitalization (mcap) managed to remain green this week.
As you might expect, the vast majority are in heavy losses, with several tokens losing upwards of 30%. Some of this week’s worst-affected tokens include:
- Alvara Protocol (ALVA): lost 40.1%
- Chintai (CHEX): lost 31.4%
- Zebec Network (ZBCN): lost 30.9%
- Brickken (BKN): lost 29%
Among the top 10 by mcap, Algorand (ALGO) stands out as the worst performer, with a 21.6% decline.
Source: Top Real World Asset Tokens Page
As we touched on, a handful of RWA tokens managed to resist the downtrend and remain positive this week—and only two with significant trading volume.
These are OriginalTrail (TRAC) and Lumia (LUMIA), up a modest 0.9% and 1.4% respectively this week.
>> Did you miss the last RWA update? Check it out here.
Despite the bearish price action, popular RWA protocols continue to grow their total value locked (TVL). The TVL of the RWA sector just hit $9.2 billion—an all-time high.
Source: Google Trends
Search volume for the phrase “real-world assets” has remained roughly flat over the last year, barring a brief spike in March 2024.
Source: DefiLlama
Despite the meltdown, the real-world asset (RWA) sector was far from the worst-performing sector this week when measured by market-cap weighted change.
According to DeFiLlama’s narrative tracker, the RWA sector saw a 13.9% mcap-weighted loss in the last seven days, ranking 11th of the 22 sectors tracked by the platform.
The Centralized Exchange (CEX) tokens and Bitcoin (BTC) sectors were the best performers this week, losing 5.9% and 7.9% respectively.
>> Click here to learn more about real-world assets.
RWA News Roundup
Though the RWA sector is struggling price-wise, the industry continues to expand behind the scenes.
Here, we highlight some of this week’s most significant updates, to help you get up to speed quickly:
Securitize Integrates RedStone Oracles To Enhance Tokenized RWA Funds: Securitize has partnered with DeFi-focused oracle provider RedStone to deliver price feeds for its tokenized real-world asset (RWA) products, including BlackRock's USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) and the Apollo Diversified Credit Securitize Fund (ACRED). This integration aims to expand these funds' use cases within decentralized finance platforms.
Bahrain's ATME Launches Gold-Backed Tokens: Bahrain-regulated crypto exchange ATME has entered the $1.2B tokenized gold market, offering tokens backed by 1 kg of gold. These RWAs can be traded or redeemed for physical gold, reflecting the growing institutional demand for blockchain-based assets. (source)
Mercado Bitcoin and Polygon Labs To Tokenize $200M in Latin American Assets: Mercado Bitcoin, a leading Latin American cryptocurrency exchange, is collaborating with Polygon Labs to tokenize over $200 million in real-world assets (RWAs) in 2025. This partnership aims to enhance transaction efficiency and broaden access to tokenized private credit and other RWAs in the region. (source)
>> That’s all for now. Join us next week for more RWA news, insights, and developments.
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