RWA sector downtrend continued: $7.4B wiped from market cap, trading volume fell below $2B/day, worst-hit tokens lost over 30%.
TL;DR…
- RWA sector downtrend continued: $7.4B wiped from market cap, trading volume fell below $2B/day, worst-hit tokens lost over 30%.
- Some tokens held strong: Maker, Pendle, and Polyhedra saw modest gains; DeFi TVL briefly hit $10.8B, driven by Usual Protocol growth.
- BlackRock expands to Solana: BUIDL fund reached $1.7B market cap, now holds 34% of tokenized U.S. Treasury market.
- Hong Kong makes ETF history: HashKey and Bosera set to launch first tokenized money market ETFs, approved by Hong Kong’s SFC.
It’s tariff day! Today, a sweeping array of tariffs is set to go into effect, and the market has reacted.
In today’s update, we explore how the crypto economy is holding up and how the RWA sector fared this week.
Let’s dive in!
>> Click here to check out last week’s RWA update.
Market Overview
Since President Trump was inaugurated in January 2025, he made it clear that tariffs are a key part of his trade policy—aimed at protecting American industries, reducing trade deficits, and pressuring trading partners like China to negotiate better terms.
Some of the most significant tariffs include 25% on Canada/Mexico goods, 20% on China, and 25% on steel, aluminum, and cars over the last few weeks. Many of these tariffs begin to take effect today.
Uncertainty surrounding tariffs’ effects on inflation and the potential for quantitative easing impacted the cryptocurrency market YTD. But it appears that the fog is beginning to clear, and the uncertainty is priced in.
Source: Bitcoin (BTC) Coin Page
Bitcoin (BTC) is currently down 2.9% this week, trading at around $85,300. It briefly dipped below $81,500 but saw a strong rally thereafter. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 opened with a slight 0.5% decline, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.6%.
Source: CMC Crypto Fear and Greed Index
Overall, the macro economy is beginning to show glimmers of strength but remains slightly bearish-leaning. This is reflected in the CMC Crypto Fear and Greed Index, which sits at 29—down from 33 last week.
RWA Sector Recap
The real-world asset (RWA) sector has been on a downtrend since late January, with its market capitalization (mcap) seeing a precipitous drop over this period.
Source: Top Real World Asset Tokens Page
In the last week alone, the sector’s mcap dropped by almost $7.4 billion, marking a 14% decline.
Trading volume for the sector now sits at under $2 billion per day, similar to that seen this time last year.
Though the vast majority of RWA tokens suffered a loss over the last week, some were hit particularly hard, with the worst-affected assets losing upwards of 20% of their value.
Among the top 100 RWA tokens by mcap, these assets suffered the greatest losses:
- Hifi Finance (HIFI): lost 36.2%
- Lumia (LUMIA): lost 29.3%
- Clearpool (CPOOL): lost 27.9%
- Synthetix (SNX): lost 28.2%
- Chintai (CHEX): lost 27.2%
A select few RWA tokens weathered the storm and stayed in the green this week. Excluding less liquid tokens (<$500K daily trading volume), the best performers include:
- Maker (MKR): gained 2.6%
- Pendle (PENDLE): gained 2.5%
- Polyhedra Network (ZKJ): gained 2.1%
Source: DefiLlama
When it comes to the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols, the sector continues to demonstrate strength. The sector briefly reached a new all-time high TVL of $10.8 billion before falling back to its current value of $10.7 billion today. The recent growth is due to the expansion of the Usual Protocol, which grew its TVL by 13% in the last week.
Source: Google Trends
In contrast to the weak price action, search interest for the “RWA” keyword remains high and has stayed roughly flat YTD.
The sector is also holding up better than most when it comes to mcap-weighted performance. According to data from DefiLlama, the sector saw a 6.5% mcap-weighted decline over the last seven days, placing it fifth out of 22 sectors tracked by the platform. For comparison, the Analytics sector was hit hardest, seeing a 17.4% mcap-weighted decline in this time.
RWA News Roundup
As one of the fastest growing industries, the RWA sector regularly sees major developments and achieves new milestones.
This week was no exception. Here, we summarize some of this week’s most significant updates.
BlackRock's BUIDL Fund Expands to Solana, Reaches $1.7B Market Cap: BlackRock’s tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, launched in partnership with Securitize, has expanded to the Solana blockchain. The fund reached a $1.7 billion market cap and holds 34% of the tokenized U.S. Treasury market, the largest share among competitors.
HashKey and Bosera To Launch World's First Tokenized Money Market ETFs: HashKey Group and Bosera International will introduce the Bosera HKD Money Market ETF and Bosera USD Money Market ETF in April 2025. These tokenized ETFs, approved by Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission, offer investors blockchain-based access to high-quality money market instruments.
Arbitrum DAO Eyes RWA Revenue Growth Amid $124M Deficit: Arbitrum DAO reported $107M in revenue and $231M in expenses. Transaction fees accounted for 95% of its income. To boost revenue, it’s exploring RWA and DeFi strategies, including “Timeboost” and Nova Fee Sweep mechanisms. (Source)
>> That’s all we’ve got for this week’s update. Join us next week for more RWA news, developments, and insights.
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