Building the Bridge: Leading Protocols Reshaping Real World Tokenization in 2024

The convergence of traditional finance and blockchain technology has reached a critical inflection point. Real world tokenization—the conversion of physical and financial assets into blockchain-based digital representations—has evolved from theoretical possibility to market reality. With the RWA sector hitting $8.4 billion in market capitalization as of early 2024, we’re witnessing a fundamental restructuring of how assets are managed, traded, and accessed globally.

The Institutional Catalyst: How BlackRock Changed the Game

BlackRock’s entry into the space with its USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) on Ethereum marks a watershed moment for real world tokenization adoption. By bundling cash, Treasury bills, and repurchase agreements into a yield-generating token, BlackRock demonstrated that institutional-grade asset management could seamlessly integrate with blockchain infrastructure. This move didn’t just validate the RWA thesis—it signaled to the broader financial establishment that real world assets on-chain aren’t a fringe experiment but a viable parallel system for modern finance.

The ecosystem has responded. Infrastructure providers like Anchorage Digital Bank NA, BitGo, Coinbase, and Fireblocks have become essential rails supporting this transition, creating a collaborative infrastructure layer that legitimizes real world tokenization across the industry.

The Innovators: Projects Pioneering RWA Solutions

Ondo Finance (ONDO): Treasury Tokenization at Scale

Ondo Finance represents the first wave of real world tokenization sophistication. Through OUSG—the world’s first tokenized U.S. Treasuries product—Ondo cracked the code on bringing government bonds onto blockchain networks with institutional-grade compliance and liquidity.

What makes Ondo particularly significant is its recent strategic integration with BlackRock’s BUIDL fund. In March 2024, Ondo committed $95 million in OUSG holdings to BUIDL, enabling instantaneous settlement cycles and positioning tokenized Treasuries as viable DeFi collateral. This partnership exemplifies how legacy finance and decentralized protocols can operate synergistically.

Ondo’s expansion into Ondo Global Markets marks the next frontier—a broker-dealer model that accepts both traditional orders and smart contract-based transactions, effectively collapsing the time gap between TradFi and on-chain settlement.

Mantra (OM) – Layer 1 Infrastructure for Emerging Markets

Mantra operates at a different layer of the RWA stack: building blockchain infrastructure purpose-built for real world tokenization compliance. After securing $11 million from Shorooq Partners, Mantra positioned itself as the backbone protocol for regional tokenization ecosystems, particularly across the Middle East and Asia.

Real-time Data: OM trades at $0.07 with a 24-hour change of -0.99%, commanding a circulating market cap of $85.11M.

By focusing on regulatory-compliant infrastructure and developer tooling, Mantra enables projects to build RWA protocols without wrestling with foundational blockchain governance and compliance layers. It’s infrastructure for infrastructure—and that positioning matters as tokenization scales globally.

Polymesh (POLYX): Enterprise-Grade Security Token Infrastructure

While most projects retrofit tokenization onto existing blockchains, Polymesh took a different architectural approach. As a public permissioned Layer 1 designed specifically for securities, Polymesh embeds compliance, identity verification, and settlement mechanisms at the protocol level rather than the application level.

Real-time Data: POLYX trades at $0.05 with a 24-hour change of -2.26%, with a circulating market cap of $62.11M.

This design philosophy means developers building on Polymesh inherit a compliance-first foundation. The network’s governance model, powered by POLYX staking, gives institutions direct input on protocol evolution—a critical requirement for moving trillions in institutional assets on-chain.

OriginTrail (TRAC): Knowledge Graph Tokenization

OriginTrail approaches real world tokenization from an unexpected angle: data integrity and verifiable provenance. Its Decentralized Knowledge Graph enables sectors from supply chains to healthcare to create tamper-proof, AI-ready asset records on blockchain.

Real-time Data: TRAC currently trades at $0.41, up +1.56% over 24 hours, with a circulating market cap of $182.49M.

Rather than focusing solely on financial asset tokenization, OriginTrail recognizes that tokenized assets require trustworthy underlying data. By building the infrastructure for verifiable knowledge assets, TRAC’s multichain presence supports the broader ecosystem of projects pursuing real world tokenization strategies.

The Yield Layer: Decentralized Finance Meets Real Assets

Pendle (PENDLE): Yield Decomposition and RWA Integration

Pendle introduced a critical innovation: separating yield from principal in yield-bearing assets. This decomposition enables sophisticated hedging and speculation strategies that weren’t possible when assets were bundled together.

Real-time Data: PENDLE has surged to $1.83, gaining +4.02% in 24 hours, with a circulating market cap of $302.16M.

Pendle’s recent integration of real-world assets like MakerDAO’s Boosted Dai Savings and Flux Finance’s fUSDC proves that RWA tokenization can create entirely new financial primitives. Institutional investors can now hedge RWA yield curves—something that strengthens the entire real world tokenization narrative by expanding use cases beyond simple buy-and-hold dynamics.

MakerDAO (MKR): Institutional Debt Markets on Ethereum

MakerDAO’s integration of Treasury bills and other RWAs into its DAI stablecoin backing demonstrates how legacy DeFi can absorb real world assets at scale. As of March 2024, RWAs comprise just under 30% of MakerDAO’s balance sheet, representing over $2.06 billion of its $6.6 billion TVL.

This isn’t theoretical adoption—it’s institutional capital treating blockchain infrastructure as equally viable to traditional settlement rails. MakerDAO’s success in integrating real-world asset tokenization into its core protocol shows how RWAs can strengthen rather than cannibalize existing DeFi ecosystems.

The Democratization Layer: Tools for RWA Creation

TokenFi (TOKEN): Codeless RWA Tokenization

TokenFi flips the creator-centric model on its head with a no-code tokenization platform. Recognizing that the RWA market is projected to reach $16 trillion by 2030, TokenFi removes technical barriers to entry.

Real-time Data: TOKEN trades at $0.00 with a 24-hour change of +0.46%, maintaining a circulating market cap of $7.75M.

The platform’s combination of token launchers, generative AI for NFT creation, and direct institutional connections attempts to democratize real world tokenization—making it accessible to creators, SMEs, and institutional players who lack deep blockchain expertise.

Securitize: The Compliance Bridge

Securitize earned its place in the RWA ecosystem through regulatory discipline. By 2022, just three years post-launch, Securitize Markets ranked among America’s top 10 stock transfer agents, servicing 1.2 million investor accounts across 3,000 clients.

BlackRock’s strategic investment and board appointment of Joseph Chalom underscore Securitize’s role as the compliance backbone for institutional real world asset tokenization. It’s not the sexiest protocol, but it may be the most critical for mainstream adoption.

The Emerging Challengers

Untangled Finance has quietly built a tokenized RWA platform on Celo, targeting private credit markets after raising $13.5 million in October 2023. Its focus on making illiquid private debt accessible represents a specific—and potentially massive—use case within the broader real world tokenization thesis.

Swarm Markets (SMT), with over $5.4 million in TVL as of March 2024, pursues a compliance-first approach to tokenizing diverse asset classes. Its July 2023 partnership with Mattereum signals ambitions to scale RWA offerings while maintaining institutional-grade governance and legal frameworks.

Why Real World Tokenization Matters Now

Real world tokenization addresses a fundamental inefficiency in global finance: illiquid assets representing trillions in value remain trapped in legacy settlement systems that move at geological timescales. By bringing these assets on-chain, the ecosystem enables:

• Fractional ownership of assets previously requiring minimum institutional investment thresholds
• 24/7 settlement cycles compared to T+2 in traditional markets
• Global accessibility to investment opportunities historically restricted by geography and capital requirements
• Programmable finance where contracts automatically execute based on data feeds and conditions
• Transparent collateral chains that reduce systemic risk through immutable record-keeping

The Road Ahead

The protocols profiled here represent different layers of the real world tokenization stack: infrastructure (Mantra), compliance (Polymesh, Securitize), yield optimization (Pendle), and democratization (TokenFi). No single project dominates; instead, we’re seeing a mature ecosystem where specialization and complementarity drive adoption.

As regulatory frameworks crystallize and institutional capital continues flowing into tokenized assets, expect the RWA narrative to shift from “why tokenize?” to “which assets tokenize first?” The projects positioned to answer that question—and to build interoperable infrastructure connecting real world tokenization across chains—will likely define the next chapter of blockchain finance.