The market value of real-world assets (RWA) could more than triple its current value by 2026, as it expands beyond crypto-native use cases and utility, according to Chris Yin, co-founder and CEO of RWA-focused Layer 2 blockchain Plume.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Yin said the value of RWA has taken off in the last year and he expects it to increase three to five times in 2026, as a base case.
“We are currently tracking more than 10x the number of RWA holders since the beginning of the year, so we expect that we will continue to inflect and believe it is not crazy to imagine another banner year with 25x in user growth numbers,” he said.
More than $35 billion in RWA is estimated to be on-chain, according to RWA.xyz, among more than 539,000 holders.
RWA market will grow exponentially
Yin said the tokenized RWA market is serving crypto natives, but predicts it will grow exponentially in total value, users, asset classes, and utility.
“While today the vast majority of RWA value is in US Treasury bills, market maturation and the combination of rate cuts are pushing on-chain users to look for higher yields in new places,” he said.
“We are already seeing a rebound in private credit, as well as other alternative assets such as mineral rights, oil, GPU, energy and more.”
Regulations could also play a role. Many countries, such as the United States, are working on legislation governing stablecoins and other tokenized assets. Yin said this will help get them out of the sandbox and into real-life use soon.
“Beyond pure issuance on the supply side, we hope to start to see the demand side finally come into the chain,” Yin added.
Plume signs an agreement with Securitize
Plume announced on Wednesday that Securitize, a tokenization platform backed by BlackRock and Morgan Stanley, plans to deploy institutional-grade assets on Plume’s Nest staking protocol.
Related: Plume Network Obtains SEC Transfer Agent Status to Bring TradFi On-Chain
Nest’s staking protocol allows investors to trade and earn returns on tokenized assets. According to Plume, the partnership will connect Securitize’s tokenized funds to Plume’s network of more than 280,000 RWA holders.
Hamilton Lane funds will be the first, with other issuers and asset classes on the Securitize platform to follow in 2026.
Plume has 279,692 holders, which represents about 50% of the total number of holders in all RWA networks. Plume, however, is not among the top ten networks according to RWA.xyz.
However, Yin explains that Plume has a large proportion of users, but each holder may have fewer RWA assets than on other networks.
“Plume has 280,000 users holding a total of $200 million in RWA, which is a much healthier measure of usage on a network,” he added.
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