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Real-World Assets Cross $10 Billion in Total Value Locked: DeFiLlama
Growth comes from increases in TVL on Ethena USDtb and BlackRock's BUIDL.
Updated Mar 21, 2025, 9:11 p.m. Published Mar 21, 2025, 10:06 a.m.
What to know:
- Real-world assets have grown into a $10 billion category, with Maker, BlackRock's BUIDL and Ethena's USDtb, each accounting for more than $1 billion in total value locked (TVL) .
- USDtb, a stablecoin backed by tokenized BlackRock money-market fund shares, has seen the fastest growth with over 1,000% TVL growth in the last month.
- Treasury-backed tokens dominate, reflecting investor preference for safer assets amid bearish crypto sentiment.
Real-world assets (RWAs) are now a $10 billion category, according to data curated by DeFiLlama, with Maker, BlackRock's BUIDL and Ethena's USDtb each accounting for more than $1 billion in total value locked (TVL).
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Of the three, USDtb — a stablecoin designed to contrast with Ethena's USDe — has had the fastest growth, adding over 1,000% in TVL in the last month.
USDtb is backed by tokenized BlackRock money-market fund shares whereas USDe uses crypto-assets and perpetual futures strategies for crypto-driven yields.
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CoinDesk previously reported that Treasury-backed tokens reached a record $4.2 billion market cap in the first quarter, driven by growth in Ondo Finance's OUSG and USDY tokens, BlackRock and Securitize's BUIDL, Franklin Templeton's BENJI and Superstate's USTB.
Treasury-backed tokens dominate, according to data aggregator RWA.xyz. The next highest category, tokenized commodities, comes in at $1.26 billion, with Paxos Gold leading with TVL of just over $500 million.
Analysts say this reflects investor preference for safer assets amid bearish crypto sentiment, with T-bills outperforming what's offered for yield with major DeFi protocols like Compound.
Read more: RWA Tokenization: What Does It Mean to Tokenize Real-World Assets?
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