According to Cointelegraph: The year 2023 saw impressive growth in the U.S. market for tokenized Treasury securities, with the total market capitalization soaring by 641% from $114 million to $845 million. The data, shared in CoinGecko's 2024 report titled “Rise of Real World Assets in Crypto,” demonstrates increased adoption of blockchain-based solutions in the traditional finances sector.
Tokenized securities are digital tokens representing ownership in real-world assets (RWA) such as stocks and bonds. As per the report, Franklin Templeton, the asset management firm, is the largest issuer of tokenized Treasurys, accounting for 38.6% of the market with $332 million worth of tokens issued via its On-Chain U.S. Government Money Fund.
The report also noted that Mountain Protocol’s USDM tokens saw significant growth from $26,000 to $154 million since its inception in September 2023. A majority of the tokenized U.S. Treasurys, (57.5%) are based on the Ethereum network, while firms like Franklin Templeton and WisdomTree Prime have opted to issue their tokenized securities on Stellar, contributing to 39% of the market.
Despite the considerable expansion in 2023, growth in the sector appears to have braked, with tokenized treasurys only growing by 1.9% in January 2024. By the close of February 1, 2024, the total market cap stood at $861 million.
Commodity-backed tokens were another highlight of the report. As of February 1, their market capitalization was marked at $1.1 billion, with Tether Gold (XAUT) and PAX Gold (PAXG) owning 83% of the market cap for tokenized precious metals. A trend of tokenizing uranium was also noted as a rising market trend.
