A recent article by Multicoin Capital is definitely worth reading. It calls the next stage of DeFi “DeFi 2.0.” The core logic is actually very simple: previously, DeFi mainly served crypto assets. In the future, it may start serving U.S. Treasuries, stocks, credit, commodities, and foreign exchange.
Previously, BTC, ETH, and SOL are highly volatile, so people liked perpetual futures, AMMs, and variable-rate lending/borrowing. But Treasuries are different—they have maturities and interest. Stocks are different too—they can support options and securities lending. Institutional trading involves large amounts of capital, and it also requires more professional order books, RFQs, and even dark pools.
So the real upside for RWA is not just “moving Treasuries onto the blockchain.”
Once assets are tokenized on-chain, a whole chain of needs will follow: trading, lending, financing, hedging, options, liquidations, asset management, and more.
This trend is already starting to show up. According to Dune, the tokenized RWA market size has already exceeded $32 billion, and the number of tokenized stock holder addresses has grown from 277,000 to 872,000 over the past year.
So I think when researching RWA going forward, you can’t only focus on how much U.S. Treasuries any particular project has issued.
What’s really worth watching is who can capture the business opportunities “after RWA goes on-chain.”
DEXs, lending, options, interest-rate protocols, asset management, L1/L2, and even DeFi Prime Brokers could all be potential beneficiaries of this infrastructure upgrade.
The first wave of RWA is about moving assets onto the chain. The second wave is about getting these assets to truly participate in on-chain finance.
If that step works, DeFi’s ceiling might no longer be limited to the size of the crypto market alone.
Previously, BTC, ETH, and SOL are highly volatile, so people liked perpetual futures, AMMs, and variable-rate lending/borrowing. But Treasuries are different—they have maturities and interest. Stocks are different too—they can support options and securities lending. Institutional trading involves large amounts of capital, and it also requires more professional order books, RFQs, and even dark pools.
So the real upside for RWA is not just “moving Treasuries onto the blockchain.”
Once assets are tokenized on-chain, a whole chain of needs will follow: trading, lending, financing, hedging, options, liquidations, asset management, and more.
This trend is already starting to show up. According to Dune, the tokenized RWA market size has already exceeded $32 billion, and the number of tokenized stock holder addresses has grown from 277,000 to 872,000 over the past year.
So I think when researching RWA going forward, you can’t only focus on how much U.S. Treasuries any particular project has issued.
What’s really worth watching is who can capture the business opportunities “after RWA goes on-chain.”
DEXs, lending, options, interest-rate protocols, asset management, L1/L2, and even DeFi Prime Brokers could all be potential beneficiaries of this infrastructure upgrade.
The first wave of RWA is about moving assets onto the chain. The second wave is about getting these assets to truly participate in on-chain finance.
If that step works, DeFi’s ceiling might no longer be limited to the size of the crypto market alone.