Fragmentation throughout blockchain networks is costing the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} a yr, based on new analysis from knowledge analytics platform RWAio.
The report, created with enter from 17 firms together with Coinbase, Franklin Templeton, and Polygon, estimates that fragmentation throughout blockchains is inflicting between $600 million and $1.3 billion in misplaced worth every year. Presently, the entire worth of tokenized real-world property in circulation, together with non-public credit score, U.S. Treasury debt, and commodities, has reached over $36 billion.
RWAio discovered that the identical property typically commerce at totally different costs on totally different blockchains, with worth gaps of 1-3%. In the meantime, transferring property between chains can value traders 2-5% per transaction because of charges and slippage. Ethereum presently holds 52% of all tokenized RWA worth, whereas Polygon accounts for 62% of tokenized bonds.
“This fragmentation is the one biggest obstacle to the market realizing its multi-trillion-dollar potential. In conventional finance, the EU-wide SEPA Instantaneous mandate reveals how worth can transfer throughout accounts in seconds,” stated Marko Vidrih, co-founder and COO at RWAio.
“Tokenized property must be simply as frictionless. Reaching that requires each bottom-up protocol standardisation and top-down coordination from establishments and regulators. With out true interoperability, the business can not scale.”
The report warns that the issue will develop because the market expands, particularly if related inefficiencies proceed. In line with their projections, if the tokenized asset market reaches $16-$30 trillion by 2030, annual losses might attain $30-$75 billion.
In October, the biggest tokenized RWA fund, Blackrock’s BUIDL, noticed its allocation on the Ethereum community drop by about 60%, whereas its market share on a number of different supported blockchains grew. Nearly all of BUIDL is now tokenized on BNB Chain, adopted by Ethereum, per knowledge from RWAxyz.
Interop Protocols
Past this, the report notes that fragmentation additionally limits innovation. Belongings on one blockchain typically can not work together with apps on one other, making it more durable to construct extra superior monetary merchandise. Safety dangers are additionally rising, with the report noting losses from bridge hacks, sensible contract bugs, and key administration failure – all which have grow to be main considerations for institutional traders.
To deal with these points, the findings recommend using an interoperability stack that hyperlinks cross-chain protocols, citing Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and Cosmos’ Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol (IBC).
The RWA market has grown rapidly in recent times, with on-chain worth rising by greater than 2,000% since 2020. Greater than 500,000 customers additionally now maintain tokenized conventional property. Non-public credit score leads the sector at $19.1 billion, adopted by tokenized securities at $9 billion, per the report.
Yesterday, international monetary infrastructure big The Depository Belief & Clearing Company (DTCC) revealed that it has chosen the Canton Community for a pilot to tokenize a subset of the U.S. Treasury securities it holds.

