The market for tokenised real-world assets has crossed a milestone that would have seemed ambitious just two years ago: on-chain representations of U.S. Treasury bills, money market funds, and other short-term instruments now exceed $15 billion in total value locked – a figure that has more than doubled since the start of 2025 and signals a structural shift in how institutional capital interacts with blockchain infrastructure.
The milestone was recorded by asset tracking platform rwa.xyz and corroborated by data from multiple on-chain analytics providers. The figure encompasses tokenised Treasury products from a growing roster of issuers including BlackRock, JPMorgan Asset Management, Franklin Templeton, Ondo Finance, and Superstate, among others.
BlackRock’s BUIDL Leads the Field
BlackRock’s BUIDL fund – the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund – remains the dominant player in the tokenised money market space and has accumulated the largest share of the $15 billion market. Launched in March 2024 in partnership with tokenisation platform Securitize, BUIDL invests in cash, U.S. Treasury bills, and overnight repurchase agreements, with tokens available on Ethereum and expanded to additional chains.
BUIDL’s dominance is partly a function of BlackRock’s brand credibility with institutional investors and partly the result of early mover advantage. Institutional clients seeking on-chain short-term liquidity have gravitated toward the largest, most liquid product – a active familiar from traditional ETF markets.
The fund’s growth has been helped by Securitize’s infrastructure work in making the tokens accessible to a wider range of approved counterparties, including DeFi protocols that have begun accepting BUIDL as collateral.
New Entrants Are Expanding the Market
The $15 billion figure isn’t solely BlackRock’s story. JPMorgan Asset Management’s newly launched JLTXX fund – the JPMorgan OnChain Liquidity-Token Money Market Fund – entered the market this week on the public Ethereum blockchain. Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund has accumulated significant assets across multiple chains including Stellar, Polygon, and Ethereum.
Ondo Finance, a crypto-native firm, has built a significant position with its OUSG product – a tokenised short-term Treasury fund – and more recently USDY, a yield-bearing stablecoin backed by Treasury bills. Ondo’s products have gained particular traction with DeFi protocols looking for yield-bearing collateral alternatives to USDC and USDT.
Superstate, founded by former Compound Finance CEO Robert Leshner, has also attracted institutional capital with its on-chain short-term Treasury fund, which is designed specifically for DeFi-native institutional clients.
Why the Growth Is Happening Now
Several forces are converging to drive the tokenized Treasury market’s growth.
Regulatory clarity: The CLARITY Act’s progress through Congress and the SEC’s shift toward rulemaking under Chair Paul Atkins have reduced the legal ambiguity that previously made institutional participation in on-chain products difficult to justify to compliance teams.
Institutional infrastructure: The launch of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in 2024, followed by Charles Schwab’s recent rollout of direct crypto trading for 35 million retail clients, has normalised digital asset infrastructure across major financial institutions. That normalisation makes it easier to justify deploying capital into adjacent on-chain financial products.
Yield environment: With U.S. Short-term interest rates remaining raised relative to 2021-2022 levels, money market yields remain attractive. Putting those yields on-chain creates a compelling product: the near-risk-free return of a Treasury bill with the programmability and transferability of a blockchain token.
DeFi demand: Decentralised finance protocols have increasingly sought alternatives to USDC and USDT as base collateral assets – particularly yield-bearing alternatives. Tokenised Treasuries fill that gap, offering collateral that accrues value rather than sitting idle.
The Composability Question
One of the most watched developments in the tokenized Treasury space is the degree to which these products are becoming composable with the broader DeFi system. Early products were largely siloed – institutions could hold them, but they couldn’t easily use them as collateral in lending protocols or integrate them into automated yield strategies.
that’s changing. BlackRock’s BUIDL has been integrated as collateral in several DeFi protocols. Ondo’s OUSG has been similarly adopted. As composability increases, tokenized Treasuries begin to function as a kind of programmable cash layer for on-chain finance – a development with significant implications for both DeFi liquidity and traditional money market fund distribution.
The composability trend also creates new compliance questions. When a tokenized Treasury token is deposited into a DeFi lending protocol, it crosses the boundary between a regulated product in a controlled environment and unregulated smart contract territory. How regulators will view these interactions is an open question that the SEC’s four-pillar rulemaking process may eventually address.
What $15 Billion Means
To put the figure in context: the U.S. Money market fund industry manages approximately $7 trillion. The $15 billion on-chain represents a fraction – but it’s the fastest-growing segment of that market, and its growth rate shows no sign of slowing.
Projections from multiple research firms suggest the tokenized real-world asset market could reach $50 billion to $100 billion by 2027, driven primarily by Treasuries and money market instruments but increasingly supplemented by tokenized private credit, real estate, and infrastructure assets.
For Ethereum specifically, the growth of tokenized Treasuries represents a meaningful source of demand for blockspace and a structural argument for ETH’s role as productive financial infrastructure rather than purely speculative asset.
FAQ
What are tokenized Treasuries? Tokenized Treasuries are blockchain-based tokens whose value is backed by U.S. Treasury bills, money market instruments, or overnight repurchase agreements. Holders receive yield equivalent to the underlying Treasury product, while gaining blockchain-native transferability and composability.
Who are the major issuers of tokenized Treasuries? The largest players include BlackRock (BUIDL), JPMorgan (JLTXX), Franklin Templeton (BENJI), Ondo Finance (OUSG/USDY), and Superstate. These products operate primarily on Ethereum, with some also available on Polygon, Stellar, and other chains.
Why are DeFi protocols adopting tokenized Treasuries? DeFi protocols are adopting tokenized Treasuries as yield-bearing collateral alternatives to stablecoins like USDC and USDT. Unlike stablecoins, tokenized Treasury tokens accrue yield over time, making them more capital-efficient for lending and liquidity management applications.
