Finance

Fiat-Backed Stablecoins and Tokenized Treasuries Soar as Real-World Assets Gain Ground in DeFi

16 hours ago
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The Real-World Asset (RWA) sector has exploded in growth over the last year, with stablecoins and tokenized treasuries at the tip of the spear. 

CoinGecko’s 2024-2025 RWA Sector Analysis Report highlights in its key findings a surge in capital inflow, market adoption, and product innovation, as decentralized finance (DeFi) continues to bridge the gap with traditional finance (TradFi).

Stablecoins Hit Record High as USDT and USDC Cement Market Dominance

Stablecoins are still the bedrock of RWA tokenization, with the sector enjoying a most impressive growth spurt. From the very beginning of 2024 through April 2025, the market cap of fiat-backed stablecoins swelled by $97 billion — a 76% uptick — hitting an all-time high of $224.9 billion. This represented a stunning acceleration in the overall stablecoin trad-

The space is dominated by Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, which together account for 93.5% of the total stablecoin market. Leading the growth was USDT, with an infusion of $56.3 billion, while USDC followed closely behind, adding $37.6 billion to its market cap. Trust at the institutional level and the depth of their liquidity is what really keeps these two in the lead, even as newer challengers try to make their way into the market.

Among the newly emerged players, the synthetic dollar from Ethena Labs, USDt, made an audacious entry, racking up a $1.4 billion market cap and vaulting to the fourth-largest stablecoin within just 12 months. The USD0 from Usual Money also cracked the top 10, landing in sixth place with a $600 million market cap. Even with these two impressive debuts, alternative stablecoins such as TUSD, USDB, and USDD—a collection of 10 minor players—held a steady and modest 3.3% market share.

Interestingly, stablecoins created by longstanding financial institutions—like PayPal’s PYUSD and Société Générale’s EURCV—have performed below projection. The listless adoption of these supposedly safe instruments can be traced largely to the ongoing regulatory haze, which has yet to clear up.

In their absence, the crypto world is, for now, mostly on its own.

Tokenized Treasuries Surge 545% as Economic Fears Drive Demand

Tokenized U.S. Treasury securities have become one of the fastest-growing risk-weighted asset verticals, reaching a market capitalization of an all-time high of $5.6 billion in April 2025. This momentous surge we pegged at a whopping 544.8% from early 2024, further reaffirming our faith in the rising institutional demand for yield-bearing, low-risk assets on the blockchain.

In March and April of 2025, growth rapidly accelerated. There was a sharp inflow of capital precision in the box since March 2025, where things started to pick up, and by April, there was 2.3 billion more entering the market — government tokenized debt, really, but still a pretty substantial sum, I think most would agree.

The trigger for this was an uptick in global economic uncertainty.

At the forefront is the BUIDL fund from BlackRock and Securitize, launched in July 2024. By April 2025, BUIDL had astonishingly captured 45% of the tokenized treasury market, growing 372.8% in under a year. The fund’s success demonstrates how asset managers are using blockchain technology to make fixed-income investments more transparent and accessible.

Ethereum is still the dominant force among the networks backing these assets. Yet, the tech remains in its infancy, with just over 11,000 holders counted on the global scale. That puts these onchain assets firmly in the category of a niche play.

“Tokenized treasuries are still considered a niche play among crypto-native users,” said Kevin Kelly, co-founder and head of research at Delphi Digital.

Onchain Private Credit Rebounds Slowly, Maple Finance Takes the Lead

Despite the rapid rise of stablecoins and tokenized treasury products, private on-chain credit continues to wallow in mediocrity. Through April 2025, the total active loan volume of the sector stands at $546.8 million, approximately one-third of the peak it hit in May 2022. The sharp downward trajectory was felt most acutely in Q3 2024 when Centrifuge, a major on-chain credit player, pivoted its focus to the up-and-coming tokenized treasuries market.

Even with the current downturn, Maple Finance is untouched and remains a resilient leader amongst DeFi protocols. The Maple protocol is responsible for a whopping $374 million in active loans, which constitutes 67% of the top six private credit platforms. … Meanwhile, it is steadily marching into the RWA (real-world asset) ecosystem alongside other DeFi protocols.

Even though growth in these lending platforms remains slow when compared to other onchain lending verticals, mixed in with a credit market experiencing a renaissance—from the leniency of federal regulators, underwriting innovation, and Dapper Labs’ new $35 million lending fund—these developments could very well serve as the fuel needed for a new lending bull market.

Conclusion

The DeFi sector is changing quickly, and our friends at CoinGecko have released a report to help readers make sense of the developments. The picture those developments paint isn’t necessarily a comforting one, however. Here are some of the key points from CoinGecko’s RWA Sector Analysis 2024–2025.

The DeFi landscape is rapidly evolving, with the center of gravity moving toward stablecoins and tokenized treasuries. The mainstream constructs of truly decentralized finance remain largely as yet unrealized.

Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.

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