The on-chain market for tokenised real-world assets (RWA) has exceeded $38.86 billion. Analysts said the market's next task is liquidity and usability rather than expanding the number of listed assets.

Cryptopolitan, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Sept. 15 local time that Castle Labs said in a Sept. 14 report that the industry can grow in earnest only if tokenised assets can move across exchanges, be used as collateral for loans and trade with deep liquidity.

Castle Labs said this distinction matters to both institutional investors and DeFi protocols. It explained that this will determine whether tokenised assets create real value or remain a digital wrapping of traditional finance.

As of Sept. 15, the value of distributed assets stood at $38.86 billion, up 1.00 percent from 30 days earlier, with about 4.24 million holders, according to RWA.xyz. Of that, U.S. government debt-related assets exceeded $15.9 billion. Commodities were $4.9 billion, active strategies $3.6 billion, asset-backed credit $2.56 billion and tokenised equities $2.52 billion.

Assets are spread across multiple blockchains. As of Sept. 14, Ethereum was the largest at $17.3 billion, followed by BNB Chain at $5.6 billion and Solana at $4.3 billion. This structure was cited as a factor weakening liquidity for tokenised assets. In a 2026 report, CoinGecko also said tokenised RWA exceeded $19.3 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2026, more than tripling from January 2025.

Another assessment said supply itself is no longer the core issue. Kraken, Robinhood, Ondo, Securitize, Franklin Templeton and BlackRock already provide access routes to tokenised assets in various ways. By contrast, what holders can actually do with the assets was cited as a bigger task. Castle Labs split utility into accessibility and composability. It said tangible utility emerges only when assets can move to other trading venues, trade with deep liquidity, be used as collateral and connect to on-chain transactions.

Moves by mainstream institutions are also continuing. TRM Labs tallied that stablecoin regulation advanced in more than 70 percent of 30 jurisdictions in 2025, and about 80 percent of financial institutions announced digital-asset initiatives. Tobias Adrian (토비아스 아드리안) of the International Monetary Fund said in an April 2026 memo that tokenisation can help atomic settlement, continuous liquidity management and embedded regulatory compliance. He warned, however, that without an appropriate legal framework and safe settlement assets, it could increase instability in the banking system and deepen centralisation and fragmentation.

Market infrastructure remains at an early stage. Pantera Capital said that 542 of 593 tracked assets were in operation in the first quarter, but the average tokenisation progress index was only 2.04 out of 5. Some 77.6 percent of assets were at the wrapper stage, 11.1 percent were hybrid and only 2.7 percent were at the native stage. The OECD also cited low liquidity, a lack of settlement networks, custody gaps, legal uncertainty and a lack of interoperability as obstacles to wider adoption.