What is RWA in Crypto? 10 Top RWA Tokens to Invest in 2024

Have you ever dreamed of owning skyscrapers, gold bars, and bonds that make money while you sleep, all secured by the magic of blockchain?

Then your wish has been granted!

Today, a whole universe of real-world asset-backed tokens awaits your investment. The efforts of some blockchain networks revolutionizing traditional finance (TradFi) through tokenization made it possible. The creations of these blockchain networks are popular as Real-world assets or RWA tokens, bringing together a new wave of RWA tokenization that you couldn't afford to miss.

So, let's save time and learn about RWA, tokenization, and the top RWA tokens to invest in in 2024.

What is RWA in Crypto?

RWA stands for Real World Assets, tokenized crypto assets representing tangible and intangible real-life assets like real estate, art, gold, fiat, commodities, bonds, stocks, etc.

But what can be considered as a RWA token?

A token to hold the tag of RWA tokenization

- Should have some significant value

- And should be widely accepted as some form of payment or investment.

Assets that meet these requirements undergo tokenization, a process that involves creating the ownership of a real asset in digital token form. In other words, RWA Tokenization transforms tangible and non-tangible assets into blockchain tokens, enabling holders to buy, sell, and trade them digitally. So, instead of owning any asset physically or on paper, the RWA takes ownership on-chain. Such ownership can exist for one party or be fractionalized to offer to many.

A good and very old form of RWAs in crypto is stablecoins backed by the U.S. dollar, like Tether (USDT).

In the last few years, various new RWAs have been emerging, predominantly in the gold, real estate, and collectable artwork categories. Presently, the scope of tokenization extends beyond tangible assets like precious metals, raw materials, and agricultural products to encompass non-tangible assets like shares, securities, insurance policies, and licenses.

For this reason, RWA tokenization is currently emerging as one of the most significant opportunity markets in the blockchain industry. According to a report by digital asset management firm 21. co, the market for tokenized assets can grow to $10 trillion by 2030 due to the convergence of Traditional finance (TradFi) and blockchain technology.

What are the Benefits of RWA Tokenization?

Below are some key benefits of RWA tokenization:

• RWA tokenization enables fractional ownership of assets that are usually difficult to invest in due to their high financial barriers, like real estate. This opens the doors to such investment classes for a wider section of investors.

• Due to the borderless nature of crypto assets, RWA also helps companies or fund managers access global markets without encountering cross-border challenges involved in traditional financial markets.

• RWAs also enhance companies' security and compliance by transferring ownership of their assets to a robust, immutable, and highly secure on-chain format. Moreover, since adding more instructions to the on-chain data is always possible, it helps integrate new regulatory compliance rules and regulations into the token Smart contracts almost instantly without much work.

• Due to their on-chain representation, RWAs improve transparency in the asset management process, making it easier for holders to audit their holdings and leverage risks.

• RWAs cut out middlemen commissions and other record-keeping expenses to reduce traditional fees associated with investing in traditional asset classes.

What are RWA Tokenization Platforms?

RWA tokenization platforms are projects that provide RWA functionality to different asset classes. They provide tokenization of real-world assets as a service by providing a set of tools and resources helpful in converting ownership of any asset into on-chain cryptographic tokens. With their help, any institution, individual or group can easily issue digital tokens on blockchains without working on them from scratch. In addition to providing token creation, some RWA tokenization platforms offer lifetime management of their issued RWA tokens.

Since these tokenization platforms are designed especially for RWA crypto, they prove extremely helpful in saving cost, time, and effort for anyone seeking RWA tokenization. Moreover, due to their built-in functionalities, even those without technical knowledge can tokenize assets through these platforms.

Due to all these benefits of RWA tokenization platforms in developing RWA projects, their popularity has grown significantly over the past few years. Thus, investing in them through their native cryptocurrencies can prove extremely beneficial for your portfolio.

So, let's now discuss the 10 top RWA Tokens to invest in 2024. These tokens represent projects actively engaged in the dynamic field of RWA tokenization, offering promising opportunities for investors.

10 Top RWA Tokens to Invest in 2024

Here are the top 10 RWA tokens for you to invest in this year:

1. Ondo (ONDO)

The first name in the list of top RWA tokens in 2024 is Ondo, a blockchain project that keeps decentralized finance (DeFi) and RWA tokenization at its forefront. Its key focus is building the next generation of financial infrastructure with improved market efficiency, transparency, and accessibility to institutional finances.

With the help of its key component, Ondo Finance, a blockchain-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, Ondo is seizing opportunities to tokenize real-world assets (RWA) from the finance field.

Recently, it has started offering OUSG (Ondo Short-term U.S. government treasuries), a tokenized RWA that provides exposure to short-term U.S. treasuries with 24/7 stablecoin subscription and redemption. This OUSG is one of the largest on-chain tokenized Treasury products with $134 million worth of assets under management. Only a few days back, Ondo Finance shifted the backing assets of this OUSG token to the newly launched BUIDL tokenized fund of BlackRock. Before that, it was backed by BlackRock's iShares Short Bond Exchange-traded fund (ETF) that investors could only trade at traditional market hours. The involvement of Ondo with BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, can give it upward solid momentum in the future.

The ONDO token serves as the governance token of the Ondo DAO. It gives its holders the right to participate in the important decision-making processes regarding Ondo by voting in the Ondo DAO. The initial token supply of ONDO is 10 billion, but only 24% of it is currently in circulation.

2. Pendle (PENDLE)

PENDLE is another one of the top RWA tokens to invest in 2024. It is the native token of the Pendle project, which redefines the trading of yield-bearing assets through tokenization. A Pendle user can tokenize their yield-bearing assets in the Pendle protocol, where these assets break into Principle Tokens (P.T.) and Yield Tokens (Y.T.). It helps users implement more advanced and flexible asset yield strategies. For instance, owners of these tokens can trade their yield and principal separately on Pendle's Automated Market Maker (AMM). While the P.T. represents the underlying staked asset, Y.T. represents its future yield. Y.T. holders can sell their Y.T. to Pendle's liquidity pools and earn incentives.

PENDLE is the native token of the Pendle ecosystem. Platform users can lock up PENDLE to receive vePENDLE tokens, the platform's governing token. They can even hold their vePENDLE (vote-escrowed PENDLE) to boost their stake rewards. PENDLE has a fixed maximum supply of 258,446,029, with 92.5% currently in circulation.

3. TokenFi (TOKEN)

TOKEN is next on the list of top RWA tokens to invest in 2024. It is the native currency of TokenFi, a platform that gives its users resources to tokenize an asset without doing coding work. TokenFi aims to make RWA tokenization inexpensive, convenient, and quick. Using TokenFi, anyone can launch their new crypto tokens or tokenize any real asset easily.

Interestingly, TokenFi is a part of Floki, one of the fastest-growing memecoin ecosystems. 

As TokenFi's native currency, TOKEN is integral to its functioning. TOKEN can be earned as a reward for staking FLOKI on its official website, and so far, this is the only significant use case developed by the team. However, the TokenFi team can soon reveal more TOKEN uses in TokenFi's RWA tokenization space.

If we talk about its tokenomics, TOKEN has a maximum supply of 10 billion, with a majority of 56% being allocated for distributing staking rewards to FLOKI owners. The next 10% of its supply goes to the TOKEN liquidity pools on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, helping TOKEN gain enough trading liquidity. Furthermore, 22% of its supply goes to the project's Treasury to support developers and cover operational expenses.

7% of the TOKEN supply is reserved for new token staking pools. The remaining 5% is allocated for incentive programs to drive the adoption of TokenFi.

4. Polymesh (POLYX)

Polymesh is another exciting project focusing on tokenising real-world assets, especially securities. It is an institutional-grade permissionless blockchain built to tokenize regulated assets into security tokens. It helps financial institutions tokenize their regulated assets to stay relevant and ahead of emerging global economic trends. While most existing blockchains cater to pseudonymity, censorship resistance, and transparency, Polymesh focuses on identity, compliance, and confidentiality so financial players can use them to take ownership of their securities on-chain.

POLYX is the fuel that powers the Polymesh ecosystem. It acts as the designated utility token in creating and managing security tokens on Polymesh. Users can pay for the transactions and other operations within the Polymesh ecosystem through the POLYX token. They can also signal on the governance proposals related to the platform and stake their POLYX holdings to become a node operator in the platform's nominated Proof-of-stake protocol. With these utilities, the Polymesh ecosystem has POLYX at its centre.

POLYX has an uncapped maximum supply as new tokens keep minting to reward node operators and stakers of its PoS consensus protocol. However, the rate of new token minting is capped at a maximum of 140 million POLYX per year.

5. Chainlink (LINK)

Initially launched as the cross-chain interoperability protocol, Chainlink is now expanding its functionalities by integrating real-world asset tokenization (RWA tokenization) and TradFi. Its strategy for 2024 shows that the Chainlink network is slowly planning to shift from cross-chain interoperability to Real-world asset tokenization projects. It wants to establish itself as the key player in the RWA industry, where projects willing to take their tangible or non-tangible assets on the chain can do so by paying LINK (the native token of Chainlink) for their transactions.

Chainlink's unique value proposition, which gives it an edge over its competitor RWA platforms, is its Oracle network. An Oracle network provides infrastructure for connecting off-chain data from TradFi to the on-chain tokenized assets. Without an Oracle interface, data retrieval and syncing between assets and their off-chain fluctuations is impossible. Thus, Chainlink has been positioning itself well in the RWA space. Another reason to consider it a top RWA token to invest in 2024 is its recently launched tokenization projects.

To benefit from the well-established Oracle architecture and other exciting features of Chainlink, various TradFi institutions have launched their tokenization projects. For example, in November 2023, HSBC bank launched an initiative for tokenizing gold bars held in its custody vaults through Chainlink to become the first bank ever to do so. Moreover, Chainlink has also helped a real estate project, RealT, to tokenize their commercial and residential real estate and make them tradable on exchanges in the form of tokens. It enabled fractional real estate ownership to make it more accessible to investors. Using Chainlink, RealT can provide real-time data about location, market value, rental income and other factors affecting its tokenized property prices so that investors can make informed decisions.

Considering that LINK is the native currency of the Chainlink network, the progress of the Chainlink platform is directly related to LINK price. LINK is the only form of payment accepted for all activities and functionalities provided by Chainlink. LINK holders can also participate in the platform's governance and vote on the improvement proposals. LINK also powers Chainlink's PoS consensus by acting as an incentive for node operators.

6. Centrifuge (CFG)

When discussing the top RWA token to invest in 2024, Centrifuge (CFG) is a must-know. It is one of the pioneer real-world asset (RWA) platforms that uses blockchain technology to solve the inefficiencies in the existing financial system. Through it, asset managers can tokenize their funds and streamline their access for investors, saving costs for end users and fund operators. It provides an ecosystem for tokenizing, managing and investing in a diverse range of RWA assets.

One of its flagship products is Tinlake, an open marketplace and investment dApp operating on Ethereum. It allows users to turn their real-world assets into digital assets, which can then be issued interest-bearing stablecoins. The tokenized RWA on Tinlake can be anything—a physical asset, a stake in a business, or a loan. Once a user tokenizes their assets, they can freely transfer the form of stablecoins to them according to the vast ecosystem of DeFi products and stablecoins.

CFG is Centrifuge's native token. It facilitates on-chain governance, where CFG holders get the right to decide the future trajectory of the Centrifuge protocol. All changes in Centrifuge go through governance proposals and must be implemented by CFG token holders. Moreover, the transaction fee on the Centrifuge chain is also payable for CFG tokens.

7. Maple (MPL)

Maple is another top RWA token to invest in in 2024. Its subsidiary, Maple Finance, focuses on tokenizing real-world assets for DeFi solutions while bringing them liquidity. Maple infrastructure is designed to offer lending pools of real-world assets as collateral for borrowing stablecoins. Simply put, it helps institutional borrowers borrow capital backed by RWAs.

MPL is Maple Finance's native governance and utility token. Its holders can participate in the project's governance and earn interest fees. For a more passive approach, they can delegate their voting rights to other ecosystem participants and even earn a cut in the network rewards. MPL has a maximum supply of 10,000,000 tokens, of which 44% are in circulation at the time of writing.

8. Maker (MKR)

Another famous top RWA token to invest in 2024 is MKR, the governance token of MakerDAO and the Maker protocol. Being one of the first DeFi protocols to integrate RWAs into its product, MakerDAO is today a well-known name in the tokenization sector. It allows its users to use tokenized RWAs like U.S. Treasuries as collateral to issue its stablecoin, DAI. MakerDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that governs the functioning of the Maker protocol and the issuance of its stablecoin, DAI.

The MKR token facilitates the governance of MakerDAO by giving its holders the right to participate and vote in the platform's governing decisions. Additionally, by staking MKR tokens, their holders can contribute to the security and stability of the Maker platform while earning more MKR tokens as their reward. MKR has a total supply of 1,005,577 MKR. While its founders and projects hold 70% of the MKR tokens, the team has nearly 15% of the MKR tokens.

9. XDC Network (XDC)

XDC Network is an enterprise-grade blockchain protocol with EVM compatibility and smart contract capabilities. It works to revolutionize, decentralize, and liquify the trade finance industry by tokenizing real-world assets and instruments. XDC Network's solutions and collaborations improve enterprise record-keeping, data exchanging, and asset-transferring processes. XDC experienced a significant upsurge in its activity in 2023, mainly due to the global tokenization trend revolving around RWAs. It also launched U.S. Treasury Token (USTY) to give users tokenized access to U.S. Government bonds.

Its native utility token, XDC, serves as the fuel for its transactions and operations. If they own enough XDC tokens, they can participate in its Delegated proof of stake (DPoS) consensus.

10. Mantra (OM)

The last name in the list of top RWA tokens to invest in 2024 is Mantra's O.M. This project claims to be the first layer-1 blockchain capable of enforcing a real-world regulatory environment on on-chain assets. It creates a chain of regulated digital assets that attracts users from diverse backgrounds who value safety and regulatory compliance. Built on top of the Cosmos SDK, Mantra employs Tendermint Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus protocol to maintain security, scalability and interoperability.

Being the native token of the project, OM use cases lie in the governance and staking aspects. O.M. stakers can issue proposals for the platform's development and participate in governance. Additionally, they can also stake their O.M. holdings for passive yield earning. The total supply of OM tokens is 888,888,888 OM, of which 793,991,274 OM are in circulation as of writing.

While numerous RWA cryptos populate the market, the following selection represents our top picks for 2024, curated through a meticulous evaluation of their present roadmap and possible growth. However, given the inherent market fluctuations, individual risk tolerances, and unique financial objectives, we strongly recommend conducting thorough research before cryptocurrency investments.

FAQs

What are Real-world assets?

Real-world assets (RWAs) are tangible and non-tangible assets with some intrinsic value and acceptance in the real world. These assets include physical properties like real estate, land, buildings, and infrastructure. RWAs also encompass non-tangible intellectual assets like property rights, patents, and trademarks. These assets hold inherent value and can generate income or appreciation over time. They are also usually essential components of traditional investment portfolios and are increasingly being tokenized on blockchain platforms.

What is RWA Tokenization?

RWA tokenization refers to converting real-world assets (RWAs), such as real estate, commodities, or other tangible assets, into digital tokens on a blockchain network. This process enables fractional ownership, increased liquidity, and more efficient trading of traditionally illiquid assets. RWA tokenization is an ongoing global trend due to its ability to leverage blockchain technology's transparency, security, and decentralized nature to provide investors with access to a wider range of assets and democratize their access.

Should I buy RWA tokens?

While it depends on an investor's preference, the ongoing trends around RWA tokenization may prove beneficial for RWA token holders. Due to the rising number of institutions and entities opting to tokenize traditional assets for wider reach, RWA tokens can experience a direct effect of this trend in their prices. However, remember that the crypto market is highly speculative and thus comes with no certainty of any price surge.

Which are the top RWA tokens to invest in 2024?

The top RWA tokens to invest in 2024 are- Ondo (ONDO), Pendle (PENDLE), Polymesh (POLYX), Chainlink (LINK), Centrifuge (CFG), Maple (MPL), Maker (MKR), XDC Network (XDC) and Mantra (O.M.)

Which is the best platform to invest in RWA tokens?

Flitpay is the best investment platform for RWA tokens like PENDLE, LINK, and numerous others. You can also conveniently and securely buy Bitcoin and other top cryptocurrencies.