RWAfi: The Most Clear Alpha Direction in the Blockchain Field for the Next Decade

The RWA research platform statistics show that the current total market size of RWA exceeds 15 billion USD. Fidelity predicts that this figure will double to 30 billion USD by 2025, while BlackRock is even more optimistic, estimating that the market value of tokenized assets will reach 10 trillion USD by the 2030s.

In other words, the potential growth space for the RWA narrative in the next 7 years could exceed 700 times. However, there is a core question hidden behind this: who will truly capture the incremental value of this huge narrative?

This is also a hundred billion dollar-level problem that the entire RWA track will face in the future, and the answer may be hidden in the infrastructure surrounding the RWAfi public blockchain.

RWAfi: The Historic Opportunity of RWA

Moving real world assets (RWA) onto the chain has only completed the first step of tokenization, which is far from realizing its true potential. To further achieve the release of on-chain value, a more efficient underlying technical architecture, an open infrastructure toolkit, and a well-coordinated ecosystem are needed.

The on-chainization of RWA not only requires technological breakthroughs, but also a complete service framework around the entire lifecycle of RWA assets, especially to safely and accessibly introduce RWA assets into diverse on-chain DeFi scenarios, completely transforming the existing dividends of traditional assets into incremental value on the blockchain.

This is precisely the core meaning of RWAfi. Under the tokenization framework, RWA not only greatly enhances its own liquidity but also allows for obtaining DeFi returns through operations such as lending and staking, introducing real yield asset support to DeFi and strengthening the value foundation of the crypto market.

Despite the booming RWA, there are very few public chains like RWAfi that specifically serve the management and on-chain circulation of real-world assets. Even public chains like Ethereum and Avalanche, which have made significant strides in the RWA direction, were not originally designed to carry trillions of dollars of real-world assets.

The reason is simple. The core mission of RWAfi is to enable real-world assets to flow freely on the chain. Therefore, compared to traditional on-chain applications like DeFi, it faces the additional challenge of how to truly make RWA "active" on the chain, in addition to dealing with the complexities of traditional on-chain applications like DeFi.

• On one hand, certifying real-world assets "on-chain" involves complex asset tokenization processes and multi-party collaboration, requiring solutions for security compliance, liquidity, cross-chain interoperability, and a developer-friendly technical environment, in order to achieve efficient liquidity and transparency of on-chain assets.

• On the other hand, simply completing tokenization is not enough. After "going on-chain", there is also "empowerment", meaning the true value of RWA is reflected in how to build a transparent, efficient, and highly liquid on-chain financial market through blockchain technology. Therefore, subsequent deep integration of DeFi protocols, yield distribution, and risk management is required to endow RWA with liquidity, composability, and interoperability similar to that of crypto assets.

Taking real estate as an example, after tokenization and being put on the Blockchain, it is no longer a "static" asset in the traditional sense, and can participate in diversified DeFi scenarios, such as achieving transparent distribution of rental income through smart contracts, or being used as collateral for on-chain financing. This "empowerment" raises higher technical and ecological requirements, while also breaking the inherent limitations of RWA as real-world assets, injecting higher-dimensional composability and application potential.

Therefore, RWAfi is not just a technical solution; it essentially creates a new asset class with native real yield characteristics—injecting native "real yield characteristics" into the blockchain ecosystem by introducing real-world assets, capital, and cash flows.

In this context, although many blockchain networks have begun to explore the RWA field, most of them only scratch the surface, lacking comprehensive technical support and ecological layout. After all, the success of RWAfi lies not only in its completion of asset tokenization but also in its ability to provide a full set of solutions from development to operation.

Both developers and users need a more accessible development resource environment, a more efficient and scalable infrastructure, and a more secure and compliant underlying environment. Therefore, the core demand for the future trillion or even trillion-dollar RWA incremental market is evident—a dedicated RWA public blockchain.

It can simultaneously meet the diverse needs of institutional users and crypto-native users. In this vision, the RWAfi public chain is not just empowering RWA assets, but is also likely to become the core value capture of the RWA ecosystem's incremental value. By becoming the hub for liquidity and value settlement, all DeFi operations surrounding RWA tokenized assets, such as farming and collateral interactions, can aggregate value through the RWAfi public chain, further promoting the incremental expansion of the RWA track.

In short, the L1 public chain dedicated to RWA is merely a means, not an end - the players who can ultimately capture the incremental value of the RWA track are likely to be those solution providers that can cover the entire chain from on-chain infrastructure to ecological empowerment. They can efficiently and seamlessly run the entire RWA process from "on-chain" to "empowerment."

Therefore, from this perspective, the golden age of the RWA dedicated blockchain has arrived.

Analyzing Plume's "One-Stop RWA Dedicated Chain"

For RWAfi, there is also a natural advantage of sitting steadily on the fishing platform:

Regardless of which track or product emerges under the RWA narrative, as long as the overall market scale continues to grow, the RWAfi public chain platform, which provides the most fundamental support in the form of infrastructure, can tap into a future market that could reach hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars, capturing the incremental value behind it.

After all, RWA has gradually become a major driving force for the incremental growth of on-chain digital assets, allowing Web3 to effectively reach the vast asset pools of traditional markets—such as the global bond market ( 133 trillion USD ) and the gold market ( 13.5 trillion USD ).

Since Compound ignited the DeFi summer in 2020, the volume of digital assets in the entire on-chain world has made significant progress. Even though it still faces a substantial pullback compared to the $180 billion in November 2021, as of January 13, 2025, the TVL on-chain still amounts to $113.5 billion.

However, compared to the tokenizable RWA assets such as bonds, gold, stocks, and real estate worth over trillions of dollars, this volume still seems insignificant. Therefore, the tokenization of RWA will undoubtedly bring a new incremental driving force to the on-chain world, creating unprecedented incremental market space on the chain.

Currently, there are very few L1 public chains focused on RWAfi positioning. Plume, which has just completed a new round of financing of 20 million USD, is almost the only strictly defined RWAfi public chain. This can be considered a significant benchmark financing event in the RWAfi field so far.

The notable feature of Plume lies in its modular design, which systematically addresses the tokenization, compliance, liquidity, and interoperability issues of RWA through a one-stop solution, providing developers and institutions with a complete solution that covers the entire lifecycle of RWA tokenization.

This systematic model is quite noteworthy. After all, for a public blockchain, how "high-end" the technology is does not matter as much as whether it can attract developers and users to choose you and settle down, which is the core competitiveness. This is especially true for products like RWA that involve a high degree of complexity between on-chain and off-chain. If only fragmented services for a certain link are provided, developers and institutional users will not be willing to pay.

The advantage of Plume lies in its integration of multiple modular key tools, providing developers with a complete RWA asset on-chain solution. This toolset not only lowers the technical threshold but also incorporates compliance vendors directly into the platform's upstream supply chain system in a "compliance as a service" model, ensuring that tokenized assets meet regulatory requirements from the source.

• Arc - Tokenization Engine: Arc simplifies the tokenization process by integrating compliance workflows and reducing barriers for asset issuers, providing an effective pathway for bringing RWA on-chain.

• Passport - Smart Wallet: Passport allows users to store contract code directly in their externally owned account (EOA). This native feature supports RWAfi composability, yield management, and advanced account abstraction capabilities.

• Nexus - Data Superhighway: Nexus utilizes cutting-edge technologies such as zkTLS to securely integrate real-world data into the Blockchain, which not only enhances the security and transparency of on-chain assets but also unlocks new opportunity scenarios.

Through these modular tools, Plume not only empowers developers but also significantly lowers the barriers for traditional financial institutions to enter Web3—developers can reduce the technical threshold through modular tools and quickly deploy complex RWA solutions; the "compliance as a service" model can also help traditional institutions address compliance pain points while providing efficient technical support.

This means that Web2 giants like UBS and Blackstone, who want to venture into Web3, can directly integrate RWA tokenization services provided by Plume into their existing products, quickly achieving product iteration and market expansion.

This not only allows institutions to easily tokenize assets and introduce them into the Blockchain ecosystem, but also preserves the smooth user experience of Web2, empowering users with asset autonomy and Web3 attributes.

From a more macro perspective, in the previous Web2 world where private traffic was king, whoever could stake out land and gather enough private traffic could maximize their profits. This has led to the situation in Web2 where there are fat applications and thin protocols, with super apps like WeChat, Alipay, and Meituan becoming increasingly large, locking users in through a closed ecosystem.

In Web3, the product logic has clearly flipped—products in the form of underlying components or middleware are increasingly in demand, which can be inserted as "building blocks" or serve as underlying infrastructure to achieve maximum aggregation benefits. Plume's modular infrastructure perfectly aligns with this Web3 product logic, providing traditional financial institutions and Web2 giants with lightweight RWA integration tools, enabling them to quickly realize Web3 transformation.

The appeal of Plume lies here. For the RWAfi sector, future competition will not only be a contest of technical capabilities but also whether a high-efficiency, user-friendly ecosystem support system can be designed around developers and users. This model of connecting on-chain innovation with off-chain assets will become the true watershed for the development of the RWA sector.

The Inevitable Path of RWAfi: The Bidirectional Link Between Institutions and the "Circle of Friends" in DeFi

For Web3, "incremental" is an eternal theme—whether it is the influx of incremental funds or the expansion of incremental users.

The core charm of RWAfi lies precisely in its inherent "two-way connection" attribute: on one hand, it links new and old players in Web3, and on the other hand, it connects with the massive deposits of traditional finance assets. This not only provides new asset classes and yield opportunities for native crypto users but also opens up a path for traditional financial giants to deeply integrate with the on-chain DeFi world, thereby achieving a "1+1>2" additive effect.

Taking Plume as an example, it currently has built a "dual approach" ecological network centered on institutional partners and extended with DeFi partners.

• Institutional partners: responsible for providing compliance, trust foundation, and high-quality assets, serving as the trusted core of its RWAfi ecosystem;
• DeFi Partners: Provides on-chain users with flexible and high-yield asset participation methods, further enhancing the liquidity and composability of RWA;

If you look closely, you will find the organization of Plume.