A crypto analyst is skeptical about the optimistic forecast that tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) could be worth $30 trillion by 2030, suggesting instead that 5% of this amount is a more realistic target. Real Vision chief crypto analyst Jamie Coutts explained in an August 27 X post that if the current 2-year 121% compound annual growth rate continues, we could see a total market value of approximately $1.3 trillion in tokenized traditional assets by 2030.
What to Expect in the RWA Sector?
Tokenizing assets is the process of issuing security tokens, a type of blockchain token, representing real tradable assets. These tokens can represent everything from real estate and bonds to art and stocks. In June, Standard Chartered Bank and Synpulse estimated that tokenized RWAs could reach $30.1 trillion by 2034.
While Coutts thinks Wall Street’s forecast is overly optimistic, he believes even his more conservative estimate could significantly impact the Web3 ecosystem. If $1.3 trillion of RWAs are in the ecosystem, it could create a massive flywheel effect on other parts of the crypto ecosystem like NFTs, social platforms, and gaming.
However, he argued that calculating the value accumulation on Ethereum, the preferred platform for early TradFi asset issuers, would be challenging. This is due to how much market share Layer-2 networks will capture compared to the value the core Ethereum network itself captures:
“Layer-2s could capture 95-99% of the revenue, with the remainder paid to Ethereum as settlement costs. If the Ethereum Layer-1 network scales, it will capture much more opportunity. This summarizes what I currently call the Ethereum dilemma.”
Details on the Subject
In June, consulting firm McKinsey & Company stated that tokenized financial assets had a slow start but are on track to reach a market size of approximately $2 trillion by 2030. McKinsey & Company analysts added that tokenization needs a use case where it provides an advantage over traditional financial systems:
“An example of this is the tokenization of bonds. Almost a week doesn’t go by without the announcement of a new tokenized bond issuance.”
Meanwhile, in April, RippleX senior vice president Markus Infanger stated that their research forecasts the future value of tokenized markets to be $16 trillion, which is about eight times larger than the total market value of the entire crypto sector.
