Written by: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily
Influenced by Trump's upcoming inauguration and a series of potential favorable policies in the United States recently, the cryptocurrency market has once again reached a trading peak, with the price of BTC exceeding US$107,000. In addition to investing large amounts of money in funds such as BTC ETF and ETH ETF, countless investment institutions are also looking for new value growth points.
At the same time, as Binance founder CZ predicted before, the alt season has arrived. In addition to old tokens and Meme coins, L1 public chain tokens are also rising strongly, especially SUI, which has broken new highs one after another. The Sui ecosystem is not only stable in the DeFi sector, but also in the Meme coin sector. In addition, unlike other L1 public chains limited to the crypto market, its recent big move in the RWA sector has also brought new possibilities for attracting liquidity and attention outside the circle.
On December 13, Sui officially announced its cooperation with Ant Group's digital technology and its Web3 technology brand ZAN to introduce RWA (real-world assets) from the ESG field into the Sui ecosystem. One side is a rising public chain, and the other is a pioneer in digital assets. Therefore, both parties will open the 'Spring of RWA' for physical assets, bringing more possibilities to the crypto market. Odaily Planet Daily will analyze this in this article.
The best reason to choose RWA: An emerging track with a future scale of up to $30 trillion
The reason why Sui and Ant Group's digital technology chose the RWA sector as their cooperation ground is mainly because it lies at the intersection of TradFi and DeFi, with a potentially huge market scale. According to information from RWA.xyz, the current on-chain RWA asset scale exceeds $14 billion, stablecoin asset scale reaches $201.77 billion, with as many as 116 asset issuers, but compared to future prospects, there is still over 100 times market space.
According to global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, by 2030, the market for tokenized assets (RWA) could reach $4 trillion, with many projects moving from pilot phases to large-scale deployment. Colin Butler, head of global institutional capital at Polygon, previously stated that RWA represents a market opportunity of $30 trillion globally. High-net-worth individuals and private equity funds will drive adoption in this area, as tokenization brings liquidity and accessibility to historically illiquid asset classes. A previous research report from Tren Finance indicated that if the RWA industry can reach an expected median of around $10 trillion, its value could grow more than 54 times compared to the present.
Information from RWA.xyz website
According to previous predictions from asset management giant Bitwise (Top 10 Predictions for the Crypto Market in 2025), by 2025, as Wall Street institutions accelerate their entry, the RWA market scale is expected to reach $50 billion and could possibly grow exponentially from there. Venture capital firm ParaFi predicts that by the 2030s, the tokenized RWA market scale could grow to $2 trillion; while the Global Financial Markets Association predicts it could reach $16 trillion. Such a hot market expectation naturally attracts a flood of world-class giant institutions.
Goldman Sachs' digital asset platform has officially launched and helped the European Investment Bank issue €100 million in two-year digital bonds. In addition, Goldman Sachs has collaborated with traditional financial institutions to launch related businesses and plans to build a private chain for asset tokenization.
Siemens Group previously issued €60 million in on-chain digital bonds, marking the 'first attempt in the RWA field.'
Financial giants like HSBC, JPMorgan, and Citigroup are also exploring the tokenization of government bonds to improve financial efficiency and settlement speeds.
The US Treasury RWA market is currently nearing $3 billion, having grown nearly 30 times from $100 million at the beginning of 2023. Among them, the USYC launched in cooperation with Hashnote and cryptocurrency custody company Copper has reached $880 million; BlackRock's BUIDL has reached $560 million.
US Treasury RWA market information
It is understood that the cooperation between Ant Group's digital technology and Sui is mainly to promote the tokenization of ESG-related RWA, expanding its reach to global investors, with the underlying assets being new energy assets from a Chinese solar materials manufacturer.
As a blockchain ecosystem that has grown over 14 times this year to $14 billion in TVL and garnered support from US asset management giants like Grayscale and VanEck, Sui views the RWA market as 'the next growth point.' Jameel Khalfan, head of ecosystem development at Sui Foundation, stated, 'The tokenization of the ESG market is a significant step forward for real-world assets. Through this cooperation, investors will be able to enter a whole new market, and all of this is happening on the best-suited platform for it, Sui.'
It is evident that RWA has become a strategic track valued by both blockchain networks and digital asset institutions, with extremely high industry value.
Dual support for RWA development: endogenous advantages and market demand
Specifically, the strategic significance of the RWA track is reflected in the following three aspects:
Asset transparency and efficient trading: By tokenizing physical assets and introducing them to blockchain networks, investors can deeply participate in market transactions through the transparency of on-chain data and the high efficiency of on-chain operations.
Improved liquidity of physical assets: Based on enhanced transparency and security, RWA assets can achieve partial ownership division, greatly enhancing the digital liquidity of physical assets.
Acting as a bridge between traditional markets and crypto markets: By introducing low-risk, high-return tokenized products, more physical assets and more investors will inject a new wave of liquidity into both traditional and crypto markets, revitalizing real-world physical assets while bringing more quality targets and liquidity to the crypto market.
RWA can represent many different types of traditional assets, including tangible and intangible assets. The RWA in overseas markets mainly consists of bonds and gold.
Why did Sui, as a leading blockchain network in the crypto market, choose Chinese new energy assets?
Industry experts point out that 'this reflects, to some extent, the 'industrial characteristics of China.' According to data from the Forward Industry Research Institute, in 2023, China's new energy industry reached a cumulative installed capacity of 1.57 billion kilowatts, with a five-year compound annual growth rate of 15.31%. From solar power generation to charging piles and new energy vehicle products, new energy has become China's 'new label' (these new energy assets) have high potential and high growth after being converted into RWA.
It can be said that the RWA tokenization of physical assets will truly promote the deep coupling of Web3 technology and digital assets, thus achieving the digital redevelopment of real assets.
Looking ahead: The RWA market welcomes new possibilities for diversified development routes
In the past, the development of the RWA track mainly revolved around fixed assets like US Treasury bonds, and relatively speaking, the variety of assets and technological routes were quite singular. Thanks to the in-depth cooperation between Ant Group's digital technology and Sui, both parties will jointly promote the tokenization of RWA assets on a larger scale, injecting new vitality into traditional and crypto markets through technical support, ecological development, and capital introduction.
'By tokenizing traditional assets from low liquidity environments to high liquidity markets,' BiFinance Research Institute mentioned in its latest research report, 'this collaboration will bring high-quality assets from the ESG field into the blockchain, empowering the real industry and is expected to become a new driving force for a bull market.'
Previously, Ant Group's digital technology launched the largest on-chain new energy asset platform in China, consisting of 'Asset Chain,' 'Trading Chain,' and 'Ant Chain Trusted Cross-Chain Bridge,' with over 12 million devices on-chain; the Web3 product ZAN aimed at overseas markets has also been launched. The total market value of the Sui blockchain has reached $13 billion, with the total locked value (TVL) exceeding $18.9 billion. After both parties announced their cooperation, the Sui price soared 10% within 24 hours, reaching an all-time high.
In the future, under the support of the Sui ecosystem, the RWA market map of both parties is expected to welcome a new round of expansion. It is foreseeable that the spring belonging to the RWA market is about to arrive.
