Juan Leon, a senior investment strategist at digital asset management firm Bitwise, believes that Ethereum will benefit from several important trends in 2025 and regain its dominant position, with the biggest driving factor being the tokenization of real assets (RWA).
In an article published on Tuesday, Leon pointed out that the two major focuses of the cryptocurrency market in 2024 are the surge in Bitcoin due to the launch of spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and record inflows of funds, as well as Solana becoming a favorite among retail investors driven by meme coin speculation, which has largely overshadowed Ethereum. Although Ether has achieved a good return this year (about 66%), it still pales in comparison to Solana's 106% and Bitcoin's 130%.
In Bitwise's recently published 2025 cryptocurrency forecast report, the company believes that several real-world trends will shape the cryptocurrency industry in the coming year, including the continued rise of stablecoins and the popularity of AI agents in cryptocurrency trading. Leon believes that the biggest and most underestimated opportunity is tokenization, the process of bringing real assets (such as traditional financial assets like government bonds or real estate) onto the blockchain, and the tokenization market is currently dominated by Ethereum.
Leon notes that real asset tokenization is already happening, and the scale of tokenized assets is rapidly growing. He mentioned that companies including BlackRock and UBS have begun bringing real assets such as government securities, commodities, real estate, and private equity onto the blockchain. For example, BlackRock has a $578 million tokenized government bond fund and plans to scale it up. Bitwise expects the assets of tokenized funds to triple next year, with Ethereum being the driving force behind it.
Leon stated, "Ethereum is the most resilient, secure, and decentralized smart contract platform. Since its inception in 2015, it has established its leadership in decentralized applications (DApps), smart contracts, and tokenization. Currently, Ethereum holds an 81% market share in the tokenized asset market, and its long-term stable performance and large decentralized validator network give asset management firms confidence in its security and reliability when bringing assets on-chain."
Leon points out that the total value of global real assets is approximately $100 trillion, and transferring most of them to a tokenized track will take time, possibly even decades. However, if achieved, the annual fees from RWA-related assets could exceed $100 billion, which is more than 40 times Ethereum's total fee revenue of about $2.4 billion year-to-date. Additionally, Leon believes that the new, more cryptocurrency-friendly U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will provide the regulatory clarity needed to accelerate the tokenization process.
Related articles: (21.co analyst: The market value of tokenized US Treasury bonds is expected to reach $3 billion by the end of this year) (Total market value of tokenized precious metals surpasses $1 billion, with gold tokens PAXG and XAUT dominating) (BlackRock's tokenization fund BUIDL adopts a multi-chain strategy, expanding to blockchain networks such as Aptos and Arbitrum)
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