Real-World Assets Hit the Chain: How Treasuries and Green Bonds Became On-Chain Proof-Points

Khushi V Rangdhol Jun 15, 2025 06:23

Tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) like U.S. Treasuries & green bonds hit $7.4B in 2025, led by BlackRock & Franklin Templeton. 24/7 trading, fractional access, and DeFi integration drive adoption—but licensing & fragmentation remain hurdles.

Less than three years ago, “tokenising Wall Street” sounded like conference-booth marketing. By mid-2025 it is a line item on balance sheets. The combined value of tokenised U.S.–Treasury–backed products exceeded US $7 billion in June, according to CoinDesk’s running tally of the sector. Data dashboard RWA.xyz shows the figure edging a little higher—about US $7.4 billion—and rising roughly 3× year-on-year. 

Money-market funds led by BlackRock and Franklin Templeton

• BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL).
  The world’s largest asset manager launched BUIDL on Ethereum in March 2024, with tokenisation platform Securitize handling issuance. A follow-up release in March 2025 confirmed assets under management had passed US $1 billion—all represented by ERC-1400 tokens that accrue daily yield on-chain.
• Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX).
  Franklin Templeton’s fund began life on the Stellar blockchain in 2023 and later mirrored its shares on Polygon for cheaper transfers. In June 2025 the firm added an “intraday yield” view, letting wallet holders see interest build in near real time.

Together, BlackRock and Franklin control more than half of today’s tokenised-Treasury market. Crypto-native issuer Ondo Finance sits in third place; the company bridged its US $693 million OUSG Treasury token to the XRP Ledger in June 2025, citing investor demand for alternative settlement rails. 

Sovereign and supra-national bonds enter live production

Hong Kong provided the first government-grade proof-of-concept. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region issued an HK$800 million (≈ US $100 million) tokenised green bond on 16 February 2023. Settlement took place the next day—T + 1 instead of the five-day norm for conventional global notes—on Goldman Sachs’ GS DLT platform. 

In Europe the European Investment Bank, Banque de France and Banco de España have all run pilot blockchain bond sales, though these deals have so far settled in fiat held at a commercial bank rather than in a wholesale central-bank digital currency.

Why institutions care

1. 24/7 tradability. Token holders can transfer positions outside market hours instead of waiting for batch NAV calculations.
2. Fractional access. Dollar-linked money-market shares can be bought in US $100 slices—well below normal minimums.
3. Operational savings. Smart-contracts automate interest accrual, whitelist compliance and corporate actions.
4. Capital efficiency in DeFi. Some protocols now accept tokenised Treasuries as collateral for repo-style loans, turning U.S. debt into an on-chain money-leg.

What slows adoption

• Licensing patchwork. U.S. securities rules require most RWA tokens to stay on alternative-trading systems open only to qualified investors.
• Cash leg. Nearly all deals settle in bank-held fiat; a wholesale CBDC or regulated stable-coin would cut friction further.
• Multi-chain fragmentation. BUIDL runs on Ethereum, Franklin still mints on Stellar, and Ondo straddles Ethereum and XRP Ledger—bridges add complexity and risk.
  
  

Asia’s competitive footing

Hong Kong’s proof-of-concept green bond ties neatly to mBridge, the BIS Innovation Hub’s cross-border CBDC pilot involving Hong Kong, mainland China, Thailand and the UAE. If mBridge graduates from testnet to production, primary-market settlement of tokenised bonds could become instant and multi-currency. Singapore’s Project Guardian already hosts tokenised wealth-management products, while India’s GIFT City IFSC issued a February 2025 consultation paper that sketches custody and disclosure rules for real-world-asset tokens inside its sandbox.

Where the numbers could go next

RWA.xyz’s dashboard shows tokenised Treasuries climbing from roughly US $2 billion in early 2024 to more than US $7 billion today. If that growth rate merely halves over the next 18 months, the category could still exceed US $20 billion by 2026—more than the entire global stable-coin market in 2019. Bond issuance and commodity-backed tokens would add further layers.

Outlook

Tokenising “boring” assets such as T-bills, green bonds and money-market shares turns out to be the simplest wedge between traditional finance and public blockchains. BlackRock’s billion-dollar milestone and Hong Kong’s sovereign-grade DLT bond prove that institutional capital is willing to experiment when regulation and plumbing line up. The remaining hurdles—standardised custody, cross-chain messaging and a cash-on-ledger settlement rail—now look like engineering and policy sprints, not theoretical debates.

For investors in Hong Kong, India or anywhere else, the short-term takeaway is concrete: dollar-denominated yield products and even sovereign notes can now be held, transferred and reported entirely on-chain. The longer-term implication is broader: the wall separating crypto rails from mainstream capital markets is thinning—one Treasury, and one green bond, at a time.

• treasury
• bond