McKinsey estimates market value of tokenized RWAs to hit $4t

American multinational consulting firm McKinsey projects the market value of tokenized real-world assets to reach as high as $4 trillion in six years.

The market capitalization of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) could reach around $2 trillion by 2030 in a base scenario, consulting giant McKinsey & Company says, adding that in a bullish case, the value might double to $4 trillion.

In a blog post, the New York City-headquartered firm says the adoption will likely be driven by mutual funds, bonds, exchange-traded notes (ETNs), loans, securitization, and alternative funds. However, analysts at McKinsey temper expectations, noting they are “less optimistic” about the bullish projection.

Addressing the adoption rate and timing, the analysts suggest that both moments are expected to “vary across asset classes” based on differences in “expected benefits, feasibility, time to impact, and market participants’ risk appetite.”

“Asset classes that have larger market value, higher friction along the value chain today, less mature traditional infrastructure, or lower liquidity are more likely to achieve outsize benefit from tokenization.”

McKinsey

McKinsey also acknowledges a scenario where RWAs fail to gain the anticipated traction, projecting that even in this case, the market capitalization could still climb to around $1 trillion from current levels as the industry remains in its “early stages of adoption,” the firm says.

As of mid-June, the total market capitalization of RWAs stands at approximately $6.8 billion, according to CoinGecko data. Numerous startups in the sector, such as Propy and ONDO Finance, have only introduced their offerings post-2020, indicating they are still in the early stages and that significant moves are expected only in the future if all goes well.

Centrifuge, an infrastructure protocol for decentralized financing of real-world assets on the blockchain, was founded in 2017 but secured $15 million in Series A funding only in 2024, with investments from ParaFi Capital, Greenfield, Arrington Capital, and Circle Ventures, among others.

Despite the promising outlook, McKinsey cautions that the current landscape is still evolving. “There are risks as well as rewards for early movers,” the firm points out, emphasizing the lack of regulatory and legal clarity in many jurisdictions, underscoring the need for the “widespread availability of wholesale tokenized cash and deposits for settlement,” which has yet to materialize.