Chainlink: The RWA Infrastructure Platform

Introduction

Real World Assets (RWAs), defined as any traditional financial asset that has been tokenized on a blockchain, have surpassed $170B in onchain value if one includes stablecoins. Although somewhat lost amongst the dominant AI and Memecoin narratives this cycle due to the lack of investible tokens, legacy financial institutions are moving into crypto at an increasing pace. Similar to the Real Estate industry pre-and post-DocuSign, this is a megatrend that may rapidly accelerate. Aside from the well-documented regulatory hurdles that must be cleared before continued adoption, infrastructure must be built that satisfies the requirements of legacy financial institutions.

Chainlink is best positioned to enable this shift through the creation of a decentralized computing platform that hosts an array of services to enable feature-rich, trust-minimized applications. Complementing blockchain networks, Chainlink is capturing every other trust-minimized service necessary for smart contract adoption while simultaneously embedding itself in the world’s largest financial infrastructures. Chainlink’s first-mover advantage, platform offering, and key partnerships has placed them as the undisputed leader in the RWA infrastructure space.

The RWA Mega-Trend

In a previous Blockworks Research report, a comprehensive overview of Real World Assets and Tokenization is provided. The report has an onchain focus, and covers the various leaders in each tokenized asset class. This section will instead focus on traditional financial institutions and their incentives to adopt this new infrastructure.

Macro Trends

With tokenization set to be “the next generation for markets” according to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, we have seen a rapid rise in RWA adoption. Currently, tokenized RWAs have an estimated size of $3.33B, with upwards estimates of $13.18B if private credit is included.