Blockchain's new sweetheart

Vying for attention in a world transfixed by all things digital, the so-called "RWA" market isn't just holding its own. It's straight-up raging. 

We're talking about the tokenization of "real-world assets," which is a reference to tangible assets (for example, a publicly traded, commingled fund containing securities) minted via blockchain ledger. Since the start of the year, the total valuation of RWA tokenizations ballooned from $8.6 billion to $23 billion, according to a Binance Research report, per Cointelegraph. The trend generally is connected with the allure of on-chain immutability but also ties into the exploding loan market and innovations in the disbursement of credit risk.

Roughly 60% of that RWA tokenization total relates to tokenized private credit. This is not the most liquid asset class — so it could benefit from this space and its more freeing, flexible ways, means. And it is an asset class that a decade ago was closely associated with shadow banking in support of leveraged buyouts. In more recent years, though, private credit has grown into a much wider bucket comprising myriad forms of securitized private loans. Tokenized U.S. Treasury debt (30%) accounts for the bulk of the rest of the $23B tokenized RWA pie.

"Regulatory clarity has fueled broader adoption of blockchain-based financial products," Cointelegraph explained.

The burgeoning RWA realm could generally get a lift from the kind of rules-of-the-road codification possibly still to come by way of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. This piece of bipartisan legislation aims to set clear rules for stablecoins. It has been inching along but still awaits a full vote in a Senate consumed by debate over the sweeping, jam-packed legislative-agenda enchilada known as the "big, beautiful bill."

CoinGecko counts 503 coins (with a collective market capitalization of $38 billion) categorized under the banner of RWA. Among the largest are LINK, XLM, ONDO and QUANT. Only the latter is sitting in the green (+1.4% in 24 hours) at the moment.

Perhaps falling prey to an old seasonal stock market adage, Bitcoin slipped below a key support line of $105,000. Most major coins lost ground, too.

Dogecoin (DOGE) is one example of a noteworthy laggard, as it is no longer willing to at least be 19 cents. Cardano's native ADA is looking at a 10% loss going back to last Thursday. Widening out to the Top 50, popular memecoin PEPE is having the worst stretch on a weekly basis, down 19%.  Just in the past day, another meme fave, FARTCOIN, fell 15%.

Possibly, we are staring at a "sell in May, go away" mentality taking up residence on an inflatable pool float. 

BTC fund flows sure have slowed. The spot BTC ETF outflow tally in the first few days of June had reached, as of the other day, some $800M, even as Ethereum ETFs garnered $300M worth of inflows. Crypto enthusiasts could well read this trend as the start of a new season — for altcoins.

Underscoring a spike in mainstream comfort levels, professional investment advisors now dominate crypto ETF exposure while recent surveys indicate more than half of advisors said that they plan to boost their allocations to such products.

Yet another telltale sign of greater crypto acceptance: Circle Internet Group Inc. raised $1.1B in an IPO deal priced above the range at which it was initially promoted.

As recently as Monday, Circle, per public filings, planned to sell 32M shares at $27-$28 per share. That was a hike compared to a prior filing indicating an expected sale of 24M shares at $24-$26. When the dust settled yesterday, Circle had sold 34M shares for $31 per share. The pricing gives Circle a fully diluted valuation of about $8.1 billion, according to Reuters.

Ther USD-pegged stablecoin market now stands at nearly a quarter-trillion dollars. Circle’s USDC enjoyed a market share of about 29% as of the end of Q1, according to CoinMarketCap. Shares of CRCL are expected to begin trading today on the New York Stock Exchange.