GM from THE RWA DESK! Your one-stop shop for everything RWA. Front-Row Intelligence, Front-line Dealflow.
The RWA Desk kicks off Edition 8 with real-time insight on how institutions are adopting RWAs.
Discussing 2026 RWA trends with Ryan Zega (Aptos Labs) and Chad Oda (The RWA Desk).
We’ll continue the conversation on January 27 at the Opening Bell: The 2026 RWA Outlook.
Here’s What We Got For You:
RWA Market Snapshot — $21B in RWA TVL & 640k Holders
Upcoming Institutional Event — 1/27 The Opening Bell
Insider Opinion — Matthew A. Schneider, CEO at Building
Top Stories We’re Watching — NYSE & JPMorgan
Front-Line Deal Sheet — $1B in Selected Deal Flow
Desk Chatter — A Note to RWA Builders
1. RWA Market Snapshot
RWAs Sit At $21B & Nearly 640k Holders!
2. Upcoming Institutional Event
Opening Bell: The 2026 RWA Outlook — Jan 27 (NYC)
We’re kicking off the year with a high-signal, institutional conversation on The 2026 RWA Playbook—what must be built across market structure, infrastructure, and standards to move tokenized real-world assets from pilots to production in 2026.
Confirmed speakers
Joris Delanoue — CEO, Fairmint; General Director, Canton Foundation
Ryan Zega — Head of Structured Finance, Aptos Labs
Additional institutional speakers will be announced shortly.
For financial institutions, allocators, issuers, protocols, and core infrastructure providers actively shaping institutional RWA adoption in 2026, this is the room.
3. Insider Opinion
Matthew A. Schneider, CEO at Building, Board Director, FIBREE
The potential for tokenization to transform traditional financial instruments into something higher functioning is exciting but not without intricacies. The reality is the markets and industries most in need of change are also the most complex. This is why an asset class like real estate remains un-tokenized but federal bonds and treasuries are tokenized to such a degree there’s a shortage of buyers.
Because a decentralized ledger creates instantaneous symmetry—all parties viewing the same information simultaneously—it enables unprecedented composability, price discovery, and reconciliation. Combined, these traits form liquidity.
However, the challenge is accessing the information in the first place. For tangible—not digitally-native—unregulated and sophisticated assets, like an infrastructure asset, data center, or 85-story skyscraper on Park Avenue, acquiring data that is recent, reliable, repeatable, and machine-readable is a formidable task. Not to mention, expensive. The end result is that we have “symmetry” of data that is outdated and assumptive.
All that to say, tokenizing is promising, but legacy industries first need to digitize. As the old saying goes, you need to walk before you run.
4. Top Stories We’re Watching
NYSE — a separate venue for tokenized stocks (24/7, instant settlement).
The New York Stock Exchange (via ICE) is building a standalone platform to list and trade tokenized versions of stocks/ETFs with round-the-clock trading, instant on-chain settlement, fractional orders in dollar amounts, and stablecoin funding (all subject to regulatory approval). Unlike Nasdaq’s bid to enable tokenized shares on its primary exchange, NYSE’s approach is a new venue purpose-built for the rails. For RWAs, this is blue-chip market structure meeting blockchain: if approved, it plugs tokens into global distribution without ripping out legacy systems.
JPMorgan — MONY puts a blue-chip MMF on public rails (Ethereum).
J.P. Morgan Asset Management launched My OnChain Net Yield Fund (MONY), a tokenized money-market fund issued on Ethereum and powered by the bank’s Kinexys tokenization stack; JPM seeded it with $100M and is opening access to qualified investors (min. $1M; higher for institutions). Subscriptions/redemptions can be initiated in USDC (converted to cash in the fund), with records maintained on-chain—an incremental but real step toward on-chain cash management and future collateral use. The move places JPM alongside BlackRock & Franklin Templeton in bringing MMFs on-chain and signals a shift from pilots to production-grade liquidity products.
5. Noteworthy Transactions (Jan 2025)
Deal | Date | Desc. | Size | Parties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Erebor Capital Raise | 12/23 | Erebor gains FDIC & OCC approval for digital asset banking | $350M | Lux Capital, Founders Fund, Haun Ventures, |
BlackOpal Secures Credit Facility | 1/12 | GemStone launches RWA credit card receivables | $200M | Mars Capital, Plume, Draupnir Capital |
Polygon Labs Acquires Coinme & Sequence | 1/13 | M&A into regulated payments cross-chain | $250M | Polygon, Coinme, Sequence, |
Alpaca Capital Raise | 1/14 | API enabled brokerage infrastructure | $150M | Drive Capital, Citadel, Kraken, MUFG |
Galaxy Launches CLO | 1/15 | Tokenized CLO on AVAX anchored by Grove | $75M | Galaxy, AVAX, Grove Labs, Arch Lending |
6. The RWA Desk Chatter
RWA is a talent magnet. Use it.
We’re constantly surprised by the talent RWA’s attracts: ex-market-structure PMs, risk quants, compliance savants, protocol engineers, treasury ops leads, etc. It’s an unusual mix of highly competent, interdisciplinary, risk-takers. The best part is, everyone has an open ear. When your industry is building new rails, you can’t afford to be closed minded.
The next few years will be a network fast-track. RWA standards aren’t set yet, which means the best ideas can become the standard—regardless of where they come from. It’s a rare opportunity window to build vertically (with decision-makers at banks, asset managers, and issuers) and horizontally (with adjacent fields like payments, identity, security, data). We’re still early enough to where one good room can compress three months of BD into one night.
That’s our goal, leverage the abundant talent in RWA’s by investing in human capital. Whether through events, content, bespoke business development/referrals, or hands-on advisory, we recognize the difficulty of building in an uncertain industry. We want to alleviate that burden as much as possible, so that the best and brightest can build without as much friction.
We’d love to hear from you about your interest in RWA’s and how we can support your GTM efforts. Reach out!
Catch ya on the next—
THE RWA DESK