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- Santiment data indicates that LINK, HBAR, AVAX, XLM, and IOTA lead the crypto market in Real World Asset development.
- Tokenization of RWA remains a massive opportunity, but success will depend on bridging regulatory and market liquidity.
Market intelligence firm Santiment recently shared on X a list of the top crypto projects driving real-world asset (RWA) development, with Chainlink, Hedera, Avalanche, Stellar, and IOTA leading the pack, and VeChain (VET) rounding out the list.
🧑💻 Here are crypto's top Real World Assets (RWA's) by development. Directional indicators represent each project's ranking rise or fall since last month:
➡️ 1) @chainlink $LINK 🥇
📈 2) @hedera $HBAR 🥈
➡️ 3) @avax $AVAX 🥉
📉 4) @stellarorg $XLM
📈 5) @iota $IOTA
📈 6)… pic.twitter.com/UpZo5XWKsm— Santiment (@santimentfeed) October 20, 2025
Chainlink (LINK)
Chainlink is often cited as the infrastructure backbone for asset tokenization because of its oracle network. Its Proof of Reserve (PoR) mechanism also provides real-time, cryptographic verification that on-chain assets are fully backed by real-world reserves like cash, gold, or bonds, ensuring transparency and trust in tokenized assets.
The Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) further strengthens this ecosystem by allowing assets and messages to move securely between blockchains such as Ethereum, Polygon, and Avalanche.
Reflecting the growing confidence in Chainlink’s role, Lookonchain recently reported that “30 new wallets have withdrawn 6,256,893 LINK (worth $116.7 million) from Binance since the 10/11 market crash,” signaling strong accumulation amid market volatility.
After slipping to $15.87 earlier in the week, LINK has dropped 4% in 24 hours and is now trading at $18.
Avalanche (AVAX)
At the end of September, Avalanche announced that it’s becoming a key player in South Korea’s tokenization era. This came after Mirae Asset Global Investments, the country’s largest multinational asset manager with over $316 billion in assets under management, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Ava Labs to explore tokenized funds on Avalanche.
This move places Mirae alongside major global financial institutions like BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and VanEck, all of which are already building on Avalanche’s infrastructure.
In the past month, Avalanche’s RWA activity has surged, and transfer volumes jumped an impressive 481.8% to $18.16 billion. AVAX, the network’s native token, is trading at $19.95 after dropping nearly 5% in the last 24 hours. Trading volume lost 10% to reach $491 million.
Hedera (HBAR)
Earlier this month, we reported that Zoniqx and One World Petroleum had introduced the first-ever tokenized oil fund on the Hedera network. This fund transforms traditional oil assets and loans into security tokens recorded on the blockchain. By doing so, it brings a range of advantages like faster transactions, greater transparency, and carbon-neutral efficiency.
Aside from RWA, Hedera’s stablecoin supply has surged 54.30% over the last seven days to settle around 138 million. HBAR is also getting institutional attention with 6 listed U.S. ETF filings from asset managers like Grayscale, Canary, REX-Osprey, and KraneShares.
At the same time, the market waits for a breakout toward $0.37 from its current price of $0.17.
Stellar (XLM)
Stellar provides a strong foundation for RWA tokenization. The network includes built-in controls for approving, revoking, and freezing assets. These are all essential features that allow issuers to maintain compliance and regulatory oversight.
This infrastructure is clearly gaining traction: the network now hosts more than $533 million in tokenized assets. As CNF reported, the RWA market cap on Stellar has grown 25% year-over-year to exceed $600 million. Access to more than $3 billion in real-world assets has already been announced, and analysts are setting their targets on $0.385.
IOTA (IOTA)
In 2024, IOTA EVM launched and brought smart contracts, cross-chain functionality, parallel processing, and stronger security against Maximal Extractable Value (MEV). This laid the groundwork for IOTA’s growing presence in the real-world asset (RWA) sector, where tokenized assets rely heavily on smart contracts for managing yields, rights, and transfers.
IOTA’s growth has also been boosted by its participation in the European Blockchain Sandbox, where the foundation showcased its Tokenized Know Your Customer (KYC) solution, developed in collaboration with IDnow, walt.id, and Bloom Wallet. A project that focused on bringing compliant identity verification to tokenized systems.
Despite these strides, IOTA’s market performance hasn’t yet caught up to its innovation. The token is currently ranked below 90, has a market capitalization of around $18 million, and trades at $0.14.
