Tokenized Assets Still a ’Niche Play’—Plume CEO Warns Market Too Tiny for Big Money Moves

Institutional investors keep eyeing the tokenization space like tourists at a zoo—curious, but not ready to jump in. Plume’s CEO drops the hard truth: today’s market is a sandbox, not a stadium.

Why? Liquidity gaps, regulatory gray zones, and that pesky ’where’s the exit?’ question keep whales sidelined. Meanwhile, Wall Street’s old guard chuckles into their martinis—another ’disruption’ stuck in pilot mode.

Wake-up call: Until tokenized Treasuries and real estate hit critical mass, expect more hype than hedge funds. The future’s coming... just slower than a 1999 dial-up connection.

Yin claims RWAs are worth only about $10 billion, contrary to most market analyzes

Yin believes current market estimates of real-world asset (RWA) capitalization are significantly overstated. While some place the market’s value at over $21 billion, he argues the true figure is closer to $10 billion, which he claims is majorly Treasury bills, gold, and a little private credit.

He even argued that the prevailing interpretation of the $21 billion figure is wrong, saying, “The perspective that most people have is wrong with this, which is I take this $21 billion in assets.”

As per RWA.xyz data, real-world assets market capitalization had settled at $21.96 billion on April 30. Private credit led the chart of all RWAs, worth $12.87 billion, while treasury bills accounted for $6.33 billion and commodities $1.62 billion.

However, Stobox co-founder Ross Shemeliak’s estimations partially differ from RWA.xyz estimations, projecting that private credit does not account for most RWAs but tokenized Treasurys and bonds. He estimates that tokenized Treasurys and bonds account for about 60–65% of RWAs.

Shemeliak did acknowledge that gauging the size of the RWA market is highly challenging, especially since private asset data is often inaccessible or fragmented.

He added that nearly all companies globally are private, and almost all of them are “untapped candidates for tokenization.” 

Yin advised the RWA market to depend more on the native community than institutional investors

Yin also said that institutions wait for projects to get bigger so they can invest, thinking they can make more money that way. He pointed out that tokenized assets have attracted these institutional investors because they are looking at ways to bring in money, not save money or improve efficiency.

He added that the RWA market should primarily depend on the native community and not necessarily institutional investors. 

Yin believes that institutions are not injecting any money on-chain and are only looking for ways to drain money out of the community by selling their products to them.

Shemeliak, however, contended that RWA tokenization would not survive long-term without institutional capital. He even likened RWA tokenization without institutions’ backing to having a stock exchange without regulators or custodians.

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