Plume CEO Challenges $21B RWA Hype, Says Institutions Still on the Sidelines
Real-World Asset Tokenization Faces Harsh Reality Check
DUBAI, May 1, 2025 — Despite the fanfare around the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), true institutional adoption remains out of reach, according to Chris Yin, CEO and co-founder of Plume, a Galaxy Digital-backed RWA platform.
Speaking on the sidelines of Token2049, Yin offered a blunt assessment of the emerging RWA sector, suggesting the often-quoted $21 billion market cap is grossly overstated and that big players like BlackRock are interested in returns, not blockchain idealism.
“The Real Number Is Closer to $10B” — Yin Counters Market Optimism
Estimates from platforms like RWA.xyz peg the total RWA market at $17.4 billion as of April 27, with private credit accounting for nearly 60%, and Treasury bills and commodities making up the rest. But Yin disputes these figures:
“I tend to think that one, all the data is wrong, and two, the perspective most people have is wrong… The real number is more like $10 billion.”
According to Yin, this adjusted figure includes mostly tokenized Treasurys, gold, and a small amount of private credit — a far cry from the explosive narrative circulating across the crypto space.
Institutions Still Watching From the Bleachers
Yin emphasized that no major institutions are currently committing capital onchain. Instead, they are positioning themselves to extract value from the ecosystem rather than investing in it:
“There are zero institutions putting money onchain. Their products try to sell new things to crypto, not invest in crypto itself.”
He pointed to BlackRock’s $2.5 billion tokenized fund as an example. Though hailed as progress, Yin called it “a drop in the ocean” compared to the asset manager’s $12 trillion portfolio.
Tokenization: More Startup Energy, Less Institutional Weight
While early excitement around RWA tokenization draws parallels to Bitcoin’s 2013 era, Yin stressed that tokenized assets are not being adopted in the same grassroots fashion. Unlike Bitcoin, RWAs require institutional-grade infrastructure from day one — legal frameworks, custodians, fund managers, and regulators.
“Institutions don’t care about saving money or blockchain efficiency,” Yin said. “They care about finding new ways to make more money.”
Ross Shemeliak, co-founder of Stobox, echoed that sentiment, emphasizing that 99.9% of global companies are private and struggle to access liquidity — making them prime targets for tokenization, but not without help from institutions.
Institutional Adoption May Take a Decade — Again
Drawing from the playbook of stablecoins, Yin compared the current stage of RWA development to the early 2010s of crypto:
“Only now, 10 years later, are institutions beginning to think about using stablecoins. The same timeline may apply to tokenized RWAs.”
Until then, Yin advises the sector to rely on crypto-native communities, rather than banking on Wall Street.
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