Research Brief: Fragmentation Is the Biggest Obstacle to RWA’s Trillion‑Dollar Potential

Real‑world asset tokenization has raced from pilot projects to mainstream adoption across multiple chains. Yet the market’s greatest headwind is no longer legal theory or institutional interest; it’s fragmentation. A new study from RWA.io argues that network silos are draining hundreds of millions of dollars per year and preventing tokenized assets from behaving like one unified financial system. The implications touch everyone from issuers and market makers to end‑investors and wallet providers.

The headline finding: fragmentation taxes the RWA market

• RWA.io estimates that cross‑chain fragmentation is already costing the sector roughly $600 million–$1.3 billion annually via price gaps and transfer frictions, with potential losses ballooning into the tens of billions as tokenization scales. The report documents persistent 1–3% price differences for economically equivalent RWA instruments across chains and 2–5% frictions when moving capital between networks. See coverage in The Defiant. (See coverage in The Defiant.) (thedefiant.io)

• Meanwhile, the on‑chain RWA base keeps growing. CoinDesk reports the tokenized‑assets market has multiplied to roughly $24–35 billion over the past two years, with forecasts ranging from the low trillions to tens of trillions by the 2030s. (coindesk.com)

• Tokenized Treasuries remain the single largest RWA bucket. As of December 14, 2025, RWA.xyz tracked about $8.95 billion outstanding across 60 products and multiple networks. (app.rwa.xyz)

Why fragmentation persists

• Multi‑chain issuance creates isolated liquidity pools, disparate compliance lists, and separate settlement paths. Academic work on cross‑chain market microstructure shows that price discrepancies are not rare edge cases but recurring opportunities that arbitrageurs exploit when liquidity and finality don’t line up. (arxiv.org)

• Some “equivalent” assets are not truly fungible across chains. A stark example: bridged variants that lose redemption pathways can trade far below par for extended periods. Multichain‑bridged USDC on Fantom, for instance, continues to trade around two cents—an extreme, real‑world reminder of how wrappers can decouple from native instruments. (coingecko.com)

• Moving value between networks remains costly, complex, and risky. Chainalysis and other researchers continue to document multi‑billion‑dollar losses linked to vulnerabilities in cross‑chain systems, while specific studies tally many billions lost to bridge exploits since 2021. (chainalysis.com)

The macro context: regulators and central banks want cohesion, not silos

• The BIS 2025 Annual Economic Report frames tokenization as a pathway to a “next‑generation monetary and financial system” built on unified ledgers—where central bank money, commercial bank money, and tokenized securities interoperate natively. That vision highlights how today’s fragmented RWA rails fall short of institutional expectations. (bis.org)

• Global watchdog IOSCO warns that tokenization introduces new risks if investors can’t be sure what they actually own or how claims settle across infrastructures—concerns amplified by cross‑chain fragmentation. (reuters.com)

Evidence that “same asset, different chain, different price” is real

• The RWA.io dataset (as reported by The Defiant) observes persistent cross‑chain pricing gaps for instruments referencing the same underlying collateral. Beyond RWAs, a 2025 cross‑chain MEV study documented more than 260,000 cross‑chain arbitrage events across nine chains in a year, underscoring structural conditions for sustained dislocations when liquidity, latency, and finality differ. (thedefiant.io)

• Tokenized Treasuries show network‑level dispersion, with platforms spanning Ethereum, Solana, and EVM L2s. While that diversity improves access, it also fragments order flow and introduces wrapper‑specific risks that can widen spreads during stress. RWA.xyz’s market tables illustrate how value is scattered across issuers and chains. (app.rwa.xyz)

What could fix it: toward chain‑abstracted RWA liquidity

• Faster, native cross‑chain settlement for cash legs. Circle’s CCTP V2 shifts USDC transfers from minutes to seconds via a burn‑and‑mint model, reducing slippage and pool‑based bridge dependencies. Faster settlement shrinks the time window in which prices can diverge. See Circle’s announcement and developer docs. (coindesk.com)

• Standardizing “intents” for cross‑chain execution. The ERC‑7683 proposal from Uniswap Labs and Across defines a common format so apps can share filler networks and reduce siloed execution paths—an important UX win for moving orders across RWA venues. (blog.uniswap.org)

• Institution‑grade interoperability layers. Chainlink’s CCIP is being used in bank pilots (e.g., ANZ) for cross‑chain settlement of tokenized assets, while offering programmable token transfers and defense‑in‑depth security—capabilities RWA platforms need to maintain a “golden record” as assets move across public and private ledgers. (chain.link)

• Chain abstraction at the base layer. The Ethereum Foundation’s interoperability initiatives aim to make cross‑L2 activity feel single‑chain via common standards (including ERC‑7683 for intents), which would compress liquidity silos on EVM rails where most tokenized Treasuries live today. (blog.ethereum.org)

Design principles for issuers and marketplaces

• Maintain a single source of truth. Ensure every tokenized instrument references a canonical “golden record” for positions and NAV that travels with the asset across chains. Interop layers that provide unified state views reduce mis‑pricing and reconciliation risk. (chain.link)

• Prefer native, redeemable cash legs. Use native USDC on supported domains and burn‑and‑mint pathways rather than pool‑based bridges to minimize slippage and wrapper basis risk during transfers. (circle.com)

• Standardize execution and identity. Adopt cross‑chain intent standards and interoperable KYC/credential frameworks so primary offerings and secondary trading can route liquidity without rebuilding bespoke allowlists per chain. See ERC‑7683 and the Ethereum interop roadmap. (blog.uniswap.org)

• Price‑parity monitoring and auto‑rebalance. Build monitoring that flags deviations between networks and coordinates market‑maker inventory or protocol‑level rebalancing to close spreads quickly, drawing on empirical arbitrage patterns documented in cross‑chain MEV research. (arxiv.org)

What investors and treasurers can do now

• Choose native over wrapped where possible, and verify redemption. For any RWA or cash wrapper, confirm the redemption path on each network. The ongoing depeg of certain bridged stablecoins shows how wrappers can persistently diverge from par after infrastructure failures. (coingecko.com)

• Minimize hop count and settle fast. Prefer routes that use native burn‑and‑mint mechanisms and reduce reliance on multi‑hop bridges; seconds‑level settlement via protocols like CCTP V2 can materially cut slippage during volatile windows. (coindesk.com)

• Track the policy backdrop. The BIS “unified ledger” vision and IOSCO’s risk framing are directional signals: RWA distribution that can interoperate cleanly across jurisdictions and ledgers will earn regulatory confidence first. (bis.org)

Outlook: fragmentation is solvable—and the prize is enormous

RWA liquidity won’t look like one market until the cash legs, identity rails, and execution standards interoperate by default. The good news is that credible building blocks are shipping: chain‑abstracted settlement for dollars, shared intent standards for orders, and institution‑ready interop layers for asset transfer. Markets that compress cross‑chain frictions first will capture the steepest share of the next trillion in tokenized value. (coindesk.com)

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OneKey perspective: secure, chain‑agnostic self‑custody as fragmentation buffer

Fragmentation increases operational risk: more networks, more approvals, more signing surfaces. For teams allocating to tokenized Treasuries or moving stablecoin liquidity between RWA venues, hardware‑backed self‑custody helps reduce key‑theft and phishing risks that can be amplified by cross‑chain complexity. OneKey supports multi‑chain workflows with a consistent signing experience, open‑source stack, and security‑first design—so institutions can adopt faster settlement rails and chain‑abstraction UX while keeping private keys offline. It’s a practical complement to the interoperability advances highlighted above.

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Further reading

• Tokenized RWA fragmentation and loss estimates: RWA.io research coverage in The Defiant. (thedefiant.io)
• Market sizing and growth: CoinDesk on RWA tokenization’s multi‑year expansion. (coindesk.com)
• Live tokenized‑Treasury data by network and issuer: RWA.xyz dashboard. (app.rwa.xyz)
• Cross‑chain arbitrage and price dislocations: 2025 study on non‑atomic cross‑chain MEV. (arxiv.org)
• Faster cross‑chain cash legs: Circle CCTP V2 announcement and developer docs. (coindesk.com)
• Cross‑chain intents standardization: Uniswap Labs on ERC‑7683. (blog.uniswap.org)
• Institution‑grade interop: Chainlink CCIP case study with ANZ and CCIP documentation. (chain.link)
• Policy and system design: BIS unified‑ledger chapter; IOSCO tokenization risk note. (bis.org)

If you’re building or allocating in RWAs and want to reduce fragmentation risk at the account layer, consider consolidating operational flows under a hardware wallet strategy. As cross‑chain settlement gets faster and more programmable, secure self‑custody with OneKey can give your team the confidence to route liquidity across networks without compromising key security.