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BNB Chain’s real-world assets jump 555% in Q4 2024
BNB Chain recorded a dramatic 555% year-over-year increase in real-world asset (RWA) value in the fourth quarter of 2024, driven primarily by institutional tokenization of money market funds, U.S. stocks and ETFs. According to Messari’s research, the surge pushed BNB Chain to the position of the second-largest blockchain by RWA value at quarter-end, behind only Ethereum. This expansion came even as BNB’s market capitalization and some DeFi metrics experienced volatility during the period.
Q4 2024 growth and institutional inflows
Messari attributes the rapid RWA growth to institutional capital moving onto BNB Chain and to an expanding stablecoin supply that improved liquidity for tokenized products. Despite a market-wide liquidation event on Oct. 11 that pushed BNB’s market cap down from mid-October highs, the token ended the quarter as the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, trailing only Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Network usage strengthened across multiple indicators. Average daily transactions rose substantially from third-quarter levels, and daily active addresses increased even after an early-October spike tied to market volatility. Messari noted that, excluding that temporary spike, on-chain usage still trended higher than Q3, signaling steady user growth and growing demand for tokenized financial instruments.
Key institutional partnerships
A string of partnerships and product launches powered the RWA inflows. CMB International launched a tokenized money market fund on BNB Chain in October. Shortly after, Ondo Global Markets introduced over 100 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs to the network, broadening offerings from cash-equivalent funds into equities. In November, another major institutional fund issued through Securitize expanded access to BNB Chain, further boosting the protocol’s RWA footprint.
Real-world asset values on BNB Chain remained concentrated: one flagship product accounted for the majority of total RWA value, while a second product represented roughly a quarter. Other holdings, such as Matrixdock Gold and VanEck’s Treasury Fund, contributed smaller shares. Tokenized shares of blue-chip companies were present but made up a relatively small portion of the overall RWA pool.
DeFi activity, TVL and protocol dynamics
While RWA growth accelerated, decentralized finance (DeFi) activity cooled in Q4. Total value locked (TVL) on BNB Chain declined from Q3 levels, though it remained above year-ago figures and kept BNB Chain among the top networks by TVL. PancakeSwap continued to dominate DeFi on BNB Chain, holding roughly one-third of TVL and demonstrating user and liquidity retention despite a modest drop in locked assets.
Smaller protocols were more affected by liquidity withdrawals and reduced borrowing demand as traders and institutions de-risked. Nevertheless, the resilience of major protocols helped maintain BNB Chain’s competitive DeFi position. The network’s expanding stablecoin supply also underpinned liquidity, with one major stablecoin retaining its leading role and another growing notably due to payment-driven use cases and gas-fee incentives.
Payments and stablecoin adoption
New payment rails and integrations increased on-chain settlement use cases. A payments network added multi-stablecoin support for cross-border transfers and later enabled cloud-service customers to pay using BNB for services through the same system. A December stablecoin launch permitted users to mint tokens backed by major stablecoins, enhancing composability and liquidity for on-chain payments.
Infrastructure upgrades and performance gains
BNB Chain deployed several protocol upgrades during 2024—Pascal, Lorentz, Maxwell—and moved forward with the Fermi hardfork. These upgrades reduced block times, improved transaction finality, and more than doubled network capacity while lowering gas fees. As a result, BNB Chain improved throughput and cost-efficiency for both DeFi and RWA products.
According to Messari, the 2025 roadmap targets approximately 20,000 transactions per second with sub-second finality. The development team plans to pair off-chain computing with on-chain verification to scale transaction processing without degrading security or performance. Long-term development includes a trading-focused chain designed for near-instant confirmations, which would further optimize tokenized securities and high-frequency settlement workloads.
What this means for blockchain investors and institutions
The dramatic rise in RWAs on BNB Chain shows how institutional players are using blockchain rails for tokenizing traditional financial instruments—from money market funds to equities and ETFs. For crypto investors, this trend may signal deeper institutional adoption and new liquidity channels that could stabilize certain on-chain markets. For DeFi users and builders, the combination of lower gas fees and higher throughput creates better conditions for complex tokenized products and cross-border payment flows.
However, concentration risk remains a key consideration: a small number of tokenized products currently dominate total RWA value, meaning systemic exposures could be elevated if those products face redemptions or regulatory constraints. Investors should watch diversification of tokenized offerings, regulatory developments around securities on-chain, and continued network upgrades that affect throughput and finality.
BNB Chain’s 555% RWA surge in Q4 2024 underscores the growing intersection of traditional finance and blockchain infrastructure. As tokenized assets and stablecoins expand, networks that can offer low fees, fast finality and strong institutional integrations are likely to capture incremental market share in the evolving tokenized-economy landscape.
Source: crypto
Comments
codeflux
whoa 555%?? didn't expect BNB to blow up like that. institutional money piling in, tokenized funds everywhere... kinda hyped but also nervous, concentration risk is real
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