Top 5 Competitors in the RWA Market: How Institutional Capital Chooses Differentiated Infrastructure

RWA (Real-World Asset Tokenization) is ushering in an institutional-level competitive showdown. Over the past six months, the market size has surged from $6-8 billion at the beginning of 2024 to nearly $20 billion. This is not a speculative bubble but the result of genuine institutional capital deployment on-chain. In this competition, five major contenders have emerged: Rayls Labs, Ondo Finance, Centrifuge, Canton Network, and Polymesh. They are not traditional competitors vying for the same slice of the pie but are instead differentiated solutions targeting different institutional needs.

Rapid Expansion of the Institutional RWA Market: The Battle Among Competitors

According to a market snapshot from early January 2026, the institutional RWA market shows three distinct segments:

The debt and money market fund sector dominates with approximately $8-9 billion, accounting for 45%-50%. Competitors in this segment include Ondo Finance and Canton Network, which offer 4%-6% stable yields with 24/7 access, far superior to the traditional T+2 settlement cycle.

The private credit market ranges from $2-6 billion, smaller in scale but the fastest-growing, representing 20%-30%. Centrifuge has established a leading position here, providing asset managers with 8%-12% high returns.

The public equity market is just beginning, exceeding $400 million but growing rapidly. Ondo Finance leads this segment with a 53% market share, becoming the undisputed leader in tokenized stocks.

Why Can These 5 Major Competitors Coexist Instead of Fighting?

On the surface, all five are involved in RWA tokenization. But in reality, they target completely different client groups and address core pain points.

Banking institutions’ primary concern is privacy protection. Rayls Labs uses zero-knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption to provide institutional-grade data confidentiality. The Central Bank of Brazil is already testing cross-border CBDC settlements using Rayls’ Enygma privacy tech stack.

Wall Street financial institutions need infrastructure compatible with traditional trading habits. Canton Network, supported by DTCC, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Citadel Securities, has designed a privacy architecture based on Daml smart contracts, allowing counterparties to see trade details while competitors and the public cannot see any information. This precisely meets Wall Street’s accustomed workflows with Bloomberg terminals and dark pools.

Asset management firms focus on deploying billions of dollars of capital on-chain. Centrifuge, through its partnership with Janus Henderson (asset management scale of $373 billion), demonstrates its competitive advantage in institutional credit. Janus Henderson’s Anemoy AAACLO fund—a fully on-chain AAA-rated secured loan security—serves as a prime example of Centrifuge’s competitiveness.

In securities issuance, the challenge lies in compliance complexity. Polymesh offers a new approach by conducting compliance verification at the protocol layer rather than at the smart contract level. Non-compliant transactions are rejected during consensus, not relying on complex smart contract audits.

Differentiation in Privacy and Compliance Competitors

When examining the technical routes of these five competitors, their differentiation strategies become clearer.

Rayls Labs’ banking privacy solution: Uses zero-knowledge proofs, homomorphic encryption, and programmable compliance. Designed for regulated banks, it allows selective disclosure of data to designated auditors. On January 8, 2026, Rayls completed a security audit by Halborn and received institutional-grade security certification. More importantly, the AmFi alliance plans to realize $1 billion in tokenized assets on Rayls by June 2027, the largest institutional RWA commitment in any blockchain ecosystem to date.

Canton Network’s Wall Street infrastructure: Rather than just a blockchain, it’s more like a migration plan for Wall Street infrastructure. With DTCC and Euroclear as co-chairs of the Canton Foundation, Canton not only participates but also gains governance rights. In the first half of 2026, Canton plans to launch the DTCC MVP, aiming to tokenize some US Treasuries directly on-chain. This will open up an institutional settlement market with an annual volume of $3.7 quadrillion. Temple Digital Group launched a private trading platform on January 8, 2026, offering sub-second matching speeds with a centralized limit order book supporting non-custodial architecture—precisely what Wall Street competitors lack.

Polymesh’s compliance-native architecture: Possibly the most underestimated competitor. Polymesh conducts identity verification, embeds transfer rules, and provides atomic payment and settlement—all within 6 seconds for final confirmation. Compared to traditional ERC-1400 compliance solutions, Polymesh’s advantage lies in not requiring customized smart contract audits. Republic began issuing private securities on Polymesh in August 2025, with AlphaPoint covering over 150 trading venues across 35 countries.

Cross-Chain Trading Advantages: Ondo’s Aggressive Expansion

Ondo Finance’s competitive edge in tokenized stocks is most evident. As of January 2026, its TVL reached $1.93 billion, with tokenized stocks exceeding $400 million, capturing 53% market share.

This advantage stems from Ondo’s multi-chain deployment strategy. It builds DeFi liquidity and institutional legitimacy on Ethereum, covers exchange-native users on BNB Chain, and supports large-scale consumer use on Solana. On January 8, 2026, Ondo launched 98 new tokenized assets across sectors like AI, electric vehicles, and thematic investments. This rapid product rollout exemplifies Ondo’s execution strength as a competitor.

When I personally tested the USDY product on Solana, the user experience was impressively smooth. Ondo plans to launch US stocks and ETFs on Solana in Q1 2026, aiming to list over 1,000 tokenized assets. According to its product roadmap, Ondo is actively moving toward retail-friendly infrastructure.

Facing competitors like Backed Finance (with a scale of only $162 million), Ondo has established a formidable moat through relationships with broker-dealers, Halborn security audits, and deployment on three major blockchains.

Asset Management’s Institutional Deployment: Centrifuge’s Deep Strategy

If Ondo is a breadth competitor, Centrifuge is a depth competitor. By December 2025, Centrifuge’s TVL soared to $1.3-1.45 billion, driven entirely by actual institutional capital deployment.

Centrifuge’s core advantages include:

Partnership with Janus Henderson exemplifies a new level of institutional deployment. The Anemoy AAACLO fund—a fully on-chain AAA-rated secured loan security—is managed by the same team as Janus Henderson’s $21.4 billion AAACLO ETF. Janus Henderson plans to add $250 million on Avalanche after July 2025.

The Grove fund allocation within the Sky ecosystem commits $1 billion in capital, with an initial capital of $50 million. The team comes from Deloitte, Citigroup, Block Tower Capital, and Hildene Capital Management. This $1 billion deployment will be completed within 2026, serving as a critical test of actual institutional capital operation in credit tokenization.

On January 8, 2026, Centrifuge announced a partnership with Chronicle Labs to launch an asset proof framework. This framework provides cryptographically verified holdings data, supporting transparent NAV calculation, custody verification, and compliance reporting, with dashboards accessible to LPs and auditors. It’s the first solution in the oracle domain truly meeting institutional needs.

Centrifuge’s advantage also stems from its multi-chain V3 architecture supporting Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Celo, and Avalanche. Through industry standard initiatives like co-founding the Tokenized Asset Coalition and the Real-World Asset Summit, Centrifuge further consolidates its position as an infrastructure provider rather than a single product.

Market Segmentation of the 5 Competitors: No Single Winner Era

When observing these five competitors together, an unexpected trend emerges: there is no single winner because there is no single market.

Privacy solution tiers: Canton, based on Daml smart contracts, focuses on Wall Street counterparties. Rayls uses ZKP tech for bank-grade privacy. Polymesh offers a protocol-level identity verification and compliance solution. Each occupies a distinct privacy niche.

Speed of expansion: Ondo manages $1.93 billion across three chains, prioritizing liquidity speed over depth. Centrifuge focuses on $1.35-1.45 billion in institutional credit, prioritizing depth over speed. The former competes with retail agility; the latter with institutional reliability.

Target market differentiation: Banks and CBDC needs point to Rayls; retail and DeFi integration to Ondo; asset managers to Centrifuge; Wall Street infrastructure needs to Canton; securities tokenization to Polymesh.

This market segmentation is more critical than many realize. Institutions will not choose the “best blockchain” but rather the infrastructure that best solves their specific compliance, operational, and competitive needs.

Unresolved Challenges Facing RWA Competitors

Despite these five major players, the entire RWA market still faces three structural issues.

Inter-chain liquidity fragmentation: Cross-chain fragmentation costs are estimated at $1.3-1.5 billion annually. The same asset traded on different blockchains can have a 1%-3% price difference. This is a shared challenge for all competitors. If unresolved by 2030, annual costs could exceed $75 billion. Even with the most advanced tokenization infrastructure, if liquidity is dispersed across incompatible chains, all efficiency gains are nullified.

Privacy vs. transparency dilemma: This is a core balancing act for every competitor. Institutions need confidentiality in transactions, while regulators require auditability. In multi-party scenarios (issuers, investors, rating agencies, regulators, auditors), each party needs different levels of visibility. No perfect solution exists yet.

Global regulatory fragmentation: The EU’s MiCA regulation covers 27 countries; the US requires case-by-case No-Action Letters, taking months; cross-border capital flows face jurisdictional conflicts. This regulatory fragmentation poses expansion hurdles for all competitors.

Key Catalysts for Industry Dynamics in 2026-2027

In the next 18 months, these five competitors will face a series of decisive tests.

Q1: Ondo’s Solana launch test
Ondo plans to launch US stocks and ETFs on Solana in Q1 2026. This will test whether retail-scale issuance can generate sustainable liquidity. Success hinges on surpassing 100,000 holders, proving genuine demand. Failure would mean retail strategies need adjustment.

H1: Canton’s DTCC MVP acceptance
Canton aims to deliver a controlled-production MVP in H1 2026, validating blockchain’s feasibility in US Treasury settlement. If successful, trillions of dollars could shift onto on-chain infrastructure, a decisive victory for the DTCC-level competitor.

Ongoing: Centrifuge’s Grove deployment
The $1 billion Grove fund deployment will complete within 2026. This will test the practical operation of institutional credit tokenization. Smooth execution without credit events will significantly boost asset managers’ confidence in Centrifuge.

Throughout the year: Rayls’ AmFi ecosystem building
The $1 billion AmFi target is a key test for Rayls. With no public TVL data, the mid-2027 milestone of $1 billion will directly reflect Rayls’ competitiveness.

Market Outlook for the 5 Competitors

By 2030, institutional demand for RWA is expected to drive the market size to $2-4 trillion, representing a 50- to 100-fold growth from the current $19.7 billion.

Industry segment forecasts:

Private credit will be the most competitive, projected to grow from $2-6 billion to $150-200 billion, the highest growth rate. Centrifuge will maintain its advantage here.

Tokenized government bonds have the greatest potential; if money market funds migrate on-chain, the potential exceeds $5 trillion. Ondo and Canton will fiercely compete in this space.

Real estate markets could reach $3-4 trillion, assuming blockchain-compatible property registration systems are adopted. This is a new blue ocean all competitors are eyeing.

Milestone of hundreds of billions of dollars:
Expected around 2027-2028. Market distribution forecast:
Institutional credit $30-40 billion,
Government bonds $30-40 billion,
Tokenized stocks $20-30 billion,
Real estate / commodities $10-20 billion.

Why 2026-2027 Will Decide the Industry Landscape

The reason these five competitors can coexist is because the institutional RWA market is still in an early stage of segmentation. Without a single market, there can be no single winner.

Core advantages of each competitor:

• Rayls solves banking privacy needs
• Ondo dominates tokenized stocks distribution
• Centrifuge leads in on-chain deployment for asset managers
• Canton builds Wall Street infrastructure migration
• Polymesh simplifies securities compliance

From $8.5 billion at the start of 2024 to $19.7 billion in January 2026, the market has clearly shown that demand exceeds speculation. Core institutional needs are divided into three directions: CFOs seek yield and operational efficiency; asset managers aim to reduce distribution costs and expand investor bases; banks require compliant infrastructure.

Execution over architecture, results over blueprints. The infrastructure choices made by these five in 2026 will shape the industry landscape for the next decade.

Traditional finance is heading toward a long-term on-chain migration. These five provide the foundational infrastructure for institutional capital: privacy layers, compliance frameworks, and settlement infrastructure. Their success or failure will determine whether RWA tokenization is an efficiency upgrade within existing structures or a complete overhaul replacing traditional financial intermediaries.

The era of trillion-dollar assets is imminent. NFA.