RWA

On 30 January 2026, Tether issued 192,657 Tether Gold (XAUT) tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, with the batch valued at roughly $946 million. Each XAUT represents one troy ounce of gold stored in Swiss vaults, and the new issuance equals about six metric tons of physical gold, expanding Tether's position in the tokenised gold market.

MicroStrategy is facing its first unrealized loss since 2023 as Bitcoin’s dip below $75,000 leaves its massive 712,647 BTC stash technically "underwater." Despite a $900 million deficit and shares hitting 52-week lows, Executive Chairman Michael Saylor remains committed to his aggressive $84 billion acquisition strategy ahead of the company's February earnings.

Despite a violent $7 trillion deleveraging event sparked by the "Warsh Shock," the 2026 gold and silver bull market remains fundamentally intact as a necessary technical reset. This correction offers a strategic buying opportunity as structural supply shortages and central bank demand continue to outweigh short-term volatility in the paper markets.

On February 1, 2026, Tether expanded its tokenized gold product by minting 192,657 XAUT, a tranche valued at nearly $1 billion at prevailing gold prices. Each token corresponds to one troy ounce held in secured vaults, primarily in Switzerland. The issuance highlights growing on-chain demand for real-world assets and differs from fiat-pegged stablecoins due to commodity price exposure.

XRP fell 9% in 2026 and touched $1.60, its first nine‑month low, after breaking the $1.80 support. According to Alphractal, a 0.998 correlation to Bitcoin and an 87% altcoin‑BTC linkage keep price action tethered to BTC swings. Despite SoSoValue's noted ETF inflows and RWA TVL rising 11% to $235 million, gains remain muted.

On February 1, 2026, Ark Invest projected that tokenized real-world assets may surpass $11 trillion in value by 2030, up from an estimated $19–22 billion today. The firm expects growth to be driven by institutional adoption, clearer regulation and tokenization of assets such as sovereign debt, bank deposits and public equities.

On 31 January 2026, U.S. crypto leaders highlighted that tokenized equities are nearing broader issuance and trading as regulatory attitudes evolve. Executives pointed to recent SEC actions and a tokenized securities market cap of about $1.74 billion as evidence that on-chain representations of real-world assets are gaining traction. They suggested the United States could strengthen its role as a central venue for compliant tokenized finance if current trends continue.

On 31 January 2026, ARK Invest's tokenization research indicated that RWAs scale fastest where structures are simple and liquid. By end-2025, public-chain RWA value reached roughly $19 billion, with commodities growing over 60% QoQ to about $3.5 billion. The report points to tokenized money as the next unlock for fully on-chain markets.

Avalanche's RWA total value locked stood at $1.3 billion, with subnet architecture and compliance features attracting institutional participation. In Q4 2025, BlackRock expanded its $500 million BUIDL fund on Avalanche, while daily C‑Chain transactions reached 2.1 million amid growing RWAs, gaming, and enterprise activity.

On January 28, the U.S. SEC released a Statement on Tokenised Securities clarifying issuer-sponsored, custodial, and synthetic models for tokenized assets. The same day, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev urged real-time, blockchain-based settlement and outlined a shift toward custodial equity tokens for investors, arguing T+1 remains too slow and noting weekends can stretch settlement to four days.