Plain meaning
Start with the shortest useful explanation before going deeper.
The process of representing ownership of traditional financial assets (treasuries, private credit, real estate, equities) as tokens on a blockchain. Tokenized RWAs grew from ~$6 billion in 2022 to over $30 billion by 2025, led by BlackRock's BUIDL fund (tokenized treasuries) and Maple Finance (private credit). RWAs bridge traditional finance with DeFi composability.