The Competition to Move TradFi Onchain: Are $MANTRA ($OM) and $ONDO the Next Institutional Leaders in Tokenization?

The race to bring TradFi onchain: Are MANTRA ($OM) & ONDO the next institutional favorites for tokenization?

I’ve been reading through the recent developments in RWA tokenization, and something caught my attention – both Robinhood’s CEO and Binance’s CZ dropped some interesting insights recently.

Robinhood CEO, Vlad Tenev just dropped a mega bullish take on tokenization in WaPo – says it’s going to completely revolutionize private market investing. When a major US player like this is this bullish, you know something big is brewing.

And check this out – while everyone’s been doom scrolling about the crypto correction, the total tokenized real world assets just exploded from $16B to $60B. That’s some serious growth flying under the radar.

CZ’s recent tweet hits different in this context: “Stick with fundamentals. Time will be on your side.” And looking at the RWA space, the fundamentals are pretty solid:

– $3.4B in tokenized US treasuries already

– BlackRock’s BUIDL at $642M

– Major institutions actively building

What’s interesting is how this feels similar to the AI boom, but with a key difference – RWA tokenization has immediate real-world utility. We’re talking about actual assets being brought on-chain, not just speculative tech. This could be the narrative for the next bull run, but backed by real institutional adoption.

The institutional moves are getting serious. BlackRock’s not alone – you’ve got UAE giants, McKinsey, and Grayscale all moving in. What caught my eye was MANTRA’s $1B tokenization deal with DAMAC, announced right after DAMAC’s $20B Trump data center partnership. Timing seems significant.

Speaking of MANTRA and ONDO – the price action tells an interesting story. $OM is up a wild 4500%+ over the last year, hitting new ATHs even when major alts and $BTC are down. $ONDO’s no slouch either, up 500%+ in the same period with steady growth.

Looking at the space, neither $OM nor ONDO are in the top 20 yet, but they’re positioned as institutional-grade chains for bringing assets on-chain. 2025 could see some major announcements, given how things are lining up.

Unlike previous narratives, this one’s about bringing trillion-dollar traditional markets to crypto. True DeFi, in a sense – real assets, real utilization.

Curious to hear others’ thoughts on this. Are we early to something significant here?