ARK Invest analyst sees RWA trading reshaping DeFi economics

Lorenzo Valente, Director of Research for Digital Assets at ARK Invest, suggests that the growth of real-world asset (RWA) trading is reshaping the economic landscape of decentralized finance (DeFi). Historically, successful crypto trading venues required significant liquidity in Bitcoin and major layer-1 assets to compete with established exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.

Valente notes that specialized RWA markets allow new platforms to build significant onchain outcomes without needing large market shares in BTC or ETH. This shift could lead to liquidity fragmenting by asset class, where different venues lead specific categories rather than all activity concentrating on a few major platforms.

Data from Blockworks indicates that RWAs recently accounted for 54% of Hyperliquid’s weekly volume, surpassing cryptocurrencies for the first time. Within this segment, individual equities represented 61% of RWA activity. This trend suggests that customer-facing applications may gain greater control over liquidity and revenue through specialized asset classes.