Institutional Inflows Drive BNB Chain RWA Boom, Up 555% Year Over Year

Institutional RWAs surge to $2B as stablecoins rise and network speed improves despite DeFi slowdown.

Institutional capital reshaped BNB Chain in Q4 2025, even as token prices pulled back. Real-world assets (RWAs) expanded at record speed, lifting BNB Chain to second place among blockchains by RWA value. Meanwhile, stablecoin supply and infrastructure upgrades strengthened the network’s role in payments and trading.

BNB Chain RWA Growth Hits $2B as Network Activity Climbs

According to research firm Messari, BNB’s market cap fell 15.3% quarter over quarter to $118.9 billion in Q4. An industry-wide liquidation event on October 11 pressured crypto markets. BNB had reached a record high of $1,370 on October 13 before starting a steady decline.

Despite the drop, BNB still finished the quarter as the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. As stated in the report, BNB recorded stronger network activity during the quarter.

Average daily transactions in the network rose 30.4% to 17.3 million, up from 13.3 million in Q3. On the other hand, daily active addresses increased 13.3% to 2.6 million. Early October volatility caused a brief spike in activity. Even excluding that surge, usage remained above Q3 levels, indicating steady user growth on BNB Chain.

Image Source: Messeri

In addition, the protocol saw strong growth in tokenized real-world assets during Q4. Total RWA value rose to $2 billion, a sharp increase from Q3 and much higher than a year earlier.  By quarter-end, BNB Chain ranked second in total RWA value, surpassing Solana and trailing Ethereum.

Institutional Deals Push BNB Chain RWA Value

One key reason behind that much expansion was institutional partnerships. On October 10, BNB Chain partnered with CMB International to launch a $3.8 billion tokenized money market fund. It was one of the largest single RWA launches on a public blockchain.

Soon after, Ondo Global Markets added more than 100 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs to BNB Chain. That move expanded offerings beyond money market funds and into equities. On November 14, BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, issued through Securitize, also expanded to BNB Chain. 

Most RWA values sat in a small number of products. USYC led with $1.4 billion, accounting for over 70% of the total. BUIDL followed with about $503 million, or roughly a quarter of all RWA value.

Other assets, including Matrixdock Gold and VanEck’s Treasury Fund, held much smaller amounts. Meanwhile, tokenized shares of Circle and Alphabet made up only a small share overall.

TVL Slides in Q4 While Stablecoins Record Steady Growth

DeFi activity slowed during Q4, with total value locked dropping 15.2% to $6.6 billion from Q3 levels. Nevertheless, TVL remained above its level a year earlier. Despite the pullback, BNB Chain still ranked as the third-largest network by total value locked.

Image Source: Messeri

PancakeSwap remained the biggest DeFi platform on the network. It held $2.2 billion in TVL and controlled about one-third of the market. Its TVL declined by only 1%, indicating it retained most of its users and funds.

On the other hand, Lista DAO dropped to $1.5 billion after some vault liquidations reduced liquidity. Venus Finance fell to $1.4 billion as borrowing demand slowed. Aster saw the sharpest decline, falling to $598 million after earlier incentive-driven deposits were withdrawn. Smaller protocols such as Aave and Avalon Labs also recorded declines as traders reduced risk across the market.

However, stablecoin supply grew during the quarter. Total stablecoin value on BNB Chain rose 9.2% to $15.2 billion. Tether (USDT) remained the largest, reaching $9.0 billion after a 12.4% increase. USD Coin (USDC) grew strongly to $1.3 billion, helped by payment use and gas-fee discounts. 

Stablecoin Payments Expand Through New Network Partnerships

New partnerships helped expand the use of payments on BNB Chain. Better Payment Network added support for multiple stablecoins to settle cross-border transfers on-chain. Later, AWS customers were allowed to pay for services using BNB through that system.

United Stables also launched a new stablecoin, $U, on December 18. It allows users to mint the token using Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), and USD1 as collateral.

Further, BNB Chain rolled out several upgrades in 2025, including Pascal, Lorentz, Maxwell, and the ongoing Fermi hardfork. These updates made the network faster and cheaper. Block times dropped from 3 seconds to 0.45 seconds, and transaction finality improved to 1.1 seconds.

Image Source: Messeri

Network capacity more than doubled to 133 million gas per second. Gas fees also fell sharply, from 1 gwei to 0.05 gwei. The protocol’s plans for 2026 focus on high-performance trading and stability.

Target throughput stands at about 20,000 transactions per second with sub-second finality. The team also plans to integrate off-chain computing with on-chain verification to process more transactions without degrading performance. In the long term, BNB Chain is developing a trading-focused chain designed for near-instant confirmation.

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