Beyond real estate and Treasuries, three more asset classes make up the bulk of the RWA market: tokenized funds, tokenized private credit, and tokenized commodities. A tokenized fund wraps a professionally managed portfolio - a money fund, a credit fund - as tokens. Tokenized private credit is on-chain lending to businesses, offering higher yield for higher risk. Tokenized commodities put physical assets like gold on-chain. Each serves a different goal, and their risk profiles are very different - which is the whole point of knowing them as separate categories.

Key takeaways

• Tokenized funds give you a managed portfolio in token form, with value tracked by net asset value - the easiest step up from a single asset.
• Tokenized private credit offers the highest yield of the three, but carries real default risk and is usually for advanced or accredited investors.
• Tokenized commodities (mostly gold) are an inflation hedge, not an income play - they pay no yield and track the metal's price.
• Most of these are security tokens, except bare commodity claims, so eligibility and resale rules usually apply.

Tokenized funds

A tokenized fund is a managed pool - money-market, credit, or diversified - whose shares are issued as tokens. You get professional management and diversification in one holding, with your stake valued by the fund's net asset value rather than a single asset's price.

This is the natural next step for an investor who has bought a single tokenized property or Treasury and wants a managed, diversified option. The most common entry point is a tokenized money-market fund, which we cover next - the familiar names are BlackRock's BUIDL (issued via Securitize), Franklin Templeton's BENJI, and Ondo's OUSG. One structural detail to know up front: fund tokens are priced and redeemed at NAV on the issuer's schedule, which for most funds means daily, but redemptions can settle a day or two later rather than instantly, so a fund token is not the same as spendable cash.

Tokenized private credit

Tokenized private credit is lending to businesses, packaged on-chain, where your return comes from the interest borrowers pay.

It is the highest-yielding of the three categories - often well above Treasuries - precisely because it carries real counterparty risk: borrowers can default, and in a downturn several can default at once. The platforms to know are Centrifuge, Maple, and Goldfinch; through 2025 private credit was the largest single non-stablecoin RWA category, in the mid-teens of billions of dollars by rwa.xyz's count. Pool yields commonly ran 8-12%, with senior tranches lower and junior tranches higher. The number that gets glossed over is the default rate: reported on-chain defaults have been low, but the lending is young and has mostly run in benign conditions, defaults tend to cluster rather than arrive evenly, and tokenizing a loan does nothing to improve recovery when a borrower fails. It suits advanced investors who can assess credit quality and absorb losses, and is frequently limited to accredited investors. The yield is attractive; the risk is genuine, and the two are inseparable.

Tokenized commodities

Tokenized commodities represent a physical asset - overwhelmingly gold - held in a vault, with each token backed by a defined quantity. The two that dominate are Paxos's PAX Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT), each token redeemable for roughly one fine troy ounce of allocated gold. They pay no income; your return is purely the change in the commodity's price. The appeal is a hedge: an on-chain store of value that moves independently of stocks and bonds, useful against inflation or market stress.

Because a bare commodity claim is not an investment in someone else's efforts, some tokenized commodities are treated differently from securities - though the classification is fact-dependent and evolving.

How to choose among them

Match the category to your goal. Want a managed, diversified holding? A tokenized fund. Want maximum yield and can handle default risk? Private credit, carefully and in moderation. Want a hedge rather than income? Tokenized gold. Many investors use these to complement a core of Treasuries and real estate rather than as a foundation. Whatever you pick, the usual RWA discipline applies: verify the backing, understand the structure, and size the riskier categories smaller.

Where to go next

• Next: what are tokenized money market funds?
• The whole landscape: the RWA market map.
• Glossary: tokenized fund.

Sources: rwa.xyz; U.S. SEC (sec.gov), as of 2026.