Real-World Assets outperform the AI sector in the crypto market over the past month

Real-World Assets (RWAs) outperformed the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector in the crypto market over the past month, with a weighted average gain of 15.6% in January. On-chain data shows that the total market capitalization of RWAs grew by $3.77 billion, while the AI sector decreased by $14.44 billion in the same period. Artemis terminal data shows that MANTRA and Ondo were the top-performing RWAs. 

Real-World Assets take the lead in the market 

According to Artemis Terminal sector performance data, as shown below, the Real-World Asset has the highest weighted average of 15.6% in January, outperforming the other sectors. The store of value segment was the second on the list, with 2.3%, while others were mostly negative during the period.

Sector Performance (January month) chart. Source: Artemis Terminal

Looking down on market capitalization, data from CryptoSlate shows that RWA’s market capitalization grew to $53.03 billion from $49.26 billion, a net gain of $3.77 billion over a month. Additionally, sector dominance increased to 1.48% from 1.46%.

RWA sector information chart. Source: CryptoSlate

However, during the same period, the AI sector market capitalization dropped to $22.55 billion from $36.99 billion, a net loss of $14.44 billion. 

AI sector information chart. Source: CryptoSlate

This decrease in the AI sector was mostly due to China’s DeepSeek, a newly launched AI chatbot and potential rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which caught users’ attention one week after the release of its open-source language model, R1, on January 20. The Chinese LLM potentially threatens US equity markets by disrupting US Artificial Intelligence (AI) dominance with its cost efficiency and groundbreaking open-source technology.

As the RWA narrative leads the crypto space, Artemis terminal data shows MANTRA and Ondo were the top-performing RWAs.

RWA best performance chart. Source: Token Terminal