- Santiment lists Chainlink first in monthly RWA development activity while Avalanche and Stellar follow.
- IOTA rises as Axelar, Injective and Hedera slip, with Centrifuge rounding out the top ten.
On-chain analytics firm Santiment has identified Chainlink as the leading project in its latest monthly ranking of development activity among protocols linked to real world assets. Avalanche placed second and Stellar ranked third, based on measured changes in public code contributions across project repositories.
Santiment Lists Chainlink First in RWA Development Activity
The top ten list highlights a cross section of oracle networks, layer one chains and interoperability projects associated with tokenised assets and enterprise connectivity. Behind the leading trio, IOTA moved up the table.
Axelar slipped in the standings. Chia and VeChain posted upward moves. Injective and Hedera edged lower. Centrifuge completed the table in tenth place. The directional markers indicate month on month changes in position rather than absolute volumes of code.
🧑💻 Here are crypto's top Real World Assets (RWA's) by development. Directional indicators represent each project's ranking rise or fall since last month:
➡️ 1) @chainlink $LINK 🥇
➡️ 2) @avax $AVAX 🥈
➡️ 3) @stellarorg $XLM 🥉
📈 4) @iota $IOTA
📉 5) @axelar $AXL
📈 6)… pic.twitter.com/6vJNfhz6pv— Santiment (@santimentfeed) August 18, 2025
The ranking focuses on projects that intersect with the real world asset theme. In practice this includes infrastructure used to bridge external data into smart contracts, to settle tokenised obligations on public or permissioned chains, and to provide messaging and cross chain transfer for asset issuance and settlement.
Because the composition spans distinct architectures, market participants often use the table to compare relative engineering cadence within a single narrative rather than to draw conclusions about absolute throughput across unrelated codebases.
Methodology Aggregates Public GitHub Signals Across Core Repositories
Santiment compiles development metrics from public repositories that are associated with a project’s core codebase. The dataset counts activity such as commits, pull requests and code reviews, and filters for routine repository maintenance where possible.
The process aims to reduce the influence of forks or mirrored repositories that could otherwise inflate raw counts. The firm frames development activity as a forward looking indicator of sustained engineering resources and roadmap execution.
Development signals can diverge from price action. A project may record rising contribution trends while its token underperforms because release schedules or funding cycles are out of phase with trading flows.
Conversely, token appreciation does not imply elevated engineering throughput. For portfolio managers, the ranking is used alongside measures such as stablecoin flows, total value locked and validator participation to build a composite view of network health and commercial traction.
For protocols in the real world asset segment, persistent progress on core code supports integration work with custodians, market infrastructure providers and enterprise resource systems.
The latest table provides a monthly snapshot of how teams are advancing the software that underpins token issuance, data feeds and cross chain messaging.
Market participants will monitor subsequent updates to assess whether current leaders maintain momentum or whether newer entrants climb the list as repository activity evolves.
At the time of this update, Chainlink is trading at $24.41, reflecting a $0.09 decline (–0.37%) from its previous close.
