Tokenized real-world assets are moving from niche experiment to serious DeFi collateral. CoinShares says RWA-linked deposits more than tripled from $2.3 billion in Q2 2025 to $7.4 billion in Q2 2026, even as total DeFi deposits fell about 15%.
- RWAs are growing while broader DeFi cools
- Ethereum still dominates, with almost 70% of measured RWA deposits
- Spot, lending, and perps are all being pulled into tokenized finance
- Concentration is still the catch, a few assets and venues do most of the heavy lifting
That split matters. CoinShares’ Aug. 6 Hybrid Finance report, produced with Token Terminal, shows tokenized Treasuries, stocks, gold, private credit, and other off-chain assets being used as collateral, traded on DEXs, and in some cases wrapped into perpetual futures markets. CoinShares CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti put the thesis bluntly:
“finance is not being disrupted but rewired”
That is a good line because it fits the data. The old system is not being blown up in one dramatic moment. It is being ported, asset by asset, onto blockchain rails. Less revolution poster, more plumbing job. But plumbing is what keeps the whole machine moving.
RWAs kept gaining ground while DeFi cooled off
CoinShares says tokenized real-world asset deposits rose from $2.3 billion in Q2 2025 to $7.4 billion in Q2 2026. Over the same period, total DeFi deposits fell roughly 15%.
That divergence is the point. Broader crypto-native activity softened, but RWA usage kept expanding. CoinShares also says RWA spot trading rose roughly 220% year over year, even as aggregate DEX trading volume fell about 70% year over year. Those figures are measuring different slices of the market: one is the RWA segment, the other is the wider DEX universe.
In plain English, tokenized finance was not just riding the same wave as the rest of crypto. It was drawing its own flows.
The appeal is easy to understand. Tokenized funds, stocks, commodities, and credit products can be held as collateral, traded, or used in borrowing strategies while still generating yield in some cases. That turns an asset from something passive into something that can do work on-chain.
Ethereum still owns the center of the map
CoinShares says Ethereum accounted for almost 70% of measured RWA deposits. That is no surprise. Ethereum remains the default settlement layer for DeFi and tokenization, and it has years of liquidity, integrations, and user habits behind it.
Plasma ranked second in measured RWA deposits, while Solana also captured a smaller share with support from Kamino, a Solana-based DeFi platform. The report excludes some networks, including Canton and Provenance, from its main analysis, so the full market is broader than the measured set.
Still, the shape of the market is clear enough: Ethereum is still the main home for tokenized finance, but it is no longer the only game in town.
What is driving the demand?
A lot of it comes down to yield and utility. CoinShares says tokenized Treasury and multi-strategy products were major contributors to RWA collateral, including JTRSY, BlackRock’s BUIDL, and sUSDS. Private-credit products such as JAAA, syrupUSDT, syrupUSDC, and PRIME also showed up prominently, along with sUSDe, a delta-neutral product designed to reduce directional market exposure.
That mix says a lot. The growth is not just about people getting excited over “tokenization” as a buzzword. It is about assets that can earn income, sit in a DeFi protocol, and still be used as borrowing collateral. That is useful. It is also exactly the kind of setup that can become a leverage magnet if risk gets sloppy.
CoinShares says yield-bearing collateral was concentrated on Aave, Morpho, and Kamino. Aave is the old guard here. Morpho stands out because it lacks a protocol-level take rate, meaning it does not directly capture fees the same way some venues do. Kamino helps explain why Solana has a foothold in the RWA trade.
The real pitch is simple: keep earning while your asset is posted as collateral. Efficient? Yes. Risk-free? Not remotely. Finance has a long history of turning “efficient” into “oops” once people get too comfortable with leverage.
Gold and funds led the spot side
CoinShares says tokenized gold and funds generated much of the spot activity, with XAUT and PAXG identified as major contributors. That makes sense. Gold is a familiar hedge, and tokenized versions make it easier to move, trade, and plug into DeFi.
The spot side of RWAs was also growing fast. CoinShares says RWA spot trading rose roughly 220% year over year. That is a strong signal that the market is not limited to lending or passive holding. People are actively trading these instruments.
Tokenized equities are becoming more important too. CoinShares says tokenized stocks were taking a larger share by the end of the measurement period and recorded the fastest holder growth among the RWA categories studied. It put tokenized-stock value at roughly $2.2 billion during its measurement period.
Tokenized stocks are starting to matter
More recent data suggests the equity side of tokenization kept building after CoinShares’ measurement window. On Sept. 8, Token Terminal measured tokenized stocks at $3.19 billion in market capitalization, with 6.3% deposited in DeFi and $9.70 billion traded on DEXs over the prior 30 days.
By Sept. 22, CryptoRank said tokenized stock market cap had reached $3.5 billion. It reported BNB Chain at about $1 billion, followed by Ethereum and Solana, with those three networks accounting for around 70% of the measured tokenized-equity market.
On Base, tokenized stock DEX volume later reached $730.9 million over 30 days, with daily activity touching $100 million. That is meaningful traction, even if it is still tiny next to traditional equity markets. Tokenized stocks are not replacing public markets. They are trying to make them more accessible, more programmable, and easier to use inside crypto-native systems.
The real question is whether that flow becomes sticky or stays a clever trading niche. Liquidity matters. Without it, tokenized equities are just wrapped exposure with a fancy interface.
Perpetuals are where the leverage gets loud
CoinShares also tracked RWA perpetual futures, derivatives with no expiry date, widely used in crypto because traders enjoy leverage almost as much as they enjoy pretending they do not.
The report says TradeXYZ RWA perpetual volume increased roughly 20 times from launch, while crypto-native perpetual activity weakened after October 2025. Commodities, equity indexes, and technology stocks made up much of the derivatives volume. Oil and precious metals saw heavy turnover, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 contracts gave traders index exposure.
Semiconductor stocks were another active segment, and SK Hynix became one of TradeXYZ’s larger markets after listing. That is a good reminder that on-chain derivatives tend to follow whatever can attract liquid speculation.
Independent data from the Hyperliquid Research Collective adds more context. It said TradeXYZ processed $202.36 billion in Q2, up 79.2% quarter over quarter, and that equity perpetual volume rose 377% to $58.9 billion.
Broader market data points in the same direction. On Sept. 22, CryptoRank said perpetual DEX open interest reached $19 billion, with RWA contracts accounting for roughly 24% of total open interest, up from around 6% at the start of 2026. It also said the number of RWA markets across perpetual DEXs passed 1, 000.
Then, on Sept. 24, CryptoRank reported RWA perpetual DEX trading volume for Q3 at $365 billion, up 32% quarter over quarter. Public equities made up about $175 billion of that total, or close to 48%.
That is enough scale to take seriously. It is still a narrow slice of global derivatives activity, but it is no longer some side project for degens with too much caffeine and not enough impulse control.
Who is actually using these products?
CoinShares tried to separate institutional-style usage from more retail-style participation, and the contrast is useful. It found that institutional products such as BlackRock’s BUIDL had average wallet balances in the tens of millions of dollars, while xStocks balances were much smaller and more consistent with retail activity.
That said, CoinShares also cautioned that one wallet does not necessarily equal one investor. That caveat matters. On-chain data is valuable, but it is not mind reading. A wallet can represent one person, a fund, a smart contract, or a bundle of users.
Even with that limitation, the pattern is hard to miss. Some RWA products are pulling in institutional-sized balances, while others appear to be drawing smaller, more retail-like positions. That split could become one of the defining features of the category.
Revenue is still concentrated
CoinShares also looked at application revenue across lending and trading venues, and the picture was less impressive than the growth in deposits and trading.
Revenue declined between Q2 2025 and Q2 2026 across the venues it tracked. Hyperliquid generated the most application revenue, helped by derivatives trading activity and by operating both the exchange and the underlying settlement infrastructure.
Morpho ranked as the second-largest lending platform in the comparison, but CoinShares noted that it lacks a protocol-level take rate. That limits how much direct revenue it can capture, even if usage is strong.
Trading venues including Hyperliquid, Uniswap, and Aerodrome had the highest revenue multiples in the report’s valuation comparison. The market is still rewarding venues that can catch flow and monetize it. A lot of the rest of DeFi is busy proving it can survive, let alone compound value.
What the numbers really say
The bullish case is straightforward. RWAs are not just a headline category anymore. They are showing real usage in lending, spot trading, and derivatives, and they are pulling in both institutional and retail-style capital. That is a legitimate sign that blockchain rails can support more than speculative churn.
The skeptical case is just as straightforward. A lot of the growth is concentrated in a few assets, protocols, and chains. Some of it is yield chasing. Some of it is just venue rotation. And some of the tokenized-equity growth may still be more wallet noise than durable end-user adoption.
Both readings can be true at once. RWAs are one of the more credible use cases in crypto, but credibility is not the same as inevitability. The category still has to prove it can be sticky, liquid, and resilient when the market stops rewarding novelty.
For Bitcoin holders, none of this changes what BTC does best: hard monetary settlement, censorship resistance, and being the asset that does not need to cosplay as a bank, a brokerage, and a derivatives desk all at once. Tokenized finance serves different needs. Ethereum, Solana, and the newer RWA venues have room to matter precisely because Bitcoin should not try to be everything.
That is the useful part of this shift. The market is not asking blockchain to replace finance with a slogan. It is asking whether blockchains can make parts of finance faster, more open, and less dependent on the old gatekeepers. On the evidence so far, that question is no longer theoretical.
Key takeaways
-
Are RWAs actually growing?
Yes. CoinShares says RWA deposits rose from $2.3 billion in Q2 2025 to $7.4 billion in Q2 2026, even as total DeFi deposits fell about 15%. -
Which chain is leading tokenized finance?
Ethereum remains the clear leader in CoinShares’ measurements, with almost 70% of measured RWA deposits. But Plasma, Solana, and newer venues are taking share. -
What is driving the trend?
Tokenized Treasuries, gold, private credit, and tokenized equities are doing most of the work. Many of these assets appeal because they can earn yield and also serve as collateral. -
Is this mostly institutional or retail activity?
It looks like both. CoinShares found BUIDL balances in the tens of millions of dollars, while xStocks activity looked much more retail-like. Wallet data is only a proxy, though, not a perfect census. -
What is the biggest risk?
Concentration. The category still depends heavily on a small number of assets, venues, and chains, which leaves it exposed to liquidity shocks, regulatory pressure, and simple market rotation.
CoinShares report shows RWA deposits tripling to $7.4B is a reminder that the category is getting real attention, while Ethereum and Solana Fuel $18.6B Real-World Asset activity shows how much of that momentum is tied to a handful of major chains. A separate look at Citigroup Sees Tokenized Real-World Assets Hitting $8.2T by underscores just how ambitious the long-term forecasts have become. eToro’s Blockchain Bet: Custom Chain and Tokenized Stocks also shows that TradFi players are not sitting this one out.
RWAs are no longer a polite theory about the future of finance. They are already being used as collateral, traded on-chain, and leveraged in derivatives markets. That does not make every product sound, necessary, or sane. It does mean the category has earned a real test, and the next phase will be about utility, liquidity, and staying power, not slogans.
