Tokenized Real-World Assets Hit $25 Billion, Nearly Quadrupling in a Year

Tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) have surpassed $25 billion in onchain value, up from approximately $6.4 billion a year ago, according to data from RWA.xyz.

The milestone marks a shift from early experimentation toward institutional-scale deployment. Six tokenized asset categories have now crossed the $1 billion threshold: U.S. Treasuries, commodities, private credit, institutional alternative funds, corporate bonds, and non-U.S. government debt.

RWA.xyz data shows private credit and tokenized gold dominating the top of the leaderboard:

BlackRock's BUIDL fund has grown 23.5% in the past 30 days alone, now deployed across eight networks including Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, and Aptos. Franklin Templeton's BENJI fund spans nine networks.

The number of tokenized U.S. Treasury offerings has expanded from 35 to over 50 in the past year, according to data compiled by Nexus Data Labs.

Issuance Outpaces Integration

Despite the growth in supply, most tokenized assets remain isolated from decentralized finance.

Nexus Data Labs estimates that roughly $8.49 billion in RWA-backed stablecoin supply exists, but only about $1 billion — or 11.8% — is currently deployed in DeFi protocols.

The remaining 88% sits outside onchain lending and trading systems, largely because the underlying assets impose compliance requirements including KYC checks, transfer restrictions, and whitelisting. Permissionless RWA tokens, by contrast, show utilization rates above 96%.

A February 2026 survey from tokenization platform Brickken reinforced the point: 53.8% of tokenized asset issuers said capital formation and fundraising efficiency are their primary motivation, while just 15.4% cited liquidity.

Commodities Surge on Geopolitical Risk

Tokenized commodities have seen notable inflows amid the Iran conflict and surging oil prices. Tether Gold fell 3.8% over seven days but rose 12.2% over 30 days, while Paxos Gold gained nearly 13% monthly. Justoken's tokenized oil product (JSOY_OIL) jumped 20% in the past month as Brent crude crossed $100 per barrel.

The Integration Question

Some projections place the tokenized asset market above $400 billion by year-end. Whether those assets remain siloed in permissioned structures — or begin integrating with the composable collateral, lending, and trading systems that define DeFi — will likely determine whether tokenization evolves as a parallel settlement layer for traditional finance or becomes something structurally different.

As one analyst noted: "Composability is the next unlock for RWA."