From April to June 2026, the volume of Real-World Assets (RWAs) on lending platforms and decentralized exchanges reached $7.4 billion, compared to $2.3 billion a year earlier. This is stated in a joint report by CoinShares and Token Terminal.
Over the past 365 days, real-world assets (RWAs) have moved beyond tokenisation into increasingly active onchain markets.
— CoinShares (@CoinSharesCo) August 6, 2026
Together with @tokenterminal, we look at the growth of Hybrid Finance across deposits, trading and derivatives, and what could define its next phase.... pic.twitter.com/D8kEvM1A6j
Over the same period, the total volume of deposits in DeFi decreased by approximately 15%. CoinShares CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti stated that this divergence indicates demand related to the financial utility of assets, not just the market cycle.
The calculations are based on Token Terminal data primarily covering the period from Q2 2025 to Q2 2026. The latest values on the charts are as of July 20.
Income-generating assets became the main collateral
By the end of Q2, RWAs accounted for about 6% of all deposits in DeFi. A year earlier, their share was approximately 1.7%.
The main contributors were tokenized treasury and investment funds JTRSY and BUIDL, the income-generating token sUSDS, private lending products JAAA, syrupUSDT, syrupUSDC and PRIME, as well as the delta-neutral strategy sUSDe.
The authors explained the demand by the ability to generate income from an asset even after it is used as collateral. This reduces opportunity costs compared to non-yielding collateral.
Nearly 70% of RWA deposits are on lending platforms in Ethereum. Plasma ranks second thanks to Aave deployment, while growth in Solana is attributed by the authors to the Kamino protocol.
The report's methodology uses an expanded sample. In addition to tokenized funds, stocks, and commodities, it includes yield-bearing "stablecoins" and strategies whose returns depend on the cryptocurrency market.
This means that the growth to $7.4 billion cannot be fully attributed to the transfer of traditional financial instruments to the blockchain. Part of the figure was driven by products created within the crypto industry.
RWA spot trading grew by 220%
The volume of RWA spot trading on decentralized exchanges increased by approximately 220% year-over-year. The total turnover of spot DEXes over the same period decreased by approximately 70%.
The growth occurred from a small base. According to the report's chart, in Q2 2026, RWA trading volume was about $6.3 billion, or less than 2% of the total spot DEX turnover.
The main activity was in tokenized gold XAUT and PAXG, as well as the income-generating token sUSDe. The share of tokenized stocks began to increase but remained below the figures for funds and commodities.
The majority of spot transactions are concentrated on Ethereum and Solana. Arbitrum, BNB Chain, and Base have not yet formed comparable trading volumes.
Activity grew faster in the perpetual futures market. According to the report, in Q2, the turnover of such contracts on traditional assets exceeded $200 billion, approaching 32% of the total volume.
Trading volume on the RWA platform tradeXYZ in the Hyperliquid ecosystem increased approximately 20-fold since its launch. The most in-demand underlying assets were oil, precious metals, stock indices, as well as shares of technology and semiconductor companies.
Growth has not yet changed DeFi economics
Revenues from lending and trading DeFi applications decreased between Q2 2025 and the same period in 2026. The growth in RWA transactions has not yet offset the decline in cryptocurrency trading and lending.
Hyperliquid remained the largest by revenue among the considered applications. The authors attributed its position to high trading activity and the fact that the platform generates revenue both from the exchange and its own settlement infrastructure.
The yields of the considered products ranged from approximately 3.2% to 5.5%. The lower part was occupied by tokenized treasury funds, while higher rates were offered by private lending, on-chain loans, and funding rate strategies.
The authors assessed the audience type by average wallet balance. Holders of the institutional fund BUIDL have balances measured in tens of millions of dollars, while owners of tokenized stocks xStocks hold significantly smaller amounts.
One wallet does not necessarily correspond to one investor. An address may belong to an exchange, a custodian, a smart contract, or one owner of multiple wallets, so this metric can only be used as an approximate guide.
According to CoinShares' estimate, the market capitalization of tokenized stocks reached approximately $2.2 billion against a global stock market capitalization of over $100 trillion. Analysts compared the current stage of the segment to stablecoins in 2019.
Recall that in July, RWAs accounted for more than half of the weekly trading volume on Hyperliquid for the first time. Over seven days, the turnover of such instruments reached $25.1 billion.
Earlier, Bernstein analysts concluded that the total value of tokenized assets has increased by 40% since the beginning of the year, reaching $51 billion.
Tokens and Tanks
