Author: Dune
Compiled by: Felix, PANews
This article is an expanded analysis based on the speech by Fredrik Haga, co-founder and CEO of Dune, at EthCC 2026. Details below.
The scale of tokenized RWAs has reached $27 billion. However, only about $2.7 billion is actively deposited in decentralized lending markets: as collateral, in vaults, or for yield strategies. This article explores the distribution of these funds, the driving forces behind them, and what this portends for the future.
From Regulatory Clarity to Composable Capital
Three regulatory milestones in late 2025 and early 2026 accelerated the tokenization process. In July 2025, the GENIUS Act established the first comprehensive framework for payment stablecoins in the United States, requiring 1:1 asset backing and clear regulation. In March 2026, the U.S. SEC and CFTC jointly classified major blockchain tokens as digital commodities rather than securities. Days later, the SEC approved Nasdaq to trade and settle tokenized stocks and ETFs on its main market.
These milestones further propelled the tokenization process. The total supply of stablecoins, serving as the settlement layer for tokenized assets, surpassed $330 billion, growing 12-fold since 2020. During the same period, the number of active stablecoins increased from 31 to 215. Tokenized RWAs showed a similar trajectory, with their Assets Under Management (AUM) growing 27-fold in two years to approximately $27 billion, expanding from a few initial categories to the seven categories tracked in the dashboard (including reinsurance and stocks).
Beyond the impressive AUM figures, a more meaningful question is: how much of this capital is actually being used in the DeFi space. Currently, about $2.7 billion worth of RWA tokens are actively deposited in DeFi lending markets, accounting for roughly 10% of the $27 billion tokenized AUM. A year ago, this 10% share was almost non-existent. Composability is arguably the most promising advantage of tokenization. That is, the ability for tokenized assets to serve as collateral, be used for lending, and be utilized in various yield strategies across different protocols and chains.
Note: The RWA tokens counted are limited to collateral and vault supplies. Data as of April 16, 2026.
Where is the ~$2.7 Billion Deposited?
The funds are distributed across four main platforms on Ethereum, Solana, and multiple L2s:
- Morpho ($957 million): Permissionless, listing 41 RWA assets across 10 chains. Professional curators like Gauntlet and Steakhouse manage vaults, allocating funds to these markets and building structured leverage strategies on top of tokenized RWAs.
- Aave ($929 million): Maple's syrup tokens are deposited on Plasma, Base, and Ethereum. Institutional credit flows permissionlessly to where the economics of borrowing are best.
- Kamino ($587 million): The largest lending protocol and RWA platform on Solana. This includes $315 million for PRIME (HELOC lending yield), $161 million for syrupUSDC, $71 million for ONyc (reinsurance), $18 million for USCC, plus xStocks markets (covering seven tokenized stocks totaling $21 million).
- Aave Horizon ($161 million): Aave's permissioned, institutionally-oriented RWA market. There are 256 addresses with an average holding of $1.5 million. This includes $105 million in USCC, $46 million in USTB, $7 million in VBILL, and $3 million in JAAA. The total active borrowing in stablecoins is $124 million, with a utilization rate of 77%.
- Fluid ($109 million): $94 million in reUSD (reinsurance), $12 million in gold, $2 million in syrup. Notably, it supports using Re Protocol's reUSD as collateral, which is not offered by other platforms.
Tokenized Assets vs. Actively Used Assets Are Not Aligned
There is a significant discrepancy between the assets dominating tokenized AUM and those actually deposited as collateral in lending protocols. These two leaderboards are almost completely inverted.
Source: Dune
U.S. Treasuries account for 48.5% of tokenized AUM ($13.2 billion) but only 2% of DeFi deposits. Credit assets account for 17% of AUM but dominate deposits at around 80%. Commodities account for 25.2% of AUM but constitute almost less than 1% of DeFi deposits.
Credit assets dominate due to their profit model. Maple's syrupUSDC yields about 6%, while Treasury Bills (T-Bills) yield about 3.5%. When your collateral earns 6% and you can borrow stablecoins at 3%, you achieve positive carry. Curators like Gauntlet build explicit looping strategies on top of this: deposit RWA as collateral, borrow against it, and buy more. This is designed and risk-controlled leverage. This also explains why credit assets appear on every major lending platform: $957 million on Morpho, $929 million on Aave, $476 million on Kamino.
Source: Dune
Reinsurance is emerging as a genuinely new, composable asset class. Re Protocol's reUSD appears on multiple platforms: $96 million on Morpho (including $50 million in Pendle PT-reUSD), $94 million on Fluid, while OnRe's ONyc occupies $71 million on Kamino. Overall, tokenized reinsurance AUM is $324 million (1.2% of total), with DeFi deposits around $261 million (10% of total), meaning about 80% of tokenized reinsurance capital is active in lending protocols, a much higher deposit ratio than any other asset class.
Tokenized stocks are also appearing in DeFi: SPYx ($7.9 million on Morpho), xStocks on Kamino (covering SPYx, TSLAx, QQQx, NVDAx, GOOGLx, MSTRx, AAPLx totaling $21 million), and deSPXA ($3.6 million). While the amounts are smaller, the infrastructure is live, and borrowing activity against stock collateral is happening.
This discrepancy is instructive. Tokenization prioritizes safety and familiarity. U.S. Treasuries are easy to understand, regulate, offer transparency (frequent NAV updates and easy oracle pricing), and are highly attractive to institutional balance sheets. Composability, however, values different things: yield differentials and leverage economics.
Collateral Composition is Evolving in Real-Time
The dominance of high-yield credit might be partly a function of timing. Aave Horizon provides the clearest evidence.
When Horizon launched in August 2025, Superstate's USCC, a crypto arbitrage fund, offered ~15% APY through basis trading on crypto futures. This yield led it to constitute 93% of all RWA collateral. Treasury products were also listed but saw no uptake.
Since then, as the basis narrowed, USCC's yield compressed to ~4%, converging with the 3-4% yield of Treasuries. The result: USCC's collateral share dropped from 93% to about 67%, while USTB surged 570% in 30 days from under $1 million to $45.6 million. As yield differentials narrow, the market is diversifying.
Source: Dune
This is significant not just for Horizon. If credit yields compress across the market (as often happens in mature markets), the collateral composition across all platforms could become more diverse. The assets that dominated the first wave (high-yield credit) might not dominate the next. Risk appetite, regulatory environment, and settlement mechanics will start to matter more.
Pendle adds another dimension to this evolution. Its Principal Tokens (PTs) account for $58 million in deposits on Morpho (allowing users to lock in fixed yields from RWA products). Pendle also directly offers RWA markets for thBILL and mTBILL, bringing yield curve trading into the composability stack. As more RWA products list on Pendle, fixed-rate strategies will become another channel for RWA distribution.
Permissionless Access Drives Distribution
Maple Syrup is the clearest case. syrupUSDC and syrupUSDT are permissionless ERC-20 tokens. Technically, they are hybrids between stablecoins and RWAs, as they are pegged 1:1 to USDC/USDT but earn yield from institutional credit. They are classified as RWAs because the underlying exposure is real-world lending. Anyone can mint, trade, or deposit them into any lending protocol. No KYC, no whitelists, no partnership required.
The result: 98% of syrupUSDT on Plasma and 99% of syrupUSDC on Base are actively deployed on Aave. Curators like Gauntlet on Morpho independently built leveraged vaults around Syrup without coordinating with Maple. syrupUSDC also reached $161 million on Kamino (Solana).
Source: Dune
Each integration adds utility, utility attracts capital, and capital drives more integrations. It is this flywheel effect that has led to $929 million being organically distributed across three chains.
This is crucial because distribution is recognized as the industry's biggest challenge. Centrifuge's "Tokenization Outlook 2026" report noted that 86% of operators said scaling distribution for existing products is more important than launching new ones. The Maple case on Aave shows that permissionless composability is itself a distribution channel.
$1.85 Billion Tokenized, Only $13 Million Composable
Centrifuge's report highlights both the opportunity and the gap for RWAs. It is one of the largest tokenization platforms, with institutional product AUM exceeding $1.85 billion: JTRSY (US Treasury tokenized fund) at $1.52 billion, JAAA (AAA-rated CLO tokenized fund) at $403 million, ACRDX (Apollo Diversified Credit Fund) at $52 million, and the recently launched SPXA (first S&P 500 index tokenized fund) at $3.7 million. However, only about $13 million of this is composable in DeFi: primarily through deRWA wrapper tokens and JAAA on Horizon.
Source: Dune
This gap ultimately comes down to timing and design. The deRWA wrappers only launched in September 2025. The permissioned design slowed integration, and liquidity was thin.
But integration is accelerating. Resolv committed $100 million to JAAA on Horizon. Falcon Finance added JAAA and JTRSY as collateral for USDf. Grove is deploying $250 million on Avalanche. LayerZero enables distribution across 165+ networks. And deSPXA (the DeFi wrapper version of Centrifuge's S&P 500 fund) has reached a total TVL of $3.6 million and DEX trading volume of $7.9 million, showing early organic activity and the potential of the deRWA model: permissionless wrapper tokens operating in parallel with permissioned institutional products.
Three Key Takeaways
Growth rate is more important than current size. There is $2.7 billion in RWA deposits across major DeFi lending markets, about 10% of the $27 billion tokenized AUM. But this $2.7 billion barely existed a year ago. The absolute numbers are still small, but the growth rate is what truly matters.
Tokenized assets are not the same as actively used assets. Treasuries account for 48.5% of tokenized AUM but only 2% of DeFi deposits. Credit accounts for 17% of AUM but 80% of deposits. Higher yields enable positive carry, which supports leverage loops. Credit yields above 6% work; Treasury yields at 3.5% do not. But as the macro environment changes and yield differentials shift across asset classes, collateral composition will adjust, accommodating different assets and emerging categories like reinsurance.
Permissionless access drives distribution. Maple's syrup tokens (hybrids between RWAs and stablecoins) reached over $1 billion across Aave and Kamino on four chains. The token was designed to be composable, so the market composited it. Assets that are easy to onboard get adopted more easily. Assets requiring whitelists are catching up but are moving much slower.
Related reading: On-chain is not liquidity: RWA still needs the final leap
