Trading in tokenized real-world assets expanded sharply over the past year even as broader decentralized finance activity weakened, according to data cited by CoinShares. From the second quarter of 2025 to the second quarter of 2026, RWA spot trading volumes rose about 220%, while deposits tied to those assets increased from $2.3 billion to $7.4 billion.
That growth came during a period when total DeFi deposits fell by roughly 15%, pointing to a shift in how capital is being used on-chain. The data suggest investors are increasingly treating tokenized assets not only as instruments to hold, but also as collateral, income-producing positions and trading products with uses beyond simple issuance.
Yield and collateral use are central to the shift
A major driver of the increase has been the spread of yield-bearing tokenized products across lending platforms and decentralized exchanges. Investors can post these assets as collateral while still collecting income, giving them a capital-efficiency benefit compared with passively holding a tokenized instrument.
CoinShares said products such as tokenized Treasury and multi-strategy vehicles, including JTRSY, BlackRock’s BUIDL and sUSDS, played a large role in collateral growth. Private-credit and delta-neutral products also added to demand, broadening the role of RWAs inside on-chain markets.
Yields in the market ranged from about 3.2% to 5.5%, offering different risk-and-return profiles. The overall pattern indicates that the sector’s growth is being tied to utility, especially borrowing and collateral management, rather than to issuance alone.
Ethereum lending venues dominate deposits
Nearly 70% of RWA deposits are held on Ethereum-based lending venues, according to the report. The concentration reflects deeper liquidity and the pull of established borrowing markets.
Platforms such as Aave, Morpho and Kamino were identified as beneficiaries of that structure. Ethereum’s network effects were also cited as a factor, linking lenders, borrowers and holders of tokenized assets in a market where liquidity depth matters.
The result is a divergence between the RWA segment and the wider DeFi market: while overall deposits have softened, tokenized assets have continued to attract funds into lending venues where they can be reused productively.
Trading activity is broadening beyond credit products
The expansion is not limited to lending. Spot activity remains concentrated in tokenized gold and fund products, with XAUT and PAXG generating significant trading volumes, but other categories are also gaining traction.
Tokenized equities are increasing their share of the market, while derivatives have opened another route for growth. CoinShares noted that volumes on TradeXYZ, an RWA-focused venue built on Hyperliquid, have risen roughly 20-fold since launch. Commodities, equity indexes and technology stocks account for much of that trading, offering access outside traditional exchange hours and to assets that otherwise trade in limited windows.
The user mix appears to be splitting by product type. Institutional capital remains concentrated in larger yield-bearing instruments, while tokenized equities have shown the fastest holder growth among the categories studied, aided by lower minimum investment sizes.
Sector scale and the next confirmed backdrop
Broader market data from RWA.xyz puts the sector at $38.30 billion in distributed assets, with 2.93 million holders and $353.11 billion in represented assets under its wider taxonomy. Those figures suggest that tokenized asset activity is extending well beyond a narrow set of pilot products.
The policy backdrop has also become somewhat clearer. In January 2026, SEC staff outlined structures for tokenized securities while reiterating that federal securities laws still apply. For now, the confirmed trend in the data is that RWAs are being traded, borrowed against and used for market exposure in ways that distinguish them from the rest of DeFi’s recent slowdown.
Source: Coin Edition