Deposits of tokenized real-world assets across decentralized finance more than tripled to $7.4 billion over the past year, even as total funding in the sector declined. According to CoinShares' latest report with Token Terminal, this divergence signals that tokenized assets are now growing on utility rather than by crypto market cycles. The report covers on-chain activity from the second quarter of 2025 through the second quarter of 2026, showing that RWA deposits climbed from $2.3 billion to $7.4 billion year-on-year. As reported by CoinShares, RWAs are increasingly used as collateral for loans, as yield-generating instruments, and as products for onchain trading, indicating institutional adoption and maturation of crypto DeFi. The growth represents a structural shift from experimental use to practical financial utility, with around $2.2 billion of the global equity market being tokenized, comparable to stablecoins in 2019.
Total DeFi deposits moved in the opposite direction, falling roughly 15% as investors withdrew capital and token prices dropped. The trading patterns reflected this divergence, with crypto-native spot volumes on decentralized exchanges dropping about 70% over the year. In contrast, RWA spot trading rose roughly 220% across the same window, despite the broader decline. Tokenized Treasury and multi-strategy funds, including JTRSY, BUIDL, and sUSDS, drove most of the growth, with Sky Protocol's sUSDS noted as the category leader in Q2 2026. The fact that RWA deposits grew while the overall market contracted suggests that demand is not driven by speculative cycles but by genuine financial utility. Yields across RWA products currently span roughly 3.2% to 5.5%, with the lower end attributed to Treasury-linked products and higher yields associated with additional risks.
RWA perpetual futures trading has continued growing even as crypto-native derivatives overall have slowed, demonstrating the sector's maturation into leveraged markets. A key example is tradeXYZ, an RWA-focused perpetual futures platform built on Hyperliquid, where trading volume has increased roughly 20 times since launch. Activity is concentrating around commodities and major equity indexes, including the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100, as well as technology stocks. This expansion into derivatives allows traders to take exposure without holding the underlying tokenized asset itself, potentially changing how RWAs are priced and hedged. The report notes that if liquidity deepens in futures and perpetual products, tokenized assets may become more integrated with broader trading and risk-management workflows, though settlement mechanics and market risk breakdowns were not provided.
Recent developments show growing international adoption of real-world asset tokenization, with Tether announcing a three-way collaboration to deploy its Hadron platform for institutional real estate assets in Saudi Arabia. The partnership involves First Advanced Data for Artificial Intelligence (First Data) and fintech group BKN301, targeting Saudi Arabia's real estate sector which has historically been one of the country's least liquid asset classes. As reported by Tether, the initiative aims to broaden participation in property ownership by lowering barriers to entry for both local and international investors. The collaboration aligns with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 modernization agenda, which includes a push toward blockchain-based and Sharia-compliant digital financial infrastructure. Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, stated that real-world asset tokenization will redefine the financial industry, making global assets more liquid, accessible, secure, and scalable.
