RWA deposits triple to $7.4 billion, CoinShares report shows DeFi bucked the trend amid downturn

Digital asset investment company CoinShares and data provider Token Terminal jointly released a report on August 6, pointing out that tokenized real-world assets are not only active at the issuance level, but have also been widely used in decentralized financial platforms. The report covers one-year chain activity data from the second quarter of 2025 to the second quarter of 2026, and tracks the actual deployment of tokenized funds, stocks and commodities in the lending, spot trading and perpetual contract markets.

Real-world asset stocks and spot trading volumes bucked the trend

In lending platforms and decentralized exchanges, total real-world asset (RWA) deposits increased from US$2.3 billion in the second quarter of 2025 to US$7.4 billion in the second quarter of 2026, an increase of more than tripled. At the same time, overall DeFi deposits fell by approximately 15% over the same period. CoinShares pointed out that this divergence suggests that RWA demand stems from financial practicality rather than the crypto market cycle, a trend the company calls "hybrid finance."

Among the US$7.4 billion deposits, the largest contributors were tokenized treasury bonds and multi-strategy funds (such as JTRSY and BlackRock's BUIDL products), followed by private credit products and Delta-neutral yield strategies. Investors prefer these assets as collateral because they continue to generate returns while supporting lending, reducing the opportunity cost of locking in funds.

Ethereum carries nearly 70% of RWA deposits and has become the main ecosystem of collateral on the chain. Plasma has emerged as the second-largest ecosystem as Aave expands beyond Ethereum, while Solana's growth is mainly due to the native lending platform Kamino. CoinShares attributes Ethereum's dominance to network effects-borrowers tend to choose highly liquid venues, and lenders follow demand for borrowing.

Ethereum remains the dominant blockchain for tokenized funds| Source: CoinShares

Spot trading model echoes lending data. Between the second quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, aggregate DEX spot trading volume fell by approximately 70%, while RWA spot trading volume increased by approximately 220% during the same period. Trading is concentrated on tokenized gold products, with XAUT and PAXG contributing significant trading volume, and investors adjusting their positions around fluctuations in gold prices. Tokenized stocks are also beginning to account for an increasing share of transactions. Ethereum and Solana dominate RWA spot trading, while Arbitrum, BNB Chain and Base have yet to form meaningful activities in this area.

Hyperliquid leads in agreement revenue and perpetual contract transaction volume

Perpetual contracts are the third largest use case reported. Although the overall chain perpetual contract market has declined since October 2025, RWA perpetual contracts continue to grow. TradeXYZ, the RWA trading platform built on Hyperliquid (HYPE), has increased its trading volume by approximately 20 times since its launch. Trading focuses on commodities such as oil and precious metals, stock indexes such as the S & P 500 and Nasdaq 100, and technology and semiconductor stocks.

The volume of open interest in RWA perpetual contracts also increased year-on-year, which contrasts with the overall decline in crypto-native derivatives. CoinShares pointed out that the continued growth in open interest volume reflects the sustained development of the market more than trading volume, because it represents long-term investment of capital rather than short-term trading activity.

In terms of agreement revenue, Hyperliquid generates more application revenue than any other lending or trading platform in the data set. The report also pointed out that Hyperliquid competes at both the application and settlement levels to capture value from exchanges and their underlying blockchain infrastructure. However, despite Hyperliquid's lead, RWA-related activity has not significantly changed the revenue trajectory of the entire industry, as the size of tokenized assets remains small relative to the crypto-native market.

Earnings data shows that tokenized assets currently yield returns roughly between 3.2% and 5.5%. Tokenized treasury bonds are at the low end, while private credit and funding rate strategies provide higher yields but come with different risk characteristics. CoinShares said this range shows that the market is moving beyond simple treasury bonds and diversifying.

The composition of investors varies significantly among different product types. The average wallet balance of institutional products such as BlackRock BUIDL reaches tens of millions of dollars. The average balance of tokenized stocks is much smaller, consistent with retail participation characteristics, and the number of chain holders has grown fastest over the past year. CoinShares compares the current state of tokenized stocks to stablecoins in 2019, pointing out that the global stock market exceeds US$100 trillion, and only approximately US$2.2 billion is currently tokenized.

Jean-Marie Mognetti, co-founder and CEO of CoinShares, wrote that the direction is "measurable, auditable and fully on-chain," while acknowledging that the market is still in its early stages. The company expects the next phase to depend on how tokenized assets are used rather than the number of issues, and will be characterized by the continued integration of a few leading platforms, an increasingly significant differentiation between investors in institutional and retail products, and product innovation that drives tokenized assets to expand into a broader risk and return range.