Tokenisation is expanding rapidly across financial markets. From stable

The State of RWAfi: Q1 2026

Tokenised treasuries, equities, and credit cross from pilot to institutional rails

This spotlight is part of a series of deep-dive previews produced ahead of the upcoming State of RWAfi report, developed in collaboration with DefiLlama. The full report delivers a comprehensive, data-led assessment of the real-world asset landscape across DeFi, covering tokenised equities, real estate, commodities, and the broader structural forces shaping the next phase of onchain capital markets. The State of RWAfi Q1 2025 report will be published in the first week of April 2026.

Real estate is the largest asset class in the world, valued at more than $380 trillion. Yet the way it is transacted remains largely analogue. Deals depend on paperwork, manual checks, government laws and many intermediaries and approvals.
Ownership is recorded in national land registries and validated through notarial systems. Each transfer passes through multiple layers of verification, which adds time and expense. Cross-border investment is even more complex. Every jurisdiction applies its own property law, tax rules, and compliance standards. Allocating capital internationally therefore requires legal structuring and specialised intermediaries.
Real estate is also difficult to divide. Fractional participation usually requires SPVs, trusts, or fund vehicles. These structures introduce governance layers and higher minimum investments, concentrating capital in institutional channels. Limited secondary markets further extend holding periods, as exiting a position can be slow and costly.
Tokenisation enters as an infrastructure upgrade.
The objective is not to replace property law, but to digitise elements of issuance, ownership tracking, income distribution, and transfer logic. If economic rights can be expressed in programmable form, settlement can accelerate, reporting can become more transparent, and fractional participation can scale more efficiently.
Market projections reflect this structural momentum. Deloitte estimates that several trillion dollars of real-world assets could be tokenised over the coming decade, with projected growth rates around 27% CAGR. Institutional surveys from EY and others reinforce this interest, with 49% of high-net-worth investors and 56% of institutional investors ranking real estate among their most attractive tokenised asset categories.
Looking at the present state, tokenised real estate is no longer theoretical. Pilot programmes, regulated offerings, and protocol-level initiatives are active across multiple jurisdictions. Combining data from DeFiLlama and RWA.xyz suggests a current onchain market size in the range of $500/600 million. The true figure is likely higher, given differences in classification, private placements, and limited public disclosure by certain issuers.
Tokenisation is not only about putting buildings on a blockchain but about restructuring how rights, capital, and administrative processes around real estate are coordinated. This article explores why real estate is moving onchain, how the technology enables it, and the four structural models through which tokenised real estate is implemented today.
Why move real estate onchain
Within this context, tokenisation addresses the structural frictions in how real estate is issued and managed. The core drivers are outlined below:
Transparency.
Onchain records provide timestamped transaction histories and distribution logs. While legal title remains in national registries, the operational layer becomes more traceable and standardised.
Capital efficiency.
Issuers can streamline fundraising and post-issuance servicing. Investors may benefit from simplified administration and potentially improved liquidity compared to traditional private placements.
Fractionalisation.
High property values create barriers to entry. Tokenisation divides economic interests into smaller units, lowering minimum tickets and expanding distribution beyond local or institutional investor bases.
Settlement efficiency and cost reduction.
For investment vehicles, smart contracts can automate yield distribution, bookkeeping, and ownership tracking. This reduces manual processing and reliance on multiple service providers. Compliance and legal layers still apply, but greater operational efficiency can improve margins, increase competitiveness, or generate savings at scale.
For public administration, integrating blockchain into registries and settlement workflows can reduce duplication, paperwork, and coordination between notaries, registrars, and government departments. While property law and oversight remain unchanged, operational processes can become faster and less resource-intensive.
Security and record integrity.
Distributed ledgers provide tamper-resistant records of issuance and transfers. While legal ownership remains anchored in national registries, the operational layer benefits from immutable audit trails. This reduces reconciliation disputes, improves data integrity, and strengthens trust between issuers, administrators, and investors.
Interoperability potential and DeFi Composability.
Once real estate exposure exists in a tokenised form, it can interact with digital financial infrastructure. Portfolio reporting, automated compliance systems, structured lending frameworks, and risk management tools can integrate more easily with standardised onchain representations. Even if full DeFi integration remains constrained by regulation, the technical foundation enables future interoperability.
How tokenised real estate works in practice
Unlike tokenised treasuries or stablecoins, real estate is anchored in territorial law. Property rights are jurisdiction-specific, non-fungible, and embedded in administrative systems. This makes real estate structurally harder to standardise across borders but not inherently complex from a technical perspective.
A property can be represented as an NFT when uniqueness matters, or as fungible tokens when fractional ownership or economic exposure is divided into standardised units. In many cases, the asset itself is not placed directly onchain. Instead, a tokenised SPV, fund unit, debt instrument, or ETF-like vehicle represents the economic rights linked to property held by a legal entity.
Transfer logic can be permissioned or open, depending on regulatory constraints. Compliance checks, wallet whitelisting, yield distribution rules, issuance caps, and transfer restrictions can all be embedded directly into the token contract.
The real technical challenge lies in coordinating onchain execution with offchain legal and economic reality. Three elements are critical:
Legal structuring.
Before any token is issued, a legal framework must define what it represents. It may correspond to equity in a property-holding entity, a debt claim, a revenue participation agreement, or another enforceable right. Without this mapping, the token has no economic meaning. Smart contracts express execution logic, but enforceability remains grounded in corporate and property law.
Asset verification and data inputs.
Real estate does not trade continuously on transparent markets. Valuations depend on appraisals, rental income, and regional benchmarks. Integrating these assets into digital systems requires trusted data sources. Reliable oracle infrastructure becomes essential, particularly when tokens interact with lending or collateral frameworks.
Custody and compliance infrastructure.
Investor onboarding typically involves KYC, AML, and jurisdictional eligibility checks. These processes often occur offchain but are enforced onchain through transfer restrictions or wallet whitelisting. The token reflects compliance constraints rather than bypassing them.
In practice, growth in tokenised real estate depends less on smart contract innovation and more on alignment between legal systems, financial intermediaries, regulators, and digital infrastructure. In other words, the limiting factor is the institutional integration and not blockchain capability.
The four models of tokenised real estate
Tokenised real estate is often discussed as a single concept. In reality, it operates through four distinct structural models, each representing a different way of expressing property rights or economic exposure onchain, often shaped by jurisdictional constraints.
Onchain representation of property data
The first model does not tokenise ownership at all. Instead, it places selected property data onchain while legal title remains fully governed by traditional land registries.
Blockchain is used to record elements such as ownership history, valuation updates, energy certificates, maintenance logs, or notarised documentation. The chain acts as an audit and coordination layer, improving transparency and tracking. The objective here is infrastructure modernisation rather than financial innovation.
Direct or fractionalised ownership
The second model seeks to move ownership itself onchain. In its pure form, the token would represent legal title to the property, either for a single owner or fragmented across multiple holders. In such a configuration, the notarial and transfer process would effectively be digitised.
Technically, this is feasible but, legally, it remains complex. Most jurisdictions do not yet recognise blockchain tokens as valid instruments for transferring property title. Pilot programmes are emerging, and deeper integration with land registries could eventually transform how real estate is settled and traded. However, significant constraints persist: liability allocation, governance rules, tax treatment, and AML compliance frameworks must all align with property law.
This model is closest to the intuitive idea of “owning property onchain”.
Financial wrappers
The third model is by far the most dominant today. Instead of tokenising the property directly, it tokenises a financial instrument linked to the property.
Investors purchase tokens representing equity or debt claims issued by an entity that owns or finances the asset. The property sits inside a legal wrapper, and the token reflects rights against that entity. These structures take several common forms:
SPV equity: A Special Purpose Vehicle acquires the property. Tokens represent shares in that vehicle, entitling holders to rental income and potential liquidation proceeds.

Tokenised debt: Investors fund projects through participatory loans or structured debt instruments. Returns are contractual rather than ownership-based.

Trust or yield vehicles: Exposure may be tied to real estate-backed debt positions rather than direct asset participation.

Portfolio tokens: Tokens provide diversified exposure to multiple properties, similar to a real estate ETF structure.

Because these models align with existing corporate, fund, and securities law, they scale more easily. They offer regulatory clarity and operational feasibility. However, they also introduce entity risk, counterparty exposure, and insolvency considerations. In this configuration, the token is effectively a digital wrapper around a traditional financial structure.
Synthetic and derivative exposure
The fourth model does not tokenise property at all. Instead, it tokenises exposure to real estate-related metrics. For example, platforms can create perpetual contracts or prediction markets referencing square metre prices in specific regions, or structured instruments tracking property indices.
These products serve as hedges, speculative tools, or price discovery mechanisms. They behave more like financial derivatives than real estate investments. There is no claim on rent, no legal ownership, only financial exposure.
The structural constraint
Taking a step back, a clear asymmetry emerges between technological readiness and institutional readiness.
On the one hand, the technology is ready. Smart contracts, token standards, and oracle infrastructure can embed yield distribution, compliance rules, transfer restrictions, reporting logic, and even selective composability with DeFi. From a purely digital standpoint, there is no structural barrier preventing real estate from existing onchain.
On the other hand, adoption is defined by institutions and regulation. Legal systems determine the boundaries within which tokenised real estate can operate. While blockchain can modernise settlement, reduce administrative costs, and digitise notarial processes, regulatory change takes time to be recognised, coordinated, and implemented.
This asymmetry is particularly striking for the ones who have been following the sector for years. In 2020, many governments and institutions argued that blockchain infrastructure was not mature enough to support real-world assets. Today, the situation has reversed.
This difference in velocity also explains the current market structure. As explored in greater depth in the full report, SPV-based tokenisation dominates because it fits within existing securities and corporate frameworks. It enables scale without rewriting property law. Yet it remains a financial wrapper around real estate rather than direct onchain ownership.
The deeper transformation, one that would bring investors closer to the idea of truly “owning property onchain”, lies in registry integration and title digitisation. Pilot initiatives, such as those emerging in Dubai, point in this direction. If land registries and notarial processes become digitally native, real estate could gain structural transparency, faster settlement, and materially improved efficiency at the infrastructure level.
For now, tokenised real estate sits between two worlds: technologically ready, yet institutionally constrained.
To understand how jurisdictions are shaping this evolution, how regulation defines what is permissible, and how real estate is actually used onchain today, the full report provides a more in-depth examination.
A closer look at tokenised private credit
Regulation is the real bottleneck in RWAfi
Tokenised stocks: What’s really under the hood
Tokenised commodities: Real assets, rebuilt onchain

Real estate is the largest asset class in the world, valued at more than $380 trillion. Yet the way it is transacted remains largely analogue. Deals depend on p

Onchain Real Estate: Technically Mature, Institutionally Constrained

The rails work; jurisdiction is what’s still missing

This spotlight is part of a series of deep-dive previews produced ahead of the upcoming State of RWAfi report, developed in collaboration with DefiLlama. The full report delivers a comprehensive, data-led assessment of the real-world asset landscape across DeFi, covering tokenised equities, real estate, commodities, and the broader structural forces shaping the next phase of onchain capital markets. The State of RWAfi Q1 2025 report will be published in the first week of April 2026.

This spotlight is one of three sector deep-dives produced ahead of the upcoming State of RWAfi report, developed in collaboration with DefiLlama.
The full report delivers a comprehensive, data-led assessment of the real-world asset landscape across DeFi, covering tokenised equities, real estate, commodities, and the broader structural forces shaping the next phase of onchain capital markets.
The State of RWAfi Q1 2025 report will be published in the first week of April 2026.
Commodities are already financialised
Commodities are often framed as physical inputs to the global economy. In reality, they are deeply embedded in global financial markets.
The global commodity complex represents approximately $135 trillion in nominal market value, with oil and gas accounting for roughly 60% of that share and precious metals for around 30%. Here, “nominal value” refers to the aggregate notional exposure of financial contracts and traded instruments, not the physical stock itself. It reflects the scale of financial activity layered on top of real-world production.
Crucially, most investors never take delivery of oil barrels or gold bars. What they trade is exposure. Commodities today function less as raw goods and more as financial primitives within global capital markets.
Gold is the clearest example.
According to the World Gold Council, the physical financial gold market, including bars, coins, physically backed ETFs, and central bank reserves, is worth nearly $5 trillion. Gold is also one of the most liquid markets globally. WGC data shows average daily trading volumes of roughly $361 billion in 2025, rising to $623 billion in January 2026 before easing to $478 billion in February 2026, still well above 2025 levels. On top of this sits a large derivatives ecosystem across COMEX, LME, and OTC markets, used for hedging, macro positioning, and leverage.
Oil follows a similar pattern, though it is even more derivative-driven. Oil futures on CME and ICE generate enormous open interest and notional exposure, often running into the hundreds of billions of dollars globally. Oil ETFs such as USO and BNO manage billions in assets, providing simplified exposure without physical ownership. During stress periods, ETF positions have represented 5-10% or more of total oil futures open interest, illustrating how deeply financial and derivative layers are integrated.
Silver, while smaller than gold, is also heavily traded in financial markets. Futures contracts on COMEX and large silver ETFs represent billions of dollars in exposure. Like gold, silver is not just an industrial metal, it is actively used by investors as a financial asset.
Commodities therefore already serve as inflation hedges, reserve assets, portfolio diversifiers, collateral within structured finance and vehicles for macro positioning. In short, commodities are not pre-financial assets waiting to be digitised. They are already deeply financialised instruments.
Hence tokenisation does not invent their financial role. It proposes a new infrastructure layer for assets that are already liquid and represented through various financial instruments.
Since January 2025, tokenised commodities have grown from $1.1 billion to $6.4 billion, representing a 518% increase year-over-year. Gold dominates this market, representing roughly 95% of the total tokenised commodity market, led primarily by PAXG (~$2.4B) and XAUT (~$3.7B). Silver follows with a few hundred million dollars while tokenised copper, uranium or oil remain niche, often below $5 million in market capitalisation per asset.
Relative to a trillion-dollar traditional market, $6.4 billion remains marginal. Yet the speed of growth suggests something more structural than speculation. The question is whether tokenisation represents a temporary narrative cycle or the early phase of an infrastructure transition.
Why move commodities onchain
Commodities are not merely physical assets stored in vaults. They already trade as financial instruments through ETFs, futures, options and structured products. Tokenisation is therefore not about making commodities investable, that already exists. It is about upgrading the infrastructure that supports how these assets move, settle and interact with capital.
Today’s commodity markets are efficient at scale, but structurally layered. Physical allocation requires vaulting agreements, insurance coverage and custodial chains. ETFs rely on authorised participants and clearing systems. Derivatives depend on central clearing houses and margin frameworks. Settlement cycles, compliance procedures and cross-border frictions remain embedded in the system.
These mechanisms function effectively, but they are resource-intensive and primarily designed for institutional participants. Tokenisation restructures them to increase capital efficiency, expand accessibility and unlock composability.
First, settlement velocity.
Onchain assets settle in minutes rather than days. Ownership transfers are programmable and auditable without navigating multiple institutional intermediaries.
Second, capital accessibility.
Tokenisation lowers allocation thresholds. Exposure can be fractional and digitally transferable within regulatory constraints, expanding reach beyond traditional brokerage infrastructure.
Third, and more structurally, collateral mobility.
Commodities already function as collateral in traditional finance. But that collateral typically sits within custodial silos. A gold ETF share posted at one prime broker cannot frictionlessly circulate across institutions.
Onchain representation transforms commodities into portable collateral. A tokenised gold position can be posted, transferred, borrowed against or integrated into lending frameworks without replicating the full custody stack at each step. What’s emerging here isn’t incremental efficiency, but a new level of balance-sheet fluidity
Fourth, composability.
Once standardised as digital assets, commodities can interact with decentralised exchanges, lending markets and perpetual venues. This expands their functional range from passive holding instruments to active capital primitives.
Now the remaining question is whether all commodities migrate equally, or whether structural characteristics determine their trajectory.
The three structural models
Not all commodities behave the same. Structural characteristics such as stock-to-flow ratios, custody complexity, regulatory rigor and financial usage patterns shape how easily an asset transitions onchain. From these specificities, three categories emerge.
Monetary collateral commodities
Monetary collateral commodities are primarily held as stores of value rather than consumed. They possess high above-ground stock relative to annual production, are durable, divisible, fungible and globally recognised as reserve assets.
Gold and silver fall into this category.
Gold is the clearest monetary commodity. Above-ground stock vastly exceeds annual mine supply. It is held by central banks, ETFs, institutions and private investors as a reserve asset and inflation hedge. Price discovery is continuous and transparent and custody infrastructure is mature and standardised globally.
Silver shares similar properties but combines monetary allocation with industrial demand. Its price dynamics are more cyclical, yet structurally it remains storable and divisible.
Implication for tokenisation
These assets are structurally ideal for onchain representation. Indeed, custody is verifiable, units are standardised, price feeds are transparent and collateral logic is intuitive.
This explains why tokenised gold overwhelmingly dominates onchain commodity markets today. Its traditional role as monetary collateral translates naturally into programmable collateral onchain.
Strategic supply-constrained commodities
Strategic commodities derive significance from geopolitical positioning, energy security or technological dependency rather than monetary function.
Uranium is the clearest example.
Uranium is critical to nuclear energy and energy transition narratives. Supply is geographically concentrated and politically sensitive. Retail ownership of physical uranium is practically impossible. Exposure typically occurs through specialised funds or mining equities.
Unlike gold, uranium does not function as collateral. Its financialisation is constrained by regulation and oversight.
Implication for tokenisation.
Tokenisation here expands access rather than improving settlement efficiency. Adoption is likely to be institutional and permissioned rather than retail-driven or composability-first.
Industrial flow-based commodities
Industrial commodities are continuously produced and consumed within logistics-heavy supply chains. Their financial markets are dominated by derivatives used for hedging rather than long-term holding.
Oil and copper belong to this category.
Oil remains central to global energy systems. Copper underpins electrification and infrastructure. In both cases, futures markets dominate price discovery and financial exposure. Investors rarely seek physical ownership; exposure is synthetic via futures and swaps.
Implication for tokenisation
Onchain representation is more likely to emerge via perpetuals, synthetic indices or structured exposure rather than warehouse-backed tokens. Storage logistics, delivery mechanisms and margin structures complicate physical tokenisation.
A structural gradient
Across these categories, a clear gradient emerges that shapes the tokenisation market. As we move from gold to oil, custody becomes more complex, regulatory requirements increase, and financial behavior shifts from collateral holding to derivative hedging.
Gold leads because it is structurally simple to verify, store, and use as collateral. Silver follows due to similar properties. Uranium remains constrained by regulatory oversight, while copper and oil tend to migrate toward synthetic exposure.
The trajectory of tokenisation is driven less by narrative enthusiasm and more by structural characteristics.
Commodities are ready to expand onchain
Despite rapid growth, tokenised commodities remain small relative to their traditional counterparts. Yet several structural forces suggest continued expansion.
First, blockchain infrastructure has matured. Institutional-grade custody, compliance tooling and liquidity venues are now established. Ethereum accounts for approximately 75% of tokenised commodity issuance, followed by XRPLedger at roughly 15%, according to RWA.xyz, two ecosystems widely regarded as institutionally aligned.
Second, regulatory clarity around commodities is generally stronger than for other RWA. In the United States, physical commodities fall under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission framework rather than securities law, providing clearer classification boundaries. In Switzerland, commodities, particularly precious metals, benefit from long-established property and custody frameworks that facilitate structured tokenisation. In Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore clearly distinguishes commodities from capital market products, reducing ambiguity in digital issuance. Within the European Union, commodities are recognised as distinct asset classes under MiFID II, with financial instruments referencing them regulated separately from the underlying physical assets. Compared to equity or real estate, commodities operate within more mature and clearly defined legal categories. Importantly, regulatory frameworks across jurisdictions show meaningful convergence in how commodities are classified and supervised, supporting cross-border issuance and trading.
Third, the integration with DeFi is accelerating. The Aave XAUT vault expanded from roughly 1,900 XAUT to nearly 19,000 XAUT, a tenfold increase equivalent to about 900% growth in collateral usage. This trend illustrates how tokenised gold is increasingly used as productive collateral rather than sitting idle in wallets.
The recent launch of thGOLD, a yield-bearing gold representation issued by theo, provides another example of DeFi integration. Historically, generating yield on gold typically required accessing institutional lending markets with limited transparency and restricted access. Onchain, tokenised gold introduces greater transparency and flexibility: it can be posted as collateral, borrowed against, integrated into lending protocols, or embedded into structured strategies without relying on traditional custody infrastructure.
Overall, the conditions for commodity tokenisation are increasingly favourable, and the current momentum is unlikely to fade. Much like ETFs standardised access to commodities two decades ago, tokenisation represents the next structural upgrade, enhancing efficiency and embedding new financial layers directly into the asset itself.
If momentum persists, tokenised gold will likely remain the structural leader, with silver expanding alongside it. Other commodities will migrate onchain according to their inherent characteristics.
And as DeFi infrastructure continues to mature, commodities will transition from passive store-of-value instruments into active capital primitives onchain.
To understand in detail how commodities are growing onchain, how they are being used, how DeFi integration evolves, and what regulatory and risk considerations shape the trajectory, the full report provides a deeper analysis.
A closer look at tokenised private credit
Onchain real estate: technically mature, institutionally constrained
Tokenised stocks: What’s really under the hood
Regulation is the real bottleneck in RWAfi

This spotlight is one of three sector deep-dives produced ahead of the upcoming State of RWAfi report, developed in collaboration with DefiLlama. The full repor

Tokenised Commodities: Real Assets, Rebuilt Onchain

Gold, oil, and uranium are quietly making their way onchain

Tokenised stocks have quickly become one of the fastest-growing onchain asset classes. What was only a year ago a small market with roughly $30 million in activ

Tokenised Stocks: What’s Really Under the Hood

The issuance, custody, and settlement plumbing behind onchain equity

The tokenized equities market has crossed $963.04 million in value as of January 2026, representing a ~2,878% YoY increase from approximately $32 million in January 2025. While still dwarfed by the $9.3 billion tokenized treasury market, equities are growing nearly 30x faster, and December 2025’s regulatory breakthroughs suggest the infrastructure for institutional-scale adoption is finally materializing.
This report examines current market structure, protocol-level metrics, chain distribution, and the regulatory catalysts positioning tokenized equities as the next frontier for institutional DeFi allocation.
[Chart: Ondo Global Markets vs BlackRock BUIDL]
Market structure reveals a three-player monopoly
Ondo Global Markets launched September 3, 2025 and became the largest tokenized stock platform within 48 hours, an unprecedented velocity. TVL reached $100M in week one, $250M by week three, and exceeded $350M by late October alongside $669M in cumulative trading volume. The platform now offers 200+ tokenized U.S. equities and ETFs including Tesla, Apple, NVIDIA, and BlackRock/Fidelity ETFs, with plans to expand to 1,000+ assets.
xStocks, operated by Backed Finance (acquired by Kraken in December 2025), grew AUM 9x from launch to approximately $186M within five months. The platform processed over $10 billion in combined CEX/DEX transaction volume across 135 days, with nearly $2 billion on-chain. The Kraken acquisition, backed by its $800M November 2025 funding round from Citadel Securities, Jane Street, and DRW, signals major exchange commitment to vertically integrating tokenized equity infrastructure.
Securitize commands 17% of tokenized equities through a single asset: Exodus (EXOD), the first U.S.-registered company to tokenize common stock, valued at $146.6M. The platform’s broader AUM exceeds $4 billion across tokenized funds, including BlackRock’s BUIDL. Securitize announced plans for “Stocks on Securitize” launching Q1 2026, natively tokenized public stocks with SEC-registered shares rather than synthetic wrappers.
Growth trajectory outpaces tokenized treasuries by 30x
Tokenized equities are the fastest-growing segment within on-chain real-world assets, despite their smaller absolute size:
The 2,496% YTD growth for equities versus approximately 117% for treasuries reflects fundamentally different market dynamics. Treasury tokenization attracted institutional capital seeking yield-bearing stable value. Equity tokenization is capturing speculative and access-oriented flows, particularly from non-U.S. investors gaining 24/7 exposure to U.S. markets through blockchain rails.
Monthly transfer volume for tokenized equities reached $2.41 billion, with total unique holders at 159,000 (up 22.7%). The holder growth rate suggests retail and smaller institutional participants are driving incremental adoption, while the volume-to-AUM ratio of approximately 2.8x monthly indicates active trading rather than passive holding strategies.
Chain distribution shows Ethereum dominance diminishing
Tokenized equities operate across a multi-chain landscape, with Ethereum’s historical dominance eroding as newer chains capture specific use cases:
Ethereum remains the settlement layer for institutional-grade products, hosting Ondo’s primary deployment. The chain’s $1.3 billion in total Ondo TVL (across equities, USDY, and OUSG) reflects deep integration with DeFi protocols including Morpho and Aave for collateralization.
Solana has emerged as the primary chain for xStocks, benefiting from sub-second finality and integration with major Solana DeFi protocols. Kamino Finance (Solana’s largest lending protocol with $2.6B TVL) integrated xStocks as collateral, enabling leverage strategies on tokenized equity positions.
Algorand’s $130.6M concentration stems entirely from Exodus (EXOD), which tokenized exclusively on Algorand, an architectural decision reflecting Algorand’s focus on compliant securities infrastructure rather than general-purpose DeFi.
Ondo’s October 2025 expansion to BNB Chain via PancakeSwap demonstrated multi-chain ambitions, with additional deployments planned for Solana (early 2026) and a proprietary Ondo Chain L1 under development. Cross-chain infrastructure via LayerZero’s Ondo Bridge connects assets across 2,600+ applications.
Regulatory catalysts accelerate institutional entry
December 2025 delivered transformational regulatory clarity for tokenized securities in the United States:
DTCC No-Action Letter (December 11, 2025): The SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets authorized a three-year pilot enabling DTCC to tokenize Russell 1000 equities, U.S. Treasury securities, and major index ETFs (S&P 500, Nasdaq-100). This pilot, expected to launch H2 2026, represents the most significant U.S. regulatory approval for tokenized equities, creating a pathway for traditional market infrastructure to interoperate with blockchain settlement.
Broker-Dealer Custody Guidance (December 17, 2025): SEC clarified that broker-dealers can maintain “physical possession” of tokenized equities under Rule 15c3-3 if they maintain exclusive private key control and implement appropriate security policies. This removes a critical barrier that previously forced custody through non-traditional pathways.
Nasdaq Rule Change Proposal (September 2025): Nasdaq submitted a proposed rule change to trade and settle tokenized securities on its exchange while maintaining national market system oversight, signaling major exchange interest in blockchain integration.
Internationally, Ondo Finance received approval from Liechtenstein’s Financial Market Authority to offer tokenized U.S. stocks across all 30 EEA countries, accessing 500+ million potential investors. The SEC closed its investigation into Ondo without charges in November 2025, removing regulatory overhang.
Under EU frameworks, tokenized equities fall outside MiCA’s scope, remaining under MiFID II and existing securities laws, while the DLT Pilot Regime provides sandbox environments for compliant experimentation. Switzerland’s DLT Act continues to provide the most advanced framework for ledger-based securities recognition.
Institutional infrastructure reaches production scale
The institutional adoption pattern for tokenized equities mirrors the trajectory of tokenized treasuries, with a 12-18 month lag:
BlackRock’s BUIDL fund grew from $40M at March 2024 launch to $1.8-2.8 billion by end of 2025, demonstrating institutional appetite for on-chain exposure to traditional assets. While BUIDL holds treasuries rather than equities, its success provides a template for institutional-grade equity tokenization. BlackRock assets underpin Ondo’s OUSG product ($730M+ TVL), creating direct linkage between the world’s largest asset manager and DeFi infrastructure.
Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon partnered in July 2025 to tokenize money market funds via LiquidityDirect, with BlackRock, Fidelity, Federated Hermes, and GSAM as participants, the first U.S. instance of fund managers enabling MMF subscriptions with mirrored tokenization. In December 2025, JPMorgan launched tokenized money market funds and announced institutional clients can use Bitcoin and Ether as collateral, infrastructure that naturally extends to tokenized equities.
Custody infrastructure has matured accordingly. Fireblocks, BitGo, and Anchorage Digital now provide institutional-grade custody for tokenized securities, while the December 2025 SEC guidance explicitly permits broker-dealer custody with proper key management.
Forward outlook: from pilot to production
The tokenized equities market sits at an inflection point. The DTCC pilot authorization, combined with Nasdaq’s rule change proposal, suggests regulated U.S. market infrastructure will begin interoperating with tokenized securities by late 2026. This creates a convergence pathway where traditional equity market structure, central clearing, regulated exchanges, broker-dealer intermediation, integrates with blockchain settlement.
Several catalysts merit monitoring:
Securitize’s SPAC listing (ticker: SECZ) at a $1.25 billion pre-money valuation provides a public market proxy for tokenization infrastructure. The planned Q1 2026 launch of “Stocks on Securitize”, with natively tokenized rather than synthetic shares, could establish the compliance template for U.S. equity tokenization.
Ondo Chain, the proprietary L1 under development, signals vertical integration ambitions. Combined with Ondo’s institutional partnerships (Mastercard MTN, State Street/Galaxy $200M seed capital for SWEEP fund, Chainlink oracle integration), the protocol is building the full stack for institutional-grade tokenized equity infrastructure.
Kraken’s Backed acquisition positions a major regulated exchange to unify issuance, trading, and settlement for tokenized equities, a model that competing exchanges may replicate.
Market projections vary widely. BCG and Ripple forecast $18.9 trillion in tokenized assets by 2033; McKinsey projects $2-4 trillion by 2030; Galaxy Digital estimates $1.9-3.8 trillion. Applying these projections to equities’ current ~1% share of tokenized RWAs suggests a $20-190 billion addressable market by decade’s end, requiring sustained 50-100%+ annual growth rates.
Conclusion
Tokenized equities have transitioned from concept to functioning market infrastructure in under 12 months. The $857 million current market represents a rounding error against global equity market capitalization, but the 2,500% YTD growth, December 2025 regulatory breakthroughs, and institutional infrastructure buildout suggest the asset class is approaching the phase transition that tokenized treasuries experienced in 2024.
The rapid growth draws parallels with the growth of stablecoins, which crossed $1 billion in January 2020 to $306 billion by January 2026. Tokenized equities reaching a similar trajectory would imply a $150+ billion market by 2030, substantial, but still a fraction of the multi-trillion dollar projections that assume tokenization captures a meaningful share of global equity markets.
For institutional allocators, the key metrics to monitor are: monthly volume-to-AUM ratios (indicating market maturity), chain-level TVL shifts (signaling infrastructure preferences), and DTCC pilot implementation timeline (determining traditional market integration). The duopoly structure between Ondo and Backed/Kraken creates concentrated counterparty exposure, though Securitize’s Q1 2026 product launch and tZERO’s tokenized commercial real estate (CRE) planned $1B tokenized asset deployment may diversify the landscape.

The tokenized equities market has crossed $963.04 million in value as of January 2026, representing a ~2,878% YoY increase from approximately $32 million in Jan

The State of RWAfi: Q1 2026

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Tokenised Commodities: Real Assets, Rebuilt Onchain

Tokenised Stocks: What’s Really Under the Hood

Tokenized Equities Approach $1B as Institutional Rails Emerge