Reality, the real-world asset (RWA) issuance platform within the Bitget ecosystem, has entered a partnership with Merkl, an onchain rewards infrastructure provider, to ensure that eligible holders of tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) keep receiving dividend payments even after deploying those assets across decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.

Under the arrangement, Merkl will identify eligible rToken holders whose assets sit in supported lending markets, liquidity pools, and staking contracts. The goal is to prevent users from forfeiting dividend entitlements when they move tokenized assets out of personal wallets and into DeFi applications in pursuit of additional returns.

The collaboration establishes a mechanism for tracking underlying ownership across supported DeFi smart contracts and forwarding qualifying dividend distributions to the appropriate rToken holders in stablecoins. It addresses a persistent operational challenge tied to tokenized securities: ownership records often become harder to trace once assets are deposited into decentralized applications. Dividend continuity also serves as a practical test of whether a tokenized security's stated economic rights survive deployment into DeFi, distinguishing tokenized instruments that carry the underlying security's economic rights from exposure types that track price alone.

Tracing Ownership Through Nested Smart Contracts

Reality's rTokens provide tokenized exposure to publicly listed stocks and ETFs, including eligible economic benefits such as dividends. Complications arise when users deposit these tokens into lending protocols, liquidity pools, or staking contracts. In such cases, the receiving smart contract may appear as the recorded on-chain holder rather than the individual investor, even though the underlying investors retain their economic entitlements. That mismatch makes it difficult to identify the true beneficiaries of dividend distributions. The problem has a parallel in traditional markets, where transfer agents and shareholder registers determine who is entitled to a dividend payment as of a record date; on-chain, that identification work has to run through contract-level holdings instead.

Merkl intends to resolve this attribution problem through its reward forwarder technology. The system tracks token positions across supported smart contracts, identifies the underlying beneficiaries, and allocates distributions according to the applicable eligibility and payment rules. The technology can accommodate multiple layers of interconnected DeFi contracts and factors in protocol-specific fees when calculating the appropriate payouts.

Developers and users can verify whether a particular smart contract is compatible with the system using Merkl Studio's Forwarder Scan tool.

Pablo Veyrat, Merkl's chief executive officer and co-founder, said identifying the actual owners behind assets deployed across DeFi protocols remains a significant challenge. He indicated that the forwarding infrastructure follows ownership through nested smart contracts, enabling Reality to determine the appropriate recipients of dividend payments.

Bitget chief executive officer Gracy Chen emphasized that tokenized equities should deliver economic benefits beyond price exposure and trading opportunities. She noted that investors deploying rTokens across DeFi applications should retain access to the dividends for which they qualify.

Divided Responsibilities: Issuance Versus Distribution

The partnership assigns distinct operational roles to each company. Reality will continue managing rToken issuance and determining dividend entitlements, while Merkl supplies the infrastructure needed to identify eligible investors and forward payments across supported DeFi positions.

Under Reality's rToken structure, eligible cash dividends are distributed separately from the token's market price. Net dividend payments are generally settled in USDT, though distributions tied to DeFi positions remain subject to supported smart contracts and applicable payment conditions.

Reality works with licensed brokerage partners to access underlying securities listed on major exchanges, including Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange. The platform purchases the corresponding assets, maintains custody, and issues blockchain-based tokens representing the associated rights.

Merkl, for its part, operates an onchain money-streaming platform that serves stablecoin issuers, fintech companies, neobanks, and tokenized investment funds. Its infrastructure is designed to calculate and distribute yield, dividends, and other financial payments across blockchain networks.

By combining Reality's token issuance and asset management capabilities with Merkl's automated distribution technology, the partnership seeks to make tokenized securities more compatible with decentralized financial applications.

rToken Adoption Grows Within Bitget's UEX Ecosystem

The integration arrives as rTokens gain traction within Bitget's Unified Exchange (UEX) ecosystem, which combines cryptocurrency trading with access to other financial assets. According to figures attributed to DeFiLlama, cumulative trading volume for rTokens reached $1.16 billion between June and July 2026. The number of users trading both cryptocurrencies and rTokens increased 23.54% month over month in July 2026.

The companies view this growth as evidence of increasing interest in tokenized equities among investors pursuing strategies that span multiple asset classes. The Merkl integration could further support that adoption by allowing investors to put tokenized securities to work within DeFi applications without automatically sacrificing the dividend benefits attached to them.

The practical reach of the arrangement depends on which smart contracts register as compatible, a status that developers and users can check through Merkl Studio's Forwarder Scan. Future DeFiLlama readings of rToken volume and cross-asset user counts will offer a running measure of how tokenized equities are being used alongside crypto trading.

The partnership highlights an emerging effort to connect the economic rights associated with traditional securities to decentralized financial infrastructure, potentially expanding the utility of tokenized equities beyond conventional trading and portfolio exposure.

Source: CoinTrust