Crypto markets are evolving into venues for managing a far broader range of investments. Eligible investors can now hold tokenized products in their wallets that generate Treasury income or provide exposure to a company or commodity. These instruments — real-world assets, or RWAs — tie onchain markets to claims on assets held outside the blockchain, bringing familiar financial choices onto platforms investors already use for crypto.

How investors handle a product once it reaches their wallets offers a clearer picture of adoption. A holder may keep a fund token for income, trade a stock-linked product, or borrow against an eligible position. Each choice depends on the legal claim behind the token and the markets in which it can be used. This report tracks the companies and blockchains supporting that activity, the products attracting capital, and how those tokens are used in trading and lending.

Who Builds the RWA Market

A tokenized Treasury fund or stock-linked product reaches investors through a chain of connected businesses. Ondo Finance develops products including OUSG, which offers eligible investors short-term Treasury exposure, and Ondo Stocks, which covers public securities. The product determines what an investor holds and the rights attached to the token, while wallets and exchanges provide the routes through which it is bought and used.

Asset managers can keep running portfolios while specialist platforms handle the tokenized share classes. Securitize administers tokenized share classes of BlackRock's BUIDL fund on networks including Ethereum and Solana, where qualified investors can transfer tokens between approved wallets. The blockchain records transfers of fund shares, BlackRock manages the portfolio, and BNY Mellon holds its cash and securities in custody. The arrangement keeps portfolio management and custody with traditional institutions while the blockchain handles share registration and transfer.

Distribution across several blockchains requires those records to stay consistent. Centrifuge, which provides infrastructure for Janus Henderson's JTRSY and JAAA strategies, coordinates token issuance, pricing, and investor orders through a single accounting hub. Fund tokens can be distributed on supported networks linked to that hub, giving investors more routes into a product while its manager keeps consolidated records.

Tokens can also become inputs to other financial applications — a quality known in decentralized finance, or DeFi, as composability. Superstate's FundOS maintains shareholder records and supports subscriptions and redemptions in dollars or the USDC stablecoin. Aave Horizon accepts supported shares as collateral for stablecoin borrowing, so an eligible investor can raise liquidity against a holding while retaining its fund exposure. The fund's eligibility rules continue to apply once its tokens enter a lending protocol.

Treasury Funds Anchor Onchain Savings

Tokenized U.S. Treasury funds hold $14.7B, about 37% of the $39.3B distributed RWA market, making them its largest individual asset class. For investors already holding capital in crypto, a Treasury-backed product offers a place to earn income while deciding where to deploy that capital next. Its 37% share means shifts in this class shape the category's total more than any other.

After subscribing, the investor holds a fund token in a wallet with exposure to the underlying portfolio. The product's eligibility checks and transfer rules determine who can take part and where shares can move. An income-focused holder may leave the position untouched until the capital is needed elsewhere, at which point the ability to redeem becomes central to the product's appeal. Net subscriptions show whether a fund is attracting and retaining money, while redemptions test whether holders can recover it on the promised terms. Treasury funds can therefore serve a cash-management role even when their tokens trade infrequently.

Commodities Combine Asset Accumulation With Price Gains

Tokenized commodity capitalization rose from $3.1B at the end of 2025 to about $8B by late September 2026, roughly 2.6 times its starting value. Ethereum holds the largest share, with XRP Ledger accounting for another substantial portion.

Gold accounts for most commodity value distributed to investors. Tether Gold and PAX Gold each link a token to one fine troy ounce of vaulted gold. Silver is a smaller segment, with products such as Kinesis Silver backed by allocated bullion. Holders can buy and transfer metal exposure through wallets, while physical delivery follows each issuer's redemption terms.

Commodity tokenization also covers commercial uses beyond investment in precious metals. Justoken's Enertoken records electricity contracts on XRP Ledger, and its agricultural tokens support transactions and credit against commodities. Oil exposure takes another form in USOon, which provides exposure to the United States Oil Fund. The underlying fund invests in oil futures and swaps, so USOon gives holders financial exposure through that fund with no claim to barrels of stored crude.

Tokenized gold's market value rose through both additional metal held and price appreciation. Ounces held increased 73% over the year to August 31, 2026, while the gold price rose 29%. Reading ounces held and price separately shows how much of the segment's growth reflects accumulated metal versus moves in gold's valuation.

ETFs Broaden Portfolio Access

Tokenized ETFs grew from $225M at the end of 2025 to $673M by the end of the third quarter of 2026, nearly tripling, with the third quarter adding about 59% from a $422M base. Ethereum remains the largest, while BNB Chain accounts for a growing share. The changing split between Ethereum and BNB Chain gives a running view of where new distribution is being placed.

Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, package a basket of securities or an investment strategy into a single position. Tokenized versions bring that portfolio exposure into crypto wallets without requiring investors to assemble individual holdings. Issuing products on several chains creates more ways to hold them, though trading liquidity is spread between venues, and execution still depends on the market for the specific token an investor buys.

Familiar Stocks Extend the Market's Reach

Tokenized stocks have more than 4.3M holder positions across company-linked products, and many of the largest holder bases belong to familiar technology businesses. Recognizable company names may give users an entry point into stock tokens, although the counts leave the size of those investments unclear. The same investor can appear across several tokens or wallets, a custody address can represent many customers, and promotional allocations can add holders with small balances. Balances and repeat transactions provide a better test of whether these holders continue using the products.

A stock token's legal structure determines the rights attached to it. xStocks, for example, are tracker certificates backed by underlying assets; holders receive economic exposure without shareholder voting rights. The holder's claim comes from the issuer's contract, so products following the same company can offer different claims.

Private and Newly Listed Companies Broaden Access

Products grouped in the pre-IPO category grew from $4.1M at the end of 2025 to $65.8M by the end of the third quarter of 2026 — approximately 16 times their starting value — with the third quarter adding about 30% from $50.7M. The basket includes SpaceX, which is now publicly listed, alongside private companies.

Private shares are often limited by investor eligibility or minimum investment requirements, and tokenized products can offer exposure through a separate contractual claim. After a company lists, investors can also buy its publicly traded shares, and the token then competes with that alternative on access and trading terms. The contract can also restrict an investor's exit: Robinhood's private-company token giveaway used derivative contracts with conditions on transfer and redemption. Such products offer contractual exposure with different ownership rights and restrictions on exit.

Perpetuals Meet Demand for Active Trading

RWA perpetual trading volume reached $2.57T in the third quarter of 2026, more than double the second quarter's $1.27T, with Binance accounting for nearly half of the total. Activity spans centralized and decentralized venues. Perpetual contracts provide long or short exposure without an expiry date or ownership of the referenced asset, and leverage and repeated trading allow notional volume to grow far beyond the collateral committed. Market depth and spreads show how easily traders can execute those positions.

Equities accounted for 8% of tracked tokenized asset value and 93% of onchain spot volume in August 2026. Equity perpetual volume reached $72.4B against $12.6B of spot volume over the same month, almost six times as much. These figures cover a narrower market than the mixed-venue quarterly total, but they show how differently trading activity is distributed from the assets investors hold. Following both series together shows whether tokenized equities serve holders mainly as positions to own or as instruments for active trading.

Trading outside exchange hours complicates pricing. Crypto venues can keep matching orders while the conventional markets used for hedging are closed, forcing traders to rely more heavily on the venue's order book and price feeds. An open market can still offer poor execution when the order book is thin.

Collateral Use Depends on a Reliable Exit

About 42% of stock-token supply is eligible as collateral in DeFi, while approximately 2.6% is posted in lending markets. Eligibility creates an option to borrow against a token; investors still need a reason to use it, and lenders need a price and liquidation route they can rely on.

Credit tokens enter lending more often than cash equivalents. Around 19% to 21% of tokenized credit was deposited in lending protocols, compared with 0.4% of cash equivalents. Credit tokens can support borrowing strategies, while cash funds serve holders seeking income. Deposited balances show which assets enter lending markets; they do not measure how much investors have borrowed against them. Changes in those deposited shares over time offer the most direct measure of whether lending against tokenized assets deepens.

Redemption terms matter when collateral must be sold quickly. Midas processes standard redemptions according to each strategy's valuation and settlement timetable, while instant redemptions draw on dedicated liquidity and charge a fee. The amount available limits how much can be redeemed immediately, which lenders must consider when setting borrowing limits.

A lending market also needs buyers who can receive the collateral and pay for it during liquidation — a price feed alone cannot supply that liquidity. Restrictions on eligible buyers and delays in redemption can narrow the options for selling a position, affecting how much a lender can advance against it.

Venture Funding Supports Market Infrastructure

RWA companies announced $237.5M across 26 disclosed venture rounds in the first nine months of 2026. Superstate's $82.5M Series B accounts for about 35% of that capital and explains much of the first quarter's lead over later quarters. The recipients build the services behindized products: Superstate develops systems for securities issuance and ownership records, while OpenTrade connects yield products with fintechs, exchanges, and wallets. Smaller rounds also finance credit and asset platforms. This capital funds the companies operating the market, with separate investor subscriptions determining the assets held in their products. Later disclosures can be measured against these totals to track the pace of infrastructure investment.

The Bottom Line

The clearest demand for tokenized assets is in holding investments and trading their prices. Treasury funds attract income-seeking balances, and equities account for most of the covered onchain spot turnover. Lending has developed unevenly: credit tokens already have a substantial collateral role, while only about 2.6% of stock-token supply is deposited in lending markets. That gap shows the limits of simply making an asset available as collateral — a lending integration still needs borrowers and a way to sell the position when a loan fails. For products bought primarily to hold, dependable redemptions matter more than adding another trading or borrowing feature.