Currently, there are six asset classes on the chain with over $1 billion, but only 12% of the supply of RWA-backed stablecoins has entered DeFi protocols.
According to data from RWA.xyz, the on-chain value of tokenized real-world assets excluding stablecoins has exceeded $25 billion, nearly quadrupling from approximately $6.4 billion a year ago.
This milestone, along with continued growth, continues the transition from early-stage experimentation to institutional-scale deployment as RWA reaches the $20 billion mark by the end of 2025. Asset managers such as BlackRock, Fidelity and WisdomTree have launched tokenized fund products in the past year, while the number of tokenized U.S. Treasury bond products alone has increased from 35 to more than 50, according to data compiled by Nexus Data Labs.
According to RWA.xyz, six tokenized asset classes have now crossed the $1 billion threshold: U.S. Treasuries, commodities, private credit, institutional alternative funds, corporate bonds and non-U.S. government debt.
Release speed exceeds integration speed
Still, much of the activity reflects asset issuance rather than active trading.
While supply has grown, much of the activity reflects asset issuance rather than active trading. On-chain transfer data shows that many of the largest RWA transactions have transfer amounts of approximately $10 million each, a pattern consistent with institutional allocation batches rather than ongoing market activity.
A February 2026 survey by tokenization platform Brickken reinforced this: 53.8% of issuers of tokenized assets stated that capital formation and financing efficiency were their main motivations for tokenizing, while only 15.4% mentioned liquidity.
Even if assets are moved on-chain, most assets remain isolated from decentralized finance.
6/7
The twist no one talks about:
RWA-backed stablecoin supply = ~$8.5B
Only $1B (11.8%) is actually deployed in DeFi
88% idle due to KYC/whitelist walls
The utilization rate of license-free assets (reUSD, etc.) reaches over 96%
Composability is the next unlocked goal of RWA
hour/ton… pic.twitter.com/gpbyRl9CD0
— Diego|Take Profits (@0xTakeProfits) March 7, 2026
Nexus Data Labs estimates that the supply of RWA-backed stablecoins is approximately $8.49 billion, but only about $1 billion, or 11.8%, is currently deployed in DeFi protocols.
The remaining 88% lies outside on-chain lending and trading systems, primarily due to compliance requirements imposed by the underlying assets, including KYC checks, transfer restrictions, and whitelisting.
This gap forms the core issue for the industry heading into the second half of this year. The supply of tokenized assets is growing fast enough that some forecasts say the market will exceed $400 billion by the end of the year.
Whether these assets remain within a permissioned structure or begin to integrate with the composable collateral, lending and trading systems that define DeFi may determine whether tokenization expands into a parallel settlement layer for traditional finance or becomes something structurally different.