Overview
- CoinShares and Token Terminal data published Thursday showed RWA deposits deployed in lending and trading climbed to $7.4 billion, up from $2.3 billion a year earlier.
- Spot trading of tokenized assets rose about 220% year over year while crypto‑native decentralized exchange volume fell roughly 70%, signaling trader demand for tokenized secondary markets.
- Activity is concentrated on Ethereum, which holds the bulk of on‑chain RWA collateral, and on a few venues such as Hyperliquid and TradeXYZ that have driven rapid growth in perpetual and derivatives trading.
- Measured yields on RWA products range from about 3.2% to 5.5% with U.S. Treasury‑linked funds at the low end and private credit or strategy products offering higher returns and greater counterparty and liquidity risk.
- Total distributed RWA value sits in the high tens of billions of dollars while application revenue from DeFi has fallen, so the near‑term outlook hinges on whether liquidity, custody arrangements, funding costs and regulatory clarity sustain the sector’s growth.