Written by Ezra Reguerra,Staff Writer
Reviewed by Bryan O'Shea,Staff EditorTokenized assets climb to $23.6B as investors seek always-on markets
17 minutes agoTokenized real-world assets have surged 66% in 2026, with funds, gold and equities driving growth across public blockchains.
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Follow our Subscribe onThe value of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) on public blockchains has climbed about 66% in 2026, reaching roughly $23.6 billion as of Wednesday, according to DeFiLlama data.
The market stood at around $14.1 billion on Jan. 1 before steadily rising through early March. Tokenized funds, including products backed by US Treasury bills, bonds and money market funds, account for the largest share of the sector.
DeFiLlama data shows tokenized funds represent about 44.5% of the total market with $10.5 billion in value, followed by tokenized gold and commodities at roughly $6.5 billion and tokenized equities at nearly $4 billion. Other segments, including private credit and yield-generating products, make up smaller portions of the onchain RWA ecosystem.
Industry participants told Cointelegraph that the next stage of growth is being driven less by tokenization as a concept and more by distribution, market access, and the appeal of assets that can trade and settle around the clock.
Demand for always-on markets drives tokenized asset interest
“The real breakthrough here is that a handful of products have become significantly easier to access, distribute, and use,” an RWA.xyz spokesperson told Cointelegraph.
Related: Tokenized US Treasurys rise by over $1B since start of 2026
On Tuesday, tokenized stocks surpassed $1 billion in on-chain total value, according to data from RWA.xyz. Platforms such as Ondo and xStocks account for much of that activity.
The tokenized US Treasury market also surpassed $10 billion in market capitalization in February, before jumping to $11.13 billion in March.
Investors are “tired” of markets that close
Ross Shemeliak, co-founder and chief operating officer at Stobox, said many investors are frustrated with legacy systems that operate on limited trading hours and rely on multiple intermediaries to move capital.
“Investors are tired of financial markets that close at 4 pm and require layers of intermediaries just to move capital,” Shemeliak told Cointelegraph.
He said growing institutional experimentation with tokenization has also helped legitimize the model. Over the past year, major financial firms have rolled out blockchain-based versions of US Treasury instruments, investment funds and other real-world assets.
Magazine: China’s ‘50x’ blockchain boost, Alibaba-linked AI mines Bitcoin: Asia Express
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