The tokenized real-world assets (RWA) sector crossed a major threshold in early 2026, with total value locked (TVL) surpassing $31 billion and market capitalization reaching $19.3 billion by the end of Q1. This represents a 256.7% increase in just fifteen months from $5.42 billion at the start of 2025, according to CoinGecko’s RWA Report 2026. The pace of growth is accelerating as institutional capital pours into on-chain representations of traditional financial instruments.
Tokenized treasuries remain the dominant asset class, adding roughly $9 billion in market cap during the period. They crossed the $10 billion mark for the first time on February 11, 2026, yet their market share slipped from 73.7% to 67.2% as other categories caught up.
Tokenized commodities surged 289% from $1.43 billion to $5.55 billion, driven almost entirely by gold-backed tokens. Tether’s XAUT and Paxos’ PAXG accounted for 89.1% of that expansion, fueled by gold’s safe-haven appeal amid economic uncertainty. Spot trading volume for tokenized gold hit $90.7 billion in Q1 2026, already exceeding the $84.6 billion traded across all of 2025.
Tokenized stocks launched in mid-2025 and scaled from just $2 million to $486 million by end of Q1 2026. Circle’s tokenized equity led with $171 million in market cap, followed by Tesla and Nvidia. Spot trading of tokenized stocks reached $15.1 billion. Meanwhile, tokenized ETFs, though smaller at $297 million, displayed healthy diversification without a single dominant asset.
RWA perpetuals showed explosive growth, with total perps volume hitting $524.8 billion in Q1 2026 — already surpassing the $313 billion of all 2025. Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 captured 28.6% of monthly RWA perps volume by March 2026, up from 2.8% at launch in October 2025.
RWAs now represent 6.4% of the stablecoin market cap, up from 2.7% at the start of 2025, signaling that tokenization of traditional finance is no longer experimental but a core pillar of institutional adoption.
