Tokenized real-world assets triple to $7.4bn as traditional finance drives the shift to blockchain
6 AUG, 2026
By Joanna Piwko from RankiaPro Europe
Treasuries, gold and the S&P 500 – not crypto – are the assets fuelling on-chain growth, according to the second edition of CoinShares' Hybrid Finance report.
Tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) that can move to wallets outside their issuing platform have more than tripled over the past year, rising from $2.3 billion to $7.4 billion between Q2 2025 and Q2 2026. The finding comes from The Growth of Hybrid Finance, the second joint report from CoinShares (Nasdaq: CSHR) and on-chain data provider Token Terminal.
The growth stands out against a broader pullback in decentralized finance: total DeFi deposits fell by roughly 15% over the same period, while aggregate spot trading volumes on decentralized exchanges dropped by around 70%. Tokenized real-world assets moved in the opposite direction, with spot trading volumes up by approximately 220%. Perpetual futures on real-world assets also continued to grow in both trading volume and open interest, defying a wider slowdown that began in October 2025.
Traditional assets, not crypto, are leading the trend
The report's clearest signal lies in what is actually being tokenized. Deposits on-chain are dominated by Treasury and multi-strategy funds, followed by private credit and delta-neutral strategies. In spot trading, gold accounts for the largest share of volume, while activity on perpetual futures platforms concentrates on oil, precious metals, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq-100, and technology and semiconductor stocks.
None of these are crypto assets – they are among the most conventional exposures in global markets, and they are the ones growing fastest on-chain. CoinShares frames this as evidence that blockchain is not replacing traditional finance but reshaping its infrastructure, a thesis the firm has held since 2013 under the banner of Hybrid Finance: a single financial ecosystem in which regulated traditional assets and blockchain-based, decentralized infrastructure operate together rather than as separate systems.
The report also points to trading hours as a driver: on-chain infrastructure settles transactions in seconds and never closes, which helps explain why the assets attracting the most derivatives activity on-chain are those with continuous global interest and fragmented traditional trading hours.
CEO: 'This is convergence, not disruption'
Jean-Marie Mognetti, Co-Founder, President and CEO of CoinShares, said the data confirms a view the firm has held for a decade: 'Treasury, gold, S&P 500 and tech stocks are the real assets being used on-chain – none of them are crypto assets. This isn't traditional finance being abandoned; it's the focus shifting to infrastructure that settles quickly and never closes. This is convergence, not disruption, and it's coming from traditional finance itself.'
About CoinShares
CoinShares is one of the largest global digital asset managers, with over $6 billion in assets under management and the largest market share in Europe at 34%. Founded in 2013, the firm was the first in Europe to launch a Bitcoin ETP and is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission, the French Autorité des marchés financiers, and – in the US – the SEC, NFA and FINRA. CoinShares is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker CSHR.
Token Terminal is a full-stack on-chain data platform that sources raw blockchain data, processes it in-house, and maintains standardized financial and alternative metrics for widely used blockchains, applications and tokenized assets, used by institutional investors globally.
