Dune report finds tokenized markets often diverge from the assets they reference

NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Tokenized real-world assets have passed $34 billion, but most of that money is sitting still. A report published today by Dune finds that tokenized cash, the largest asset class onchain, barely trades, while tokenized stocks, just 8% of the market, account for 93% of onchain trading.

Tokenized assets grew 141% in the year to August. The report looks past that headline figure to ask what happens after issuance: how much of the stock is actually used, and whether onchain markets move like the traditional markets they track. Across cash equivalents, credit, commodities and equities, the answer is often no.

• Cash equivalents: At nearly $18B it’s the largest tokenized asset class, but exposure is concentrated in short-dated Treasury assets, making it a limited proxy for the broader Treasury curve and the macro rate cycle.
• Credit: Credit is heterogeneous both onchain and offchain, with yields ranging from roughly 3% to 13%. About a fifth of onchain credit is posted as collateral on decentralized lending protocols, while traditional collateral markets rely mostly on bills.
• Equities: While traditional markets are dominated by ETFs, onchain activity has shifted toward single names, with $12.6B of spot and $72.4B of perpetual volume in August. Perpetuals provide access to hard-to-reach assets — Asian names are 24% of equity open interest, much of it memory — and reveal positioning when underlying markets are closed.
• Commodities: Tokenized commodities reached $5.5B, almost entirely gold, while oil exposure is primarily synthetic through perpetuals. Tokenized gold has grown alongside the broader accumulation of gold by central banks and through ETFs, with ounces held up 73% YoY versus 29% growth in the gold price.

The report uses Dune’s new RWA dataset to examine real-world exposures onchain across their tokenized and synthetic forms, covering spot assets, perpetuals and, through Dune’s prediction markets dataset, event contracts. This provides a more complete view of how traditional assets and their underlying drivers are represented and traded onchain.

After Issuance: Reading the Onchain RWA Market covers the period to 31 August 2026 and is available here.

About Dune

Dune is the industry standard for onchain data. We provide structured, institutional-grade blockchain datasets across stablecoins, RWAs, tokens, lending, trading, payments, and more. Access data from 130+ chains — and counting — and deliver it anywhere you work. Trusted by 1,000+ industry leaders, including Visa, WisdomTree, S&P, UBS, and Bloomberg.

Media contact

Alsie Liu, Dune alsie@dune.com