In 2026, the tokenised real-world asset market entered an entirely new stage. One of the fastest-growing areas of digital finance was once a specific experiment connected to institutional pilots and on-chain treasuries. By the end of the first quarter of 2026, tokenised RWAs had a market capitalisation of $19.3 billion, and their combined market cap and total value locked had already surpassed $30 billion.

More significantly, this rise has outpaced stablecoins, demonstrating that blockchain infrastructure is rapidly being utilised for traditional financial instruments in addition to crypto-native assets.

• Treasury Tokenization Became the Core Driver of RWA Expansion
• Commodities & Gold-Backed Tokens Quietly Became Massive
• Tokenized Equities, ETFs, & Credit Markets Started Scaling
• RWA Growth Is Now Outpacing Stablecoins & Reshaping DeFi

Treasury Tokenization Became the Core Driver of RWA Expansion

Tokenised U.S. Treasuries have been the primary driver of the sector's growth. Treasury-backed assets made up a relatively tiny fraction of on-chain finance at the start of 2025, but by early 2026, the category had grown to more than $15 billion. During that time, Treasury products alone accounted for over half of the market's increase.

Because Treasury tokenisation addressed an actual operational issue rather than generating a hypothetical use case, institutional firms entered the market with vigour. Conventional treasury markets depend on numerous intermediaries and function within constrained settlement windows.

In contrast, programmable transfers, continuous market access, and almost instantaneous settlement are all possible with on-chain treasury solutions. Because of this, they were especially appealing to investors seeking to combine the efficiency of blockchain technology with the solidity of public debt.

When tokenised treasuries surpassed $10 billion for the first time in February 2026, the industry also achieved a psychological milestone. At that point, institutional engagement ceased to be an experiment. Instead of approaching tokenisation infrastructure as a separate cryptocurrency project, major companies like BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, and JPMorgan started to treat it as a component of conventional capital market development.

Treasuries continue to dominate the market, but as other categories began to scale more quickly, their proportion of the entire RWA ecosystem marginally decreased from 73.7% to 67.2%.

Commodities & Gold-Backed Tokens Quietly Became Massive

Tokenised commodities emerged as one of the market's biggest growing categories, while treasury products garnered the majority of institutional attention. In just 15 months, the category's valuation increased by around 289%, from about $1.4 billion to $5.5 billion.

Gold-backed tokens, especially XAUT and PAXG, accounted for nearly all of that growth. The two assets together contributed around 89.1% of the category's growth. Tokenised gold reached a level of liquidity the market has never seen before due to growing geopolitical concerns, increased demand for defensive assets, and wider exchange support.

Trading activity was the most remarkable number. Tokenised gold spot trade reached $90.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone, above the $84.6 billion total trading volume of 2025. This change demonstrated that tokenised commodities were no longer serving as passive blockchain encapsulations of tangible assets. They had developed into actively traded securities with distinct speculative flows and cycles of liquidity.

During the quarter, there was also significant market volatility. The capitalisation of tokenised commodities surpassed $5 billion in January 2026, reached a record of $6.69 billion in early February, and then fell by more than 20%. The sector's intimate ties to macroeconomic sentiment over gold prices and global risk circumstances were reflected in that trend.

INSIGHT: RWAs have more than tripled in market cap since 2025 — hitting $19.3B by the end of Q1 2026.

While only 6.4% compared to the size of stablecoins, RWAs growth outpaced stablecoins over the last year, climbing up from 2.7% at the beginning of 2025. pic.twitter.com/pNUDkMPq90— CoinGecko (@coingecko) May 7, 2026