The tokenized real-world asset market reached $34.5 billion as of Aug. 31, up 140 percent year-over-year, with distinct on-chain trading patterns emerging across equities, credit, commodities and cash-equivalent products.
Tokenized equities show the sharpest divergence from traditional markets. Single stocks represent 81 percent of spot tokenized equity supply, while ETFs account for 19 percent—a stark inversion of traditional equity markets where ETFs hold substantially larger share.
Armand Khatri, head of ecosystem at Ondo Finance, attributed the single-stock dominance to tokenization's core appeal: investors gain direct control over asset selection without relying on local intermediaries. They can choose individual company or index exposure directly on-chain.
The tokenized equity segment itself remains nascent. Binance Research pegged the market at $4.43 billion as of Sept. 15—just 0.0029 percent of the $151.9 trillion global listed-equity market. Yet growth is steep: tokenized equities expanded 390 percent in 2026 alone.
Binance co-CEO Richard Teng projected the segment could reach approximately $349 billion by 2030 under base-case modeling, though he cautioned the shift in investor behavior will not happen overnight.
U.S. regulators are clearing the path. The SEC granted a temporary exemption on Sept. 17 allowing limited on-chain trading of tokenized U.S.-listed stocks. The New York Stock Exchange and Blockchain.com separately announced plans to offer tokenized U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs through a proposed digital trading platform, pending regulatory approval.
Dune's analysis, which examined spot assets, perpetuals and event contracts across tokenized and synthetic forms, reveals that on-chain dynamics depart from traditional finance. Tokenized cash, for instance, largely sits idle rather than trading actively, while on-chain stock investors consistently favor individual shares over funds.
