The Tokenised RWA Iceberg Keeps Rising: From $25 Billion to the Edge of $40 Billion

When we last wrote about tokenised real-world assets in March, distributed on-chain RWAs had just crossed roughly $25 billion, a figure we called the tip of the iceberg. Six months later, the iceberg has grown faster than almost anyone expected. As of late September 2026, distributed on-chain RWA value stood above $39 billion and was closing in on the $40 billion mark, according to RWA.xyz. Perhaps more telling than the headline number: the number of tokenised-asset holders more than doubled in August, to nearly 5 million addresses by the end of September. Adoption is broadening, not just deepening.

Source: RWA.xyz as of 28/09/2026. Historical performance is no guarantee for future results.

The holder base nearly quintupled in the latest quarter, from about 1.0 million to just over 4.8 million addresses. That is by far the steepest quarterly gain in the series, and the clearest evidence that adoption is broadening.

The thesis from March holds. Set against roughly $130 trillion in global bonds, $120 trillion in equities, and $11 trillion in money-market funds, tokenisation still represents a fraction of a percent of global financial assets. The structural opportunity remains asymmetric. What has changed is the evidence that migration is underway.

What’s Changed Since Q1?

Treasuries have pulled further ahead. Tokenised US Treasuries and cash-equivalent products are now the clear anchor of the market at roughly $16 billion, up from around $10 billion when we last wrote. The leaders are the names you would expect from regulated finance, each measured in billions.

The honest caveat is concentration risk. That same success is the sector’s main structural vulnerability. Depending on how you count, government-securities and cash-equivalent products account for the large majority of on-chain RWA value. This makes the headline growth number sensitive to the rate environment: were policy rates to fall sharply, the yield advantage that draws capital into tokenised Treasuries would narrow, and flows could reverse. A market that is broad on paper is still concentrated in practice.

But the base is also broadening. Tokenised equities (effectively non-existent a year ago) have become the fastest-growing newcomer, with tokenised versions of listed stocks appearing across several platforms. Private credit has settled in as a solid second category. And the institutional plumbing has moved: major market-infrastructure providers have signalled intent to integrate tokenised securities into the existing architecture of regulated markets, rather than routing around it.

Source: RWA.xyz as of 28/09/2026. Historical performance is no guarantee for future results.

Tokenised equities now account for roughly 4.0 million of the ~4.8 million holders, up from about 200,000 two quarters earlier; the broadening base described above, even though Treasuries still dominate the market by value.

Two Forces That Have Strengthened The Case

Beyond the raw growth, two developments since March reinforce the settlement-layer argument at the heart of our positioning:

1. Stablecoins and the rise of “agentic” demand. RWAs cannot scale without on-chain cash, and stablecoins are increasingly being used not just by people but by software. AI agents have begun settling payments in stablecoins at machine scale, a new, structural source of demand for on-chain dollars that sits on top of trading and remittances. The chain with the deepest stablecoin liquidity is best placed to capture it.
2. Faster, higher-capacity settlement rails. The networks that host tokenised assets are themselves being upgraded for throughput and faster finality. As base layers become better suited to high-volume settlement, the practical ceiling on tokenised-asset activity rises with them.

Positioning: The Framework Still Holds

Our three-layer approach for strategic allocation is unchanged; if anything, the latest data reinforces it further.

Core exposure: the settlement layer. Ethereum still hosts the majority of distributed on-chain RWA value and remains the venue of choice for flagship institutional issuance. For direct, regulated exposure to Ethereum as the dominant RWA settlement layer, the VanEck Ethereum ETN (VETH) is backed 1:1 by physically held Ether. The staking rewards* featured in the Ethereum ETN directly tap into the revenue streams of the protocol (which increasingly includes transaction fees from inssuance, management and trading of tokenised RWAs). *Staking rewards are not guaranteed.

Risk: Ether is highly volatile; regulatory, technological, or sentiment shifts could adversely affect its price. VETH investors are exposed to the full price volatility of Ether.

Source: Defillama as of 28/09/2026. Historical performance is no guarantee for future results.

Ethereum still carries the largest distributed market cap, but issuers and unique assets are spreading across BSC, Stellar, Solana and others, the single-chain concentration question that the diversified-platform allocation below is meant to address.

Diversified platform exposure. For investors concerned about single-chain concentration, the VanEck Crypto Leaders ETN (VTOP) and VanEck Smart Contract Leaders ETN (VSMA) provide basket exposure across the smart-contract platforms competing for RWA issuance and settlement flows.

Risk: Diversification does not eliminate risk; individual components may be volatile, illiquid, or subject to regulatory uncertainty.

Infrastructure layer: data and verification. Tokenised assets depend on oracles for price feeds, NAV updates, and proof-of-reserve checks. Exposure to this often-overlooked layer is available via the VanEck Chainlink ETN (VLNK) and VanEck Pyth ETN (VPYT).

Risk: Oracle networks are an early-stage segment; LINK and PYTH can be highly volatile and face competition and regulatory risk.

Bottom Line

In March the story was a milestone; in September it is a clear trajectory. The market has grown by roughly half in six months, the holder base is expanding quickly, and the institutional rails are being laid. The concentration in Treasuries is a genuine caveat and a rate-sensitivity risk worth flagging. But the direction of travel (traditional finance migrating, gradually, onto regulated on-chain infrastructure) is clearer than it was six months ago. The iceberg is still mostly below the surface.

Disclaimer

This is not financial research but the opinion of the author of the article. We publish this information to inform and educate about recent market developments and technological updates, not to give any recommendation for certain products or projects. The selection of articles should therefore not be understood as financial advice or recommendation for any specific product and/or digital asset. We may occasionally include analysis of past market, network performance expectations and/or on-chain performance. Historical performance is not indicative for future returns.