Tokenized real-world assets grew to $7.4 billion while the rest of DeFi shrank, CoinShares report says

Deposits of tokenized real-world assets into lending platforms and decentralized exchanges more than tripled over the past year — from $2.3 billion in Q2 2025 to $7.4 billion in Q2 2026 — even as total DeFi deposits fell roughly 15% over the same stretch. The figures come from a joint report by asset manager CoinShares and data firm Token Terminal, reported by The Block on Aug. 6.

The composition matters more than the headline number. Per the report, growth came almost entirely from conventional financial products rather than crypto-native ones: tokenized Treasury and multi-strategy funds — JTRSY, BlackRock's BUIDL and sUSDS — led on the collateral side, followed by private credit products and delta-neutral strategies. Ethereum holds nearly 70% of RWA deposits, with Plasma and Solana gaining share.

Trading told a similar story. Overall DEX spot volumes fell about 70%, while RWA trading climbed roughly 220%, with gold tokens XAUT and PAXG making up a significant share. In perpetual futures, RWA volumes and open interest kept rising against a broader slowdown the report dates to October 2025, concentrated in oil, precious metals, the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and semiconductor stocks.

CoinShares CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti framed the data as validating the firm's "Hybrid Finance" thesis: "Look at what is actually being used on-chain: Treasuries, gold, the S&P 500, semiconductor stocks. Not one of them is a crypto asset," he said. "Investors are not leaving traditional finance behind. They are moving traditional assets onto infrastructure that settles in seconds and does not close at night."

Key facts

• RWA deposits into lending platforms and DEXs: $2.3B (Q2 2025) → $7.4B (Q2 2026) — CoinShares/Token Terminal, via The Block
• Total DeFi deposits over the same period: down ~15% — same report
• DEX spot volumes: down ~70%; RWA trading volumes: up ~220% — same report
• Ethereum's share of RWA deposits: ~70%, with Plasma and Solana gaining — same report
• Leading collateral: JTRSY, BlackRock's BUIDL, sUSDS; then private credit and delta-neutral strategies — same report

The real-world read

The report says the data "confirms" CoinShares' own published thesis. That is a firm marking its own homework: an asset manager with a commercial interest in institutional on-chain adoption publishing research that finds institutional on-chain adoption. Treat it as house research, not an independent audit.

Mognetti's line that "not one of them is a crypto asset" also sits awkwardly against the report's own inventory. Delta-neutral strategies are crypto-native basis trades, and sUSDS is a DeFi protocol's savings token — both counted in the RWA tally being used to argue that none of this is crypto.

Two things go unsaid. No methodology is given for what qualifies as an RWA deposit, and no absolute figure for total DeFi deposits appears, so $7.4 billion can't be sized against the market it's supposedly winning. A 220% volume gain also has no stated base — a large percentage move off a small number is still a small number. Not independently verified here.

Opinion, and whose

The "convergence, not disruption" reading is Mognetti's and CoinShares', not an established fact. No forecast figures were attached to it.

Sources

• The Block (Daniel Kuhn), Aug. 6, 2026 — reporting on the CoinShares/Token Terminal report; all figures above trace to that report, not to independent measurement by The Block. The Block discloses that Foresight Ventures is its majority investor.
• CoinShares / Token Terminal report — the primary data source, quoted secondhand. It is vendor research from an interested party and should be read as such; there is no indication it was sponsored by a third party.

Not financial advice.