CoinGecko: 2026 RWA Industry Report

Source: CoinGecko

Since the revival of RWA in 2024, improved regulatory transparency has enabled major traditional financial institutions to dip their toes in. As early experiments gradually evolve into best practices and operational guidelines, the pace of tokenization has also accelerated significantly.

2025 has become a watershed year for the RWA industry. Whether native crypto institutions or traditional financial participants, competition across the entire RWA and tokenization track is growing increasingly fierce. Asset issuers are beginning to build differentiated advantages across three dimensions: regulatory qualifications, the scope of asset backing, and distribution reach. Centralized exchanges are also helping lead the track’s adoption with dedicated traditional finance strategies, further lowering trading access barriers for these assets. This report reviews and revisits the overall development trajectory of the RWA industry from 2025 through the first quarter of 2026.

Seven Highlights from CoinGecko’s 2026 RWA Report

1. Since 2025, the scale of tokenized RWA has grown by more than 2x, reaching $19.3 billion by the end of Q1 2026.

2. Tokenized commodity trading volume increased from $1.4 billion to $5.5 billion, mainly driven by gold-backed tokens XAUT and PAXG.

3. In Q1 2026, the spot trading volume of tokenized gold reached $90.7 billion, exceeding the $84.6 billion trading volume for all of 2025.

4. Since its mid-2025 launch, the market cap of tokenized stocks has reached $500 million, led by technology stocks.

5. In Q1 2026, the total spot trading volume of tokenized stocks was $15.1 billion, exceeding the $14.8 billion in the second half of 2025.

6. The size of tokenized ETFs reached $300 million. Growth is well supported, and they also exhibit considerable long-tail effects.

7. In Q1 2026, the total RWA (risk-weighted assets) jumped to $524.8 billion, far higher than the $313.0 billion for all of 2025.

8. Since 2025, the scale of tokenized RWA has grown by more than 2x, reaching $19.3 billion by the end of Q1 2026.

In 15 months, the total market cap of tokenized RWA increased by 256.7%, rising from $5.42 billion at the start of 2025 to $19.32 billion as of March 31, 2026. Although tokenized RWA accounts for only 6.4% of the stablecoin market cap, this ratio is higher than the 2.7% at the start of 2025, indicating that the growth rate of tokenized RWA has outpaced stablecoins over the past year.

Tokenized government bonds remain the largest asset class. During this period, their market cap increased by $9.0 billion (+225.5%), accounting for more than half of the industry’s market cap growth. Of particular note is that after the market cap of tokenized government bonds first broke the $10.0 billion mark on February 11, 2026, its growth momentum accelerated slightly.

Even so, as tokenization levels improve across other asset classes and market recognition increases, the market share of tokenized government bonds has fallen slightly from 73.7% to 67.2%. By the end of Q1 2026, tokenized commodities accounted for 28.7%, tokenized stocks accounted for 2.5%, and tokenized ETFs accounted for 1.5%.

2. Tokenized commodity prices surged 289% to $5.5 billion, mainly driven by gold-backed tokens XAUT and PAXG.

During the same period, the market cap of tokenized commodities increased from $1.43 billion to $5.55 billion, adding $4.12 billion (+289.1%). Previously, this asset class first surpassed the $5.0 billion mark on January 19, 2026, then reached a peak of $6.69 billion on February 5, before dropping by 20.6% and ultimately closing lower at quarter-end.

However, the tokenized commodity market is still primarily dominated by gold-backed tokens—especially Tether’s XAUT and Paxos’ PAXG—which contributed $1.87 billion and $1.8 billion respectively, accounting for 89.1% of market expansion. This aligns with the ongoing trend of rising spot gold prices over the past year.

PAXG saw the largest increase in market share, rising from 36.8% to 41.8%, with a market cap of $2.32 billion. XAUT continues to hold the leading position with a market cap of $2.52 billion. After reaching 54.7% market share at the end of October 2025, it fell to 45.5%.

Despite growth in absolute market cap, smaller precious metal tokens have shrunk relatively. Kinesis’ KAG, the largest silver-backed token by market cap, more than doubled to $350 million, but its market share fell from 8.0% to 4.8%. Similarly, KAU’s market cap increased by $230 million to $270 million, but its market share also fell from 8.5% to 6.3%. On the other hand, Matrixdock’s XAUM grew 11x to $700 million, and its market share rose from 0.4% to 1.3%, placing it among the top five.

3. In Q1 2026, the spot trading volume of tokenized gold reached $90.7 billion, exceeding the $84.6 billion trading volume for all of 2025.

In only Q1 2026, the total spot trading volume of tokenized gold reached $90.7 billion, already surpassing the $84.6 billion for all of 2025 (at $846.4 million). This reflects that crypto participants are seeking to invest in this high-performing asset, driving a surge in demand for tokenized gold, and it also reflects the increasing convenience of exchange-traded channels. Notably, centralized exchanges (CEXs) account for the vast majority of spot trading in tokenized assets.

However, so far, the spot trading volume of tokenized gold has varied significantly month to month, reflecting its sensitivity to market conditions. For example, in October 2025, as gold prices hit a new all-time high, spot trading volume surged to $21.38 billion—more than triple the $6.73 billion of the previous month’s trading volume. It then fell back to $14.07 billion the following month.

Similar to the market cap of tokenized commodities, PAXG and XAUT dominate spot trading of tokenized gold. During this period, PAXG’s monthly trading volume share ranged from 34.2% to 82.5%, while XAUT’s monthly trading volume share ranged from 14.8% to 64.6%. Over the past fifteen months, the average monthly spot trading volume for PAXG and XAUT was $5.72 billion and $5.32 billion respectively, while average total monthly trading volume was $11.69 billion. At the same time, KAG’s average monthly trading volume was $0.57 billion; Tether’s on-chain deployment volume for XAUT was $0.1 billion; and XAUM’s trading volume was only $0.007 billion.

4. Since its mid-2025 launch, the market cap of tokenized stocks has reached $500 million, led by technology stocks.

Tokenized stocks began launching in the middle of last year. Their market cap grew from $2.09 million on June 30, 2025 to $486.69 million on March 31, 2026. The first batch of xStocks from Backed Finance were listed by the end of July 2025, bringing the asset class’s market cap to $28.59 million. Tokenized stocks of Tesla, Circle, Nvidia, and Alphabet also began trading on-chain. By the end of September 2025, Ondo’s issuance of tokenized stocks further boosted the market cap twofold to $111.21 million.

Circle has become the tokenized stock with the largest market cap to date, reaching $171.39 million and accounting for 35.2% of the asset class. This includes its Ondo tokenized product CRCLON of $130.3 million and its xStock tokenized product CRCLX of $41.08 million.

Tesla was originally launched in the form of the largest tokenized stock and reached a peak of $73.8 million in late January 2026, before falling back to $61.7 million. Accordingly, Tesla’s market share rose from 17.2% initially to 32.2% when it dominated in August 2025, and then declined again to 12.7%. In contrast, Tesla’s xStock token TSLAX is larger, reaching $47.77 million, while its Ondo token TSLAON is valued at $13.93 million.

Other leading tokenized stocks by market cap include Nvidia ($4.259 million, 8.8%), Alphabet ($3.691 million, 7.6%), and MicroStrategy ($2.615 million, 5.4%).

5. In Q1 2026, the total spot trading volume of tokenized stocks was $15.1 billion, exceeding the $14.8 billion in the second half of 2025.

When tokenized stocks launched in July 2025, their monthly spot trading volume was only $2.33 billion. Although it declined over the next two months, tokenized stocks’ spot trading volume has since exceeded $4.0 billion for four consecutive months. Similar to tokenized gold, the total spot trading volume of tokenized stocks in Q1 2026 reached $15.12 billion, surpassing the $14.84 billion from the last two quarters of 2025.

Tesla, Circle, and Nvidia account for the largest share of tokenized stock trading volume. So far, their average monthly trading volumes are $540 million, $450 million, and $440 million, respectively.

Despite integration with multiple centralized exchanges (CEXs), the trading activity of the top five tokenized stocks remains negligible compared with their real-world counterparts, accounting for less than 1% of the total market trading volume of TradFi stocks.

6. The size of tokenized ETFs reached $300 million, with broad growth foundations and notable long-tail effects.

The market cap of tokenized ETFs grew from $620,000 on July 1, 2025, when products were still in their launch phase, to $297.5 million by the end of Q1 2026. This means the market cap of tokenized ETFs is slightly more than half that of tokenized stocks.

Notably, the launch of Ondo’s tokenized ETF increased the asset class’s market cap from $950,000 on September 1, 2025 to $197.66 million by the end of that month.

Compared with tokenized stocks, the growth of tokenized ETFs is more widespread. There is not yet a clear leader. Ondo’s SPDR S&P 500 index ETF remains the largest tokenized ETF by market cap, with a market cap of $32.45 million and a market share of 10.9%. iShares Silver Trust follows closely with a market cap of $31.75 million and a market share of 10.7%. The market shares of other tokenized ETFs with larger market caps range from 4.5% to 8.6%.

Meanwhile, there are a considerable number of smaller tokenized ETFs. As of March 31, 2026, these ETFs combined accounted for 27.8% of the market share.

7. In Q1 2026, the total RWA (risk-weighted assets) jumped to $524.8 billion, far higher than the $313.0 billion for all of 2025.

Perpetual contracts have become another tool for trading RWAs or TradFi assets, and have developed alongside tokenization, achieving significant growth. In Q1 2026 alone, the total trading volume of RWA perpetual contracts reached $524.79 billion, which is expected to more than double the $313.02 billion trading volume for all of 2025. This marks the fourth consecutive quarter of growth in RWA perpetual contract trading volume, rising from $29.74 billion in Q1 2025 to $67.41 billion in Q2, $77.0 billion in Q3, and $138.87 billion in Q4.

Commodities initially held the share of all RWA perpetual contract trading up until July 2025. Over the past six months, their monthly trading volume share has fluctuated between 69.7% and 95.3%. At the same time, perpetual contracts across other asset categories have also gained market recognition: the market share of stock perpetual contracts increased from 0.4% in August 2025 to 6.0% in March 2026; the market share of ETF perpetual contracts increased from 2.8% in October 2025 to 5.3% in March 2026, even though most of this growth came from SPY trading volume.

In addition, Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 platform increased its share of monthly RWA trading volume from 2.8% at launch in October 2025 to 28.6% in March 2026. Notably, HIP-3’s trading volume also jumped from $12.65 billion in Q4 2025 to $130.87 billion in Q1 2026.

The total daily open interest of RWA perpetual bonds rose from $14.0 million on January 1, 2025 to $6.68 billion on March 31, 2026. In Q1 2026, the average daily open interest of RWA perpetual bonds was $4.82 billion—more than five times the $850 million average daily open interest in the previous year.