RWA is up fivefold in half a year—sounds impressive—but DeFi penetration is still only 10%. The problems of redemption friction and composability bottlenecks haven’t been solved yet, so even if institutions come in, they’ll most likely use it like an on-chain Yu’e Bao-style product. It’s still a long way from truly programmable assets.

The RWA report released by Castle Labs shows that the on-chain tokenized real-world asset market has reached $28.2 billion, a fivefold increase from early 2025, with a peak of $31.8 billion. Tokenized U.S. Treasuries and money market funds still lead, accounting for about $17 billion, nearly 60%, with BlackRock BUIDL and Hashnote USYC both exceeding $3 billion. Tokenized stocks have become the fastest-growing sub-sector, with an increase of over 170% this year, far surpassing the approximately 60% growth of U.S. Treasuries. The expansion of stablecoins, institutional capital inflows, and the advancement of regulatory frameworks are driving on-chain activity; however, bottlenecks remain in redemption mechanisms and DeFi composability. Of the $28.2 billion in RWA, only about $3 billion has entered DeFi, with a penetration rate of roughly 10%.