Mid-2026 Onchain RWA Report: Tokenized Equity Market Cap Doubles in a Year, but 90% of Rights Are Hollow Shells

Original Title: The State of Onchain Real-World Assets in Mid-2026

Original author: insights4vc

Originally compiled by DeepFlow TechFlow

Deep Tide Editor's Note:On-chain tokenized asset figures look impressive, but they mask a fundamental contradiction: freely tradable products often lack real ownership rights, while legally enforceable products suffer from poor liquidity. This report breaks down—with concrete data—how much of this 'USD 1.89 billion market' is actually backed by real value, making it essential reading for any investor considering exposure to on-chain securities.

Stock markets haven’t been moved onto the blockchain. What has emerged instead is a more trustworthy infrastructure layer—for distributing securities, recording ownership claims, and settling trades through blockchain-based systems.

According to data from RWA.xyz, the value of distributed tokenized equities grew from USD 951 million in March 2026 to USD 1.89 billion by July—an almost twofold increase. However, this growth was driven primarily by a handful of products and platforms.

The most notable progress has come from regulated market infrastructures, particularly Nasdaq’s same-CUSIP settlement model and the commercial rollout planned by DTC. Liquidity, investor distribution, and independent on-chain price discovery mechanisms remain extremely limited. Tokenized government bonds continue to demonstrate stronger product-market fit, while equity ETFs may scale more easily than individual stocks.

Thus, this market is best understood as a fragmented 'Layer 2.5' system: products with the strongest legal foundations often have the weakest liquidity and distribution capabilities, while the most actively traded wrapper products typically offer the weakest ownership rights.

This report updates insights4vc’s March 2026 analysis, 'The State of Real-World Assets on Chain,' with a focus on identifying substantive changes since its publication.

What Has Changed Substantively Since March

The March report distinguished between two types of assets: those recorded on a blockchain and those transferable to external wallets. This distinction remains relevant today. Under RWA.xyz’s framework, a 'represented asset' stays within the issuer’s or platform’s own environment, whereas a 'distributed asset' can be transferred externally—though transfers may still be restricted to approved or whitelisted wallets.

However, transferability alone is no longer sufficient to assess a product’s maturity.

Since March, offshore products have become more accessible in terms of cross-chain liquidity and usage in decentralized markets. Ondo has expanded to Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana, introduced decentralized routing, and added continuous minting and redemption features for certain products. xStocks has also broadened its distribution channels and collateral integrations.

Meanwhile, regulated U.S. infrastructure has taken a different path: the focus is not on unrestricted portability, but rather on legal certainty, controlled wallets, compliant custody, transfer agent records, and integration with DTC.

Figure: Evolution of market capitalization for various RWA asset classes from 2019 to 2026 (including tokenized equities, government bonds, etc.)

These two approaches address different problems: offshore wrapper products enhance accessibility and composability, while regulated infrastructure strengthens the link between tokens and legally recognized ownership claims.

"Canonical shares" refer to the foundational form of securities authorized by the issuer, whose transfers are recognized within official ownership systems. They are fundamentally distinct from third-party instruments that merely track stock price or performance.

Currently, no product at scale simultaneously achieves all four elements: canonical ownership, broad wallet distribution, institutional liquidity, and independent on-chain price discovery.

Figure: Summary statistics of on-chain real-world assets (as of July 28, totaling approximately USD 36.78 billion, with U.S. Treasuries accounting for 43.95%)

The broader aggregate RWA figures also require cautious interpretation. On July 29, RWA.xyz reported distributed value of USD 36.81 billion and representative value of USD 218.27 billion. The apparent decline of USD 124.33 billion in representative value should not be interpreted as capital outflows or redemption pressure. Between the two observation dates, numerous datasets underwent additions, deletions, reclassifications, or revaluations.

These figures reflect the equity value covered by the platform’s methodology at a specific point in time, not a measure of investor capital flows.

Tokenized equities offer a more reliable benchmark, as the same 'bridged token value' methodology can be applied consistently across both periods. Even so, the reported 98.5% increase cannot be cleanly decomposed into new issuance, price appreciation, and reclassification effects.

FGRS provides a useful example. Figure completed a fundraising round issuing 4.375 million blockchain-based shares at USD 32 per share, but the subsequently reported value fluctuated with market prices. Without daily data on minting, burning, and net asset value for each product, it is impossible to reliably reconstruct net market-wide issuance.

RWA.xyz measures tokenized equities using 'bridged token value,' calculated as bridged circulating supply multiplied by net asset value.

Circulating supply excludes balances identified as vault holdings or pre-minted inventory. The bridged figure also removes tokens locked in known bridge contracts to prevent double-counting when an asset is locked on one network and issued on another.

This is a valid metric for measuring distributed value, but it differs from free float—defined as the portion of securities genuinely available for public trading after excluding restricted positions, strategic holdings, and concentrated ownership stakes.

The timing of the data is equally important. The asset-level export data shows a total distributed value of $1.8879 billion on July 27, aligning with the dashboard’s reported figure of approximately $1.888 billion. Snapshots across platforms and networks on July 29 totaled roughly $1.872 billion.

The difference between the two figures is $15.8 million, or 0.84%, consistent with changes in price and token supply between the two observation dates. Therefore, growth calculations for specific instruments in this report use July 27 data, while platform and network market share figures are based on the July 29 snapshot; the two datasets are never mixed within the same calculation.

Figure: Breakdown of Tokenized Equities (Top 10 Underlying Assets by Issuing Platform and Network; FGRS peaks at approximately $191 million)

Three named instruments accounted for roughly half of the incremental increase: SECZ added $169 million following its listing, FGRS added $162.9 million, and STRCx added $126.6 million. Together, they contributed $458.6 million, representing 49% of the total incremental increase of $936.8 million. Long-tail products collectively contributed an additional $150.5 million, or 16.1% of the increase.

These figures reflect changes in distributed value, not investor subscription amounts.

SECZ is influenced by both the number of representative shares and Securitize’s NYSE-listed share price. FGRS reflects a combination of issuance, conversion activity, and market price movements. STRCx depends on the circulating supply and value of certificates linked to Strategy’s floating-rate preferred stock.

Lumping the above three types of growth together under the label "tokenized equity inflows" conflates several economically distinct events into a single figure that could be misleading.

Concentration is even more pronounced at the platform level. In a snapshot taken on July 29, Ondo and xStocks together accounted for 72.7% of the distributed value. Including Securitize, the top three platforms held 85.1% of the market share.

Chart: RWA.xyz Platform Rankings — Ondo (45.21%), xStocks (27.51%), and Securitize (12.40%) ranked top three

Distribution across blockchain networks is more fragmented, but this does not eliminate underlying common dependencies. Ethereum leads with a 36.2% share of value, followed by Solana (19.6%) and BNB Chain (15.8%). Provenance and Avalanche are primarily driven by Figure and Securitize, respectively.

Products issued across different networks may still rely on the same wrapper issuer, broker-dealer, custodian, securities agent, or reference price provider.

Chart: RWA.xyz Network Rankings — Ethereum (36.24%), Solana (19.63%), and BNB Chain (15.82%) ranked top three

This market has expanded in breadth but remains legally fragmented. Multiple tokens can simultaneously reference Apple stock or an S&P 500 ETF, yet each represents a separate legal liability, governed by different jurisdictions and reliant on distinct intermediaries.

Bridge adjustments prevent double-counting of the same token across different networks, but they cannot—and should not—aggregate products that reference similar assets yet confer materially different legal rights.

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