In January, the total amount of $14.1 billion on public blockchains grew to $23.6 billion by March 11th. That's a 66% increase in just 10 weeks. And this is NOT a bull market — it's only 10 weeks. This total of $23.6 billion is an amazing number and it is even better when you think about what it doesn't represent to you. The total amount for "active" decentralized finance (DeFi) assets is<a href="https://app.rwa.xyz/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>well over $369 billion according to RWA.xyz which has an asset by asset basis of what is represented on-chain versus the total amount of those assets that are actively distributed and exchanged between users in the world of buckle and Fintech platforms and services. The reason for the significant difference between the two numbers is due largely to the difference in the types of institutions who issue assets onto permissioned networks like Canton (which account almost entirely for the difference). The $23.6 billion number represents only the visible and obvious components of a much larger and growing underground total (the un-private), which has been going on for over two years now with banks acting as facilitators for this total of "covert" DeFi assets within the electronic and internet banking environments. And most people are NOT looking at the right numbers.<h2>What's Actually Inside That $23.6 Billion</h2>The top-performing 'tokenized' fund category is 'tokenised funds' which make up<a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/tokenized-rwas-rise-66-percent-2026-defillama" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>$10.5B or 44.5% of the total asset allocated by the market. Investors can use tokenized funds to purchase US Treasury Bills, Treasury Bonds, and Money Market Investments wrapped in a blockchain app without the hassle of the traditional settlement process, as the space crossed $10B in February and $11.13B within a March. Each subsequent month, the month-on-month addition exceeded $1B. As much as gold is $6.5B, the value of tokenised gold is not due in any way to the appearance of a blockchain use case for gold but rather the pressure on institutional capital to move toward 'hard assets' due to geopolitical pressures such as Iran, oil &gt; $90, and a bear market in equities, all enabling investors to acquire tokenised gold with fractional ownership and 24/7 trading as an alternative to owning actual gold; an ownership without the storage counterparty if using traditional methods. Tokenized stocks have surpassed $1 billion by March 10th, and most of this growth is being powered by Ondo and xStocks. As much as this number matters in the context of turning from proof of concept to real volume, the more critical part is simply that it is a milestone signalling to all platforms are now turning from a real volume perspective out of the proof of concept stage. The remaining portion of the total is yield, and private credit. Additionally, not all categories are growing at the same pace; however, the money is the most significant contributor to that growth, and the gold market also seems to be doing well; therefore, we are officially at the barrier to entry for stocks moving forward. This market is also clearly not travelling with one thesis based on the wide range of spread. Instead, it appears that there are unique buyers for all of these products, and they will each work under their unique requirements with distinct timelines.<h2>The 24/7 Case Is Real and Also Overstated</h2>Investors become exhausted from exchanges that shut off at 4 p.m. and require three intermediary parties to move funds across borders, per<a href="https://stobox.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>Ross Shemeliak from Stobox. This frustrates me tremendously. Anyone who has tried to exit a position in a US company listed on the exchange during Asian hours can instinctively feel this frustration. What is constantly missing from this frame of reference is how a tokenized Treasury bill can trade at two o'clock in the morning, yet it will continue to have the same yield and simply create a settlement advantage. If the counter parties attached to each side of a trade at 2:00 a.m., there will be little if any increase in liquidity (the benefit of making that trade). In most cases, the parties on each side of the trade will not be active. Therefore, there is a mechanism in place for increased transactions or trade to happen over time with tokenized assets, but there won't be significant depth available in the market for a while. While some spokespersons are perhaps a little more candid about this point than others, one of the spokespersons for RWA.xyz stated that the concept of tokenization itself is no longer the disruptive act, but rather the distribution of it is. Something in between has actually become less disruptive due to the access of something via technology. Therefore, the change is not one of a technological innovation, but, rather, a change in the form of distribution.<h2>Who's Actually Driving This</h2>Tokenized funds have gone from $8B to $23.6B because of the involvement of large institutional players such as JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, Franklin Templeton. Now that they have been issued on-chain, tokenization will not necessarily lead to future growth. However these large investment managers are known for establishing and enhancing the overall credibility of the investment market based on the amount of investment in the market. The up to date forecast from<a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/from-ripples-to-waves-the-transformational-power-of-tokenizing-assets" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a><a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/from-ripples-to-waves-the-transformational-power-of-tokenizing-assets" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">McKinsey is that the cap for tokenized funds in 2030 will be approximately $2 trillion</a>;<a href="https://coinpaper.com/12033/standard-chartered-predicts-2-trillion-real-world-asset-market-by-2028" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a><a href="https://coinpaper.com/12033/standard-chartered-predicts-2-trillion-real-world-asset-market-by-2028" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Standard Chartered Bank believes the tokenization market will achieve this amount by 2028</a>; there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding the time frames for these projections; as no one predicted the figures correctly in any twelve month period, let alone over five years; however all estimates trend in the correct direction. Securitize, a provider of tokenization services in the United States, is seeking a public listing on Nasdaq by way of a DE SPAC. This is indicative of where a future tokenization market is heading: after infrastructure companies go public, experimentation should be expected.<h2>The Part That Doesn't Get Coverage</h2>Currently, on-chain, thebiggest transactions involving RWAs are around $10 million per RWA transfer. The amounts involved in most transfers are NOT $500 million or $1 billion, but ten. This means that there is NO liquid secondary market where anyone can readily cash out a large position; this means that large entities are managing their positions by batching together very large transfers over time. The real value of RWAs is $23.6 billion. However, the number of RWAs that possess liquid, tradeable, and exit-at-will components and have several large percentages of RWAs that will not leave either through redemption windows in fund structures (they are currently "locked up" in one of many forms of fund), through the settled transactions of cryptocurrencies (on-chain), through paper (but not tokenized) in the form of promissory notes, and are held as collateral for formal loans. Approximately<a href="https://www.gncrypto.news/news/tokenized-real-world-assets-surge-66-percent-to-23-6b-2026-defillama/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>65 percent of all distributed RWAs on-chain are held on the Ethereum blockchain; therefore, the overall "stress event" (e.g., network congestion, increase in transaction fees, or protocol faults) can affect a large portion of this asset class and can present risks that have yet to be accounted for in the overall growth narrative for the future of RWAs. The issue of how the assets are ultimately distributed and made available to the "outside world" (including all categories of users) will be solved; but, what remains unresolved is the method of exit from those transactions involving RWA.

Tokenized assets surged to $23.6B in 10 weeks, led by tokenized funds and gold, driven by institutional investors seeking 24/7 markets, though liquidity remains limited.

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