RWAs buck DeFi slowdown as tokenized assets gain traction: CoinShares
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- RWA spot trading volumes rose roughly 220% year-over-year on decentralized exchanges, even as overall DEX volumes fell about 70% in the same period, per a CoinShares report using Token Terminal data.
- Gold-backed tokens — specifically Tether Gold (XAUt) and Paxos Gold (PAXG) — and yield-bearing dollar products like Ethena's sUSDe accounted for the bulk of RWA trading activity on DEXs.
- RWA yields currently range from about 3.2% to 5.5%, with lower-risk Treasury products at the bottom of the band and higher-yield strategies carrying additional risk.
- RWA perpetual futures trading on tradeXYZ, an RWA-focused platform built on Hyperliquid, has grown roughly 20x since launch, with activity concentrating around commodities, the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, and technology stocks.
- RWA derivatives markets are expanding to let traders take leveraged positions on tokenized assets without holding the underlying, with open interest in RWA perpetuals also rising.
- The divergence suggests tokenized assets are building out secondary trading markets, allowing investors to trade ownership rather than only purchasing directly from issuers.
Why it matters: The 220% surge in RWA spot volume against a 70% drop in broader DEX activity is a sharp divergence: while speculative DeFi trading contracted, investors moved into tokenized gold, Treasurys, and yield-bearing dollars offering 3.2–5.5% returns. With RWA perpetuals volume up 20x on tradeXYZ and concentration around the S&P 500 and commodities, tokenized assets are quietly building the secondary-market infrastructure that traditional DeFi lacks.
