$39B RWA Surge: Stellar Takes 38%, DEX Volume Halves

Key Points

• Tokenized real-world assets grew about 81% in 2026 to roughly $39 billion by Oct. 9, excluding stablecoins, according to the RWA Foundation.
• Stellar drove about 38% of that growth and BNB Chain 24%, while Stellar’s tokenized asset value hit a record $3.5 billion, up 360%.
• Tokenized-asset DEX volume fell about 50% in 30 days while BlackRock’s BUIDL lost over $600 million, so check pool depth before a $1,000 swap.

Tokenized real-world assets grew about 81% this year to roughly $39 billion by Oct. 9, excluding stablecoins, and Stellar and BNB Chain drove 62% of that growth. BigGo Finance reported the RWA Foundation figures on Oct. 13, noting that “most investors currently hold tokenized real-world assets for yield.” That is the catch for your wallet: decentralized-exchange volume in tokenized assets fell roughly 50% over the past 30 days, so a bigger market does not mean an easier exit.

Stellar, BNB Chain Drive 62% Of The $39B RWA Climb

The tokenized market started 2026 at about $21.5 billion. By Oct. 9 it held about $39 billion, an 81% gain, by the RWA Foundation’s count.

The pace has held all year. BNC Research put distributed RWA value at $31.4 billion in May, roughly five times its level at the start of 2025.

Two chains took most of that. Stellar accounted for about 38% of the increase, and BNB Chain added 24%.

Ethereum, Solana, the XRP Ledger and Avalanche are left fighting over the remainder.

Stellar’s own tokenized value hit a record $3.5 billion, up about 360% from $895 million a year earlier. That puts it third, behind Ethereum and BNB Chain.

Its issuer list includes Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree and Ondo Finance.

One disclosure matters here. Stellar is a member of the RWA Foundation, the nonprofit that compiled these figures.

Tokenized DEX Volume Falls 50% As BUIDL Sheds $600M

The growth figures hide a liquidity problem.

Decentralized-exchange volume for tokenized assets fell roughly 50% over the past 30 days, BigGo reported.

Over the same 30 days, BlackRock’s BUIDL fund saw more than $600 million in outflows, according to RWA.xyz data cited by Token Terminal.

Token Terminal uses a wider count than the RWA Foundation. It puts the RWA market cap at about $46.8 billion, held by roughly 6.1 million holders.

Millions of wallets hold these assets, yet on-chain trading in them just halved.

For a DeFi user, this matters less as a record market size than as a warning that exit liquidity on DEXs is thinning.

Gold, tokenized stocks and real estate each sit around $1 billion in trading volume, which BigGo calls “meaningful but still modest compared with the broader market.”

Thin pools mean wider spreads. A $1,000 swap into a tokenized fund or stock can cost more in price impact when fewer traders sit on the other side.

The report lists no yields or rates, so there is no yield comparison to run here.

Before you swap, compare tokenized-asset liquidity across chains.

Stellar’s $3.5B Record Still Needs Deeper Pools

BigGo’s own caution is blunt: “Growth in network activity does not guarantee token appreciation.”

A record on Stellar does not automatically translate into gains for XLM, the report adds. Network activity and the token’s price are separate questions.

Bitget chief executive Gracy Chen has argued that the tokenized market has moved past the race to list assets and into a race over how efficiently they trade, as our report on tokenized Nvidia order-book depth covered.

This data fits her point. Listed value keeps climbing, while DEX trading has halved.

A tokenized fund still pays its holder interest. What changes is how the position is recorded and moved, which is why pool depth, not issuance, decides your exit.

Watch two things next. CME Group plans to add Stellar futures, which gives traders another regulated route to XLM price exposure.

The second is BUIDL. If its outflows keep running, the market headline and on-chain activity drift further apart.

IMF research has also compared tokenized value across Stellar, the XRP Ledger, Solana and BNB Chain, so the chain race now has policymakers watching too.

For small wallets, the move is simple: size trades to the pool, not to the headline.

Stellar and BNB Chain took the growth. Whether DEX liquidity follows the assets onto those chains is what your next swap actually depends on.

Trading tokenized assets on-chain? The Secondary Markets desk tracks where the pools run deep and where they run dry.