According to a research report from DWF Labs, more than US$31 billion of tokenised assets—excluding stablecoins—now reside on the blockchain, representing a 50 % increase this year. The growth is largely driven by US Treasuries and private‑credit instruments, as asset managers convert familiar products for blockchain‑based distribution.
Less revealing is the limited use of this capital within decentralised finance: only about US$3 billion—roughly 10 % of tokenised assets—are actively employed as DeFi total value locked.
High‑profile tokenised Treasury offerings, including BlackRock’s BUIDL, WTGXX, and Franklin Templeton’s BENJI, reportedly experience fewer than 30 transfers per month.
The bottleneck is market structure
For fintech founders, exchanges, and infrastructure operators in Southeast Asia, the distinction is critical. Tokenisation alone does not produce liquidity, market access, or capital efficiency; these outcomes hinge on pricing, redemption mechanisms, and market structure—areas where the present ecosystem remains underdeveloped.
DWF Labs highlights three barriers. Pricing for private‑credit and real‑estate assets is sluggish, as many products depend on net‑asset‑value updates that are issued at best daily. This hampers market makers’ ability to quote volumes without significant spreads.
Redemption remains cumbersome. While blockchain promises instant settlement, many tokenised assets still require days to redeem because their underlying assets and counterparties adhere to legacy schedules. On‑chain liquidity is too thin for institutional trades, and over‑the‑counter markets remain fragmented.
Regulation further constrains composability. Transfer restrictions, KYC checks, and accreditation requirements are common in institutional issuances. While necessary for regulated assets, these controls collide with permissionless DeFi protocols that depend on open participation and automated collateral flows.
“Liquidity is the primary constraint on scaling tokenisation on‑chain,” said Andrei Grachev, Managing Partner at DWF Labs, underscoring the need for real‑time pricing, instant redemption, and deeper secondary markets.
Who captures the value
Thus far, the greatest winners have been issuers and asset managers who control distribution channels. Crypto‑native infrastructure providers—such as lending protocols, data oracles, market makers, and redemption venues—have captured a smaller share, even though they supply much of the underlying infrastructure.
The balance is shifting. Maple Finance has attracted more than US$3.6 billion in TVL by using tokenised credit as collateral for its stablecoin wrappers, syrupUSDC and syrupUSDT. While this wrapper model can introduce illiquid assets into DeFi lending, it also brings allocation, disclosure, and default risks.
Oracle providers represent another critical layer. Pyth and Redstone are building 24/7 pricing infrastructure for tokenised equities and commodities, a prerequisite for market makers to quote narrower spreads on assets that previously relied on slower reference prices.
Redemption infrastructure is also evolving. Symbiotic’s Liquid Lane proposes shared vaults, where market makers compete via a request‑for‑quote layer to price redemption discounts. Figure is pursuing a vertically integrated approach, combining origination, secondary price discovery, and settlement, and has originated more than US$21 billion in home‑equity lines of credit on Provenance and YLDS, an SEC‑registered, yield‑bearing stablecoin.
The next opportunity is not another Treasury wrapper
The report identifies two areas where the next wave of value may emerge: non‑US dollar debt and yield‑bearing exposure to commodities and equities.
Over 94 % of tokenised assets remain US dollar‑denominated, despite non‑US dollar sovereign bonds representing more than 45 % of the traditional global fixed‑income market. Emerging‑market debt is especially pertinent for investors in Asia, where the yield gap is larger than that of US Treasuries. Brazilian real bonds yield approximately 10 %, and Turkish lira bonds yield about 15 %, with non‑deliverable forwards available to hedge currency risk.
The same logic applies to regional private credit across APAC and MENA, where borrowers face higher funding costs and investors seek transparent, programmable access. In Southeast Asia, tokenisation could transcend a simple digitised fund wrapper if infrastructure can manage credit assessment, currency risk, servicing, and secondary liquidity.
Commodities and equities present another avenue. Tokenised commodities have generated more than US$4.8 billion on‑chain, with total on‑chain activity reaching US$90.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026. Tokenised equities have grown to over US$1 billion in value, supported by 185,000 holders within a year. These products illustrate retail demand for price exposure, although they do not inherently produce yield.
Protocols that can safely layer yield onto these assets—through stablecoin collateral, lending markets, or options strategies—are likely to attract more enduring users than platforms that merely list tokenised instruments.
Tokenisation’s initial focus was issuance, but its next phase hinges on utility. Unless assets can be priced in real time, redeemed swiftly, and traded with enough depth, much of the capital placed on‑chain will remain idle. For Southeast Asian builders, the focus should shift from launching new tokenised products to resolving the market plumbing that renders those products functional.