In the first quarter, the spot trading volume of tokenized gold reached $90.7 billion, surpassing the total for 2025 ($84.64 billion). This is according to a report by CoinGecko.
Analysts attributed the growth to two factors: high investor demand and increased availability of such assets on exchanges, primarily centralized ones.
The segment leaders remain PAXG from Paxos and XAUT from Tether. The former’s share of monthly turnover ranged from 34.2% to 82.5%, while the latter’s ranged from 14.8% to 64.6%. Average turnovers for PAXG over the past 15 months were $5.72 billion, and for XAUT, $5.32 billion.
RWA Market Triples in Size
Over 15 months, the total capitalization of the real-world asset tokenization segment grew by 256.7%—from $5.42 billion at the start of 2025 to $19.32 billion by March 31, 2026.
The sector accounts for 6.4% of the stablecoin market volume. At the beginning of last year, this figure was at 2.7%.
U.S. Treasury bonds continue to lead among categories. During the reporting period, their volume increased by $9 billion (+225.5%). Due to the growth of other asset classes, the share of treasuries decreased from 73.7% to 67.2%.
Tokenized commodities accounted for 28.7% of the RWA market by the end of the first quarter, stocks for 2.5%, and ETFs for 1.5%. The latter two categories are rapidly gaining momentum, CoinGecko noted.
The segment of digitized securities emerged in mid-2025. Since then, it has grown from $2.09 million to $486.69 million. The largest asset is Circle, with a capitalization of $171.39 million and a 35.2% share. Other notable players include Tesla, Nvidia, Alphabet, and Strategy.
The spot trading volume of such stocks in the first quarter was $15.12 billion. However, the turnovers of the five largest securities have yet to exceed 1% of their traditional stock market counterparts.
The capitalization of tokenized ETFs rose from $620,000 in July 2025 to $297.5 million by the end of the first quarter of 2026. There is no clear leader in the segment: the largest fund, SPDR S&P 500, holds 10.9% of the market, while iShares Silver Trust holds 10.7%.
Perpetual RWA Volumes Reach Record Highs
According to CoinGecko, trading volumes of perpetual contracts on RWA exceeded $524 billion. For the entire year of 2025, the figure was $313.02 billion. Growth has been observed for four consecutive quarters.
The average daily open interest in such assets reached $4.82 billion—more than five times the level a year ago.
Nearly 30% of activity is driven by HIP-3 markets on the Hyperliquid exchange: their turnover in the first quarter was $130 billion. At the time of the update launch in October 2025, their share was estimated at 2.8%, with a turnover of about $12.6 billion.
Earlier in April, the International Monetary Fund warned that the growth of the RWA market could increase risks to the global financial system.