Stellar’s tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market has exploded this year — but most of that value isn’t being used in DeFi. A new RedStone report shows Stellar’s onchain RWA stock rose from about $785 million in January to more than $3 billion in July, largely driven by tokenized money-market funds, U.S. Treasury products and corporate debt. Yet the network’s decentralized finance layer remains tiny by comparison: RedStone estimates roughly $259 million in total DeFi activity on Stellar, and just over $2 million sits in Blend pools that are capable of accepting RWAs. What’s on Stellar Several large, regulated products account for much of the tokenized value, signaling that institutional issuers are comfortable placing hundreds of millions on a public blockchain: - Amundi/Spiko Overnight Swap Fund (French-regulated UCITS cash-management) — hundreds of millions onchain since launching on Stellar in March. - Spiko’s tokenized U.S. Treasury bill fund — about $536 million. - Ondo Finance’s USDY — over $533 million on Stellar after the product expanded to the network in September 2025 (it rose from roughly $1 million at the start of 2026). USDY is a yield-bearing asset backed by short-term U.S. Treasuries and bank demand deposits. - VuMe Bond 2030 (issued under Luxembourg securitization rules) — roughly $500 million since its February launch on Stellar. - Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (BENJI) — about $460 million tokenized; launched on Stellar in 2021 and invested primarily in U.S. government securities, cash and repos. Why tokenization hasn’t yet become DeFi liquidity Issuance numbers show how much value has been tokenized, not how active those tokens are inside lending markets, collateral pools or trading venues. The RedStone data and other onchain metrics point to a substantial “RWA-to-DeFi” gap on Stellar. Stellar’s largest lending protocol, Blend, accounts for roughly $127 million of the network’s DeFi footprint — but pools that can accept RWAs hold only slightly more than $2 million. Templar Protocol, which lets users borrow against tokenized instruments such as deJAAA (AAA-rated CLO tranches), deJTRSY (short-term U.S. Treasuries), CETES (Mexican government certificates) and USTRY (U.S. T-bills), has about $8.4 million in total value locked on Stellar. Pseudonymous Templar CEO Royal Fool summed up the problem: reliable pricing is a precondition for using RWAs as collateral. “Listing a real-world asset as collateral works best if we can price it reliably around the clock,” he said. Lending protocols need continual price feeds to calculate loan-to-value ratios and trigger liquidations — even when the underlying markets are closed. Price discovery is harder for RWAs Unlike Bitcoin or Ether, which trade 24/7 on many venues, traditional assets have uneven market schedules and more complex valuation inputs. U.S. stocks trade during set hours; government bonds and corporate debt can lack continuous spot prices. Money market funds are valued based on NAV and portfolio holdings rather than constant secondary-market trades. Corporate securities add further complexity: credit quality, maturity, settlement terms and tranche structure all matter. Oracles must therefore do more than replicate crypto-price aggregation: they need tailored methods to account for differing liquidity, update cadences and product structures. Standards and feeds: SEP-40 and RedStone Stellar’s SEP-40 Oracle Consumer Interface for Soroban smart contracts standardizes how contracts request price data. Before SEP-40, providers used custom interfaces and developers had to write new adapters for each source. SEP-40 creates a common set of functions for asset identification, price precision, update intervals, timestamps and staleness checks — plus historical queries. RedStone joined Stellar in March and adopted SEP-40, now supplying 55 price feeds covering U.S. Treasuries, sovereign and corporate debt, tokenized gold and money-market products. Its feeds include Ondo’s USDY, Franklin Templeton’s BENJI, Matrixdock’s XAUm gold token, Centrifuge-linked treasury/credit products and tokenized Mexican and Brazilian debt from Etherfuse. “Reliable, standardized pricing on Stellar by RedStone is what lets protocols actually use them as collateral,” said Martin Quensel, founder of Anemoy and Centrifuge co-founder. Other infrastructure moves Stellar added another pricing and interoperability layer in October 2025 by integrating Chainlink’s Data Feeds, Data Streams and CCIP for cross-chain use. These integrations, together with SEP-40 adoption, aim to make it easier and safer for DeFi protocols to accept RWAs. A potentially much larger pipeline is coming from traditional market infrastructure. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) plans to add tokenized versions of DTC-custodied assets to Stellar in the first half of 2027. Initial eligible instruments are expected to include Russell 1000 shares, major ETFs, U.S. Treasuries and several classes of corporate bonds. DTCC received a no-action letter from the SEC in December 2025 allowing limited testing of tokenized securities under regulatory guardrails. DTCC’s $114 trillion figure often cited in connection with the move refers to total assets it custodies, not the amount that will be tokenized or migrated to Stellar. The envisioned setup would keep securities inside existing custody and regulatory frameworks while allowing blockchain-based representations for settlement, collateral transfers and other operations. DTCC has already run permissioned tokenization pilots in July with BlackRock, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Vanguard, NYSE and around 40 other firms. Assets in those tests included Microsoft shares, Circle, Invesco QQQ, SPDR S&P 500 ETF and BlackRock’s iShares 0–3 Month Treasury ETF, with JPMorgan converting QQQs into tokenized representations. Those pilots used permissioned stacks such as Hyperledger Besu and Canton; Stellar’s public deployment is slated for 2027, when participants will test repos, collateral moves and equity transactions. Bottom line Stellar has convinced big issuers to tokenize hundreds of millions in regulated funds and debt, vaulting its RWA total past $3 billion in months. But turning tokenized value into active DeFi liquidity requires reliable, standardized pricing, continual oracle coverage and integration with financial plumbing. Standards like SEP-40, new feeds from RedStone and Chainlink, and DTCC’s planned onboarding all move Stellar closer to that goal — but the onchain lending ecosystem still has a sizable gap to close before RWAs become widely usable collateral.
Stellar's RWA Market Surpasses $3B, DeFi Activity Remains at ~$259M
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Stellar’s real-world assets (RWA) news continues to gain traction, with the tokenized RWA market rising from $785 million in January to over $3 billion in July. Growth is fueled by products like tokenized money-market funds, U.S. Treasuries, and corporate debt. DeFi exploit activity remains low at ~$259 million, with only $2.2 million in Blend pools. Key assets include Amundi/Spiko’s Overnight Swap Fund, Spiko’s U.S. Treasury bill fund, Ondo Finance’s USDY, and Franklin OnChain’s BENJI. RedStone and Chainlink integrations aim to boost oracle coverage and infrastructure for broader adoption.
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