Dune report finds tokenized credit dominates RWA collateral in DeFi lending

Tokenized Treasuries got the headlines. Tokenized credit is doing the actual work.

A new Dune report finds that credit products make up 76% of all real-world asset deposits in DeFi lending protocols. That equals around $1.61 billion, which makes credit the leading form of RWA collateral onchain by a wide margin.

The report is titled “After Issuance: Reading the Onchain RWA Market – Q3 2026.” It measures the market as of August 31, 2026, and focuses on what happens to these assets after they are minted.

A $34.5 billion market with a split personality

The broader tokenized RWA market has reached approximately $34.5 billion, according to Dune. That represents growth of over 140% year-over-year.

Cash equivalents account for about $17.8 billion, roughly half the market, yet most of that money barely moves. Dune describes this segment as largely inactive, with limited trading or lending.

Tokenized credit tells a different story. The segment is valued at $7.8 billion, up 111% year-over-year, and it shows far more composability across DeFi.

The $1.61 billion of credit sitting in lending protocols represents roughly 19–21% of all tokenized credit supply.

Why credit gets put to work and cash doesn’t

Dune puts returns on tokenized credit between 3.32% and 13.84%, with some products standing out at the top of that range.

Higher yields make room for strategies like carry trades. A trader deposits a credit token earning one rate, borrows against it at a lower rate, and pockets the spread. Cash equivalents generally lack enough yield cushion to make that math compelling.

The lending activity itself is highly concentrated. Morpho alone holds roughly $1 billion in RWA deposits, according to the report. Morpho, Kamino, and Aave together account for 83% of RWA lending activity.

Only about 6.1% of total tokenized RWA supply, or $2.11 billion, is currently deployed in lending protocols.

Who is behind the credit boom

Private credit is the engine. It makes up 75% of the tokenized credit market, per Dune. Issuers such as Maple and Centrifuge are among the names highlighted for driving growth in the segment.

About 32% of tokenized credit involves crypto counterparty transactions, meaning the borrowers on the other side are often crypto-native firms rather than traditional businesses. Credit exposure to crypto firms tends to move with crypto markets, which partly undercuts the pitch of RWAs as uncorrelated real-world exposure.

Many offerings also remain permissioned. Only approved, often verified, participants can hold or trade them, which limits secondary market liquidity.

Dune’s dataset covers 21 chains, 8 asset classes, more than 2,600 products, and over 250 issuers.

What this means for DeFi and RWA issuers

With Morpho, Kamino, and Aave handling 83% of RWA lending activity, any stress at one of those venues would hit a large share of the market at once.

The 32% crypto counterparty share carries additional risk. In a crypto downturn, the borrowers behind some of these credit tokens could face pressure at the same moment collateral values are being tested.

Only 6.1% of tokenized RWA supply sits in lending protocols. Permissioned structures are the obvious bottleneck limiting further deployment of that idle supply.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.