The Rise of Composable RWA

Original translation: Deng Chain Community

Content Summary and Guide:
Currently, out of approximately $27 billion in RWA AUM, about $2.7 billion has entered the lending market and is used as collateral, yield strategies, or cyclical leverage. The assets truly adopted by DeFi are not the largest government bonds, but credit assets with more positive yield spreads, especially categories like Maple, Aave, Morpho, Kamino, and reinsurance. The design of open permissions, easy integration, and cross-chain distribution is becoming the core engine for the spread of RWA.

The Rise of Composable RWA

$27 billion of tokenized RWA, but only about $2.7 billion has actually been deposited into decentralized lending markets------as collateral, injected into vaults, or used for yield strategies. It has grown rapidly from nearly zero in just one year. This article will explore where this capital is flowing, what is driving it, and what it signifies.

Background: From Regulatory Clarity to Composable Capital

Three regulatory milestones at the end of 2025 and early 2026 accelerated the tokenization process.

• In July 2025, the GENIUS Act established the first comprehensive framework for payment stablecoins in the U.S., requiring 1:1 reserve backing and clear regulation.

• In March 2026, the SEC and CFTC jointly classified major blockchain tokens as digital commodities rather than securities.

• A few days later, the SEC approved Nasdaq to trade and settle tokenized stocks and ETFs on its main market.

These milestones propelled an already accelerating trend. Stablecoins------the settlement layer for tokenized assets------saw total supply surpass $330 billion, growing 12 times since 2020. During the same period, the number of active stablecoins increased from 31 to 215. Tokenized RWA also showed a similar trajectory, with AUM growing 27 times in two years to about $27 billion, expanding from a few categories to seven categories tracked in our overview dashboard, including reinsurance and stocks.
Beyond the surface AUM figures, a more critical question is: how much of this capital is truly at work within DeFi. About $2.7 billion of RWA tokens are actively deposited in various DeFi lending markets------accounting for about 10% of the $27 billion tokenized AUM. This 10% was almost non-existent a year ago. Composability------the ability of a tokenized asset to be used as collateral, borrowed, and cycled into yield strategies across different protocols and chains------can be said to be the most promising advantage of tokenization.

Source: dune.com/queries/6972565/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=copy&utm_campaign=query

Note: We are counting RWA tokens that have been deposited or provided to lending protocols------only including collateral and vault supplies. We excluded borrowed amounts and stablecoins provided as lending liquidity to focus on RWA assets that are truly put into DeFi operations. All data is as of April 16, 2026.

Where the $2.7 Billion is Stored

Distributed across four platforms on Ethereum, Solana, and multiple L2s.

Source: dune.com/queries/7332367/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=copy&utm_campaign=query

• @Morpho ($957 million)------permissionless, has listed 41 types of RWA assets across 10 chains. Specialized curators like Gauntlet and Steakhouse manage the vaults, allocating capital to these markets and building structured leverage strategies on top of tokenized real-world assets.

• @aave (broader market) ($929 million)------Maple's syrup tokens are distributed across Plasma, Base, and Ethereum. Institutional credit flows permissionlessly to the most economically efficient lending opportunities.

• @kamino ($587 million)------the largest lending protocol and RWA platform on Solana. PRIME $315 million (HELOC lending yield), syrupUSDC $161 million, ONyc $71 million (reinsurance), USCC $18 million, plus the xStocks market (seven tokenized stocks totaling $21 million).

• Aave Horizon ($161 million)------Aave's permissioned RWA market for institutions. There are 256 addresses with an average holding of $1.5 million. USCC $105 million, USTB $46 million, VBILL $7 million, JAAA $3 million. Among stablecoins, $124 million is actively borrowed, with a utilization rate of 77%.

• @0xfluid ($109 million)------reUSD $94 million (reinsurance), gold $12 million, syrup $2 million. Notably, this platform carries reUSD from the Re Protocol as collateral, which does not appear on other platforms.

Tokenized Does Not Equal Used

There is a significant divergence between the assets dominating tokenized AUM and those actually deposited as collateral in lending protocols. The two rankings are almost reversed.

Source: dune.com/queries/7327377/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=copy&utm_campaign=query
U.S. Treasuries account for 48.5% of tokenized AUM ($13.2 billion), but only 2% of DeFi deposits. Credit assets account for 17% of AUM, yet about 80% of deposits. Commodities account for 25.2% of AUM, but almost only 1%.
The dominance of credit assets is because the math works out. @maplefinance's syrupUSDC yields about 6%, while T-Bills yield about 3.5%. When your collateral can earn 6% and you can borrow stablecoins at 3%, it creates a positive carry. Curators like @gauntlet_xyz build clear cyclical strategies on this basis: collateralize RWA, borrow funds, and buy more. This is a designed, risk-controlled leverage------which also explains why credit assets appear on all major lending platforms: $957 million on Morpho, $929 million on Aave, and $476 million on Kamino.

Source: dune.com/queries/6912382/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=copy&utm_campaign=query
In addition to existing categories, reinsurance is becoming a truly new composable asset class. @re Protocol's reUSD appears on multiple platforms------$96 million on Morpho (including $50 million from Pendle PT-reUSD) and $94 million on Fluid------while @onrefinance's ONyc accounts for $71 million on Kamino. In total, reinsurance corresponds to $324 million in tokenized AUM (1.2% of the total) and about $261 million in DeFi deposits (10% of the total), with about 80% of tokenized reinsurance actively deposited in lending protocols, the highest deposit rate among all asset classes.

Source: dune.com/queries/7332182/059a5dd3-7eae-4519-8504-35f3e9f32038?utm_source=share&utm_medium=copy&utm_campaign=query
Tokenized stocks are also entering DeFi: SPYx ($7.9 million on Morpho), @BackedFi's xStocks on Kamino (SPYx, TSLAx, QQQx, NVDAx, GOOGLx, MSTRx, AAPLx totaling $21 million), and deSPXA ($3.6 million). Although the amounts are small, the infrastructure is in place, and lending activities around stocks have already begun.
This divergence is enlightening. What tokenization rewards is security and familiarity------U.S. Treasuries are easy to understand, easy to regulate, transparent (NAV updates frequently and oracle pricing is simple), and attractive to institutional balance sheets. What composability rewards is a different logic: yield spreads and leverage economics.

Collateral Composition is Changing in Real-Time

The dominance of high-yield credit assets may partly be a matter of timing. Aave Horizon provides the clearest evidence.
When Horizon launched in August 2025, USCC------@SuperstateInc's Crypto Carry Fund------offered about 15% APY through basis trading on crypto futures. This yield accounted for 93% of all RWA collateral. Although T-Bill products were launched, they were hardly sought after.
Subsequently, as basis spreads narrowed, the yield on USCC compressed to about 4%, gradually aligning with T-Bill yields of 3% to 4%. The result was that the share of USCC collateral dropped from 93% to about 67%, while USTB surged from less than $1 million to $45.6 million in just 30 days------a 570% increase. As the yield gap narrows, the market is diversifying.

Source: https://dune.com/entropy_advisors/aave-horizon-rwa
This is significant not only for Horizon. If credit yields continue to compress across the market------which often happens in mature markets------then the collateral compositions across all platforms are likely to become more diversified. The first wave of dominant assets (high-yield credit) may not continue to dominate the next wave. Factors such as risk characteristics, regulatory acceptance, and settlement mechanisms will begin to become more important.
@pendle_fi also adds another dimension to this evolution. Its principal tokens (PTs)------which allow users to lock in fixed yields on RWA products------account for $58 million in Morpho deposits. Pendle also provides direct RWA markets for thBILL and mTBILL, incorporating yield curve trading into the composability stack. As more RWA products launch on Pendle, fixed-rate strategies will become another channel for RWA distribution.

Permissionless Access Drives Distribution

Maple Syrup is the clearest case. syrupUSDC and syrupUSDT are permissionless ERC-20 tokens------technically, they sit between stablecoins and RWA, as they are pegged 1:1 to USDC/USDT, but the yield comes from institutional credit. We classify them as RWA because their underlying exposure is real-world lending. Anyone can mint, trade, or deposit them into any lending protocol. No KYC, no whitelisting, no partnerships required.
The result is that 98% of syrupUSDT on @Plasma and 99% of syrupUSDC on @base are actively deployed to Aave. Curators like Gauntlet independently built leveraged vaults on Morpho without coordinating with Maple. The scale of syrupUSDC on Kamino (Solana) also reached $161 million.

Source: dune.com/queries/7324965/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=copy&utm_campaign=query
Every new integration adds a bit of utility; utility attracts capital, and capital justifies more integrations. It is this flywheel effect that has naturally distributed $929 million across three chains.
This is important because distribution is widely recognized as the primary challenge in the industry. @centrifuge's Tokenization Outlook 2026 report shows that 86% of operators believe expanding distribution for existing products is more important than launching new products. The case of Maple on Aave demonstrates that permissionless composability itself is a distribution channel.

Frontier: $1.85 Billion Tokenized, $13 Million Composable

Centrifuge showcases the opportunities and gaps in RWA. It is one of the largest tokenization platforms, with its institutional products' AUM nearing $2 billion: JTRSY (a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund) at $1.52 billion, JAAA (a tokenized AAA CLO fund) at $403 million, ACRDX (Apollo's diversified credit fund) at $52 million, and the recently launched SPXA (the first tokenized S&P 500 index fund) at $3.7 million. However, only about $13 million is composable in DeFi.

Source: dune.com/queries/5534552/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=copy&utm_campaign=query
This gap is attributed to timing and design. The deRWA wrappers are permissionless but did not launch until September 2025. On the other hand, the permissioned designs of other mature products slowed down the integration pace. Liquidity remains thin.
But integration is accelerating. Resolv has committed to deploying $100 million of JAAA on Horizon. Falcon Finance is using JAAA and JTRSY as collateral for USDf. Grove is deploying $250 million on Avalanche. LayerZero supports distribution across 165+ networks. Meanwhile, deSPXA------Centrifuge's DeFi-wrapped version of the S&P 500 fund------has already reached $3.6 million TVL and $7.9 million DEX trading volume, showcasing early natural activity and the potential of the deRWA pathway: permissionless wrappers running in parallel with permissioned products aimed at institutions.

Three Key Conclusions

• Growth rate is more important than current scale. There are $2.7 billion of RWA deposits in the DeFi lending market------about 10% of the $27 billion tokenized AUM. But this $2.7 billion was almost non-existent a year ago. The absolute numbers are still small, but the growth rate is more important.

• Tokenized does not equal used. U.S. Treasuries account for 48.5% of tokenized AUM but only 2% of DeFi deposits. Credit assets account for 17% of AUM but 80% of deposits. Higher yields create positive carry, sufficient to support leveraged cycles------credit yields above 6% are viable, while 3.5% Treasury yields are not. However, as the macro environment changes and yield spreads between different asset classes fluctuate, the composition of collateral will also adjust, with new assets and emerging categories (like reinsurance) continuously appearing.

• Permissionless access drives distribution. Maple's syrup tokens------a hybrid between RWA and stablecoins------have exceeded $1 billion in scale across Aave and Kamino on four chains. This token was designed for composability from the start, so the market naturally combined it. Easily accessible assets will be adopted faster. Assets requiring whitelisting are also catching up, but at a slower pace.

All data cited in this article is freely available on Dune. You can start with the RWA Overview categorized by AUM or dive into dashboards for each platform: Morpho RWA, Aave Horizon, Maple on Aave, Centrifuge, Kamino RWA TVL. Data is as of April 16, 2026.