Tokenized Stocks in DeFi Grow Nearly 18x Year to Date

The latest data from Token Terminal reveals that tokenized stocks deposited into DeFi protocols have reached $262.4 million. At the start of the year, the same number was at $14.66 million. This equates to a year to date growth of around 1,690%, or close to 18x, with the growth accelerating over the last month. 

The number here only counts tokenized equities that have moved from wallets into various protocols and put to work. These include supplying liquidity, borrowing against them or chasing yield. Therefore, a tokenized Nvidia share sitting idle in a wallet does not show up in this figure. 

Most of the Money Sits in DEX Liquidity Pools

When looking at the breakup of tokenized stocks in DeFi by venue, decentralized exchanges hold the largest slice. Around 58% of the $262.4 million lies in DEX pools, where tokenized equities trade 24/7. Uniswap V4 is the leader of the pack with $59.5 million, or 22.7% of the total. Uniswap V3 adds another $26.7 million, with Raydium, PancakeSwap, Aerodrome and Meteora making up most of the rest. 

Lending protocols came in second place with around 26% of the total value locked (TVL) being posted as collateral. Kamino Lend led the venues here at $54.1 million and Fluid Jupiter Lend added another $14.2 million. Pendle yield strategies hold another $33.7 million, close to 13%. 

The lending share actually says a lot more than its size suggests. An asset only becomes useful as collateral when there is confidence and trust in its pricing, liquidation and redemption systems. In January, the entire category stood at less than $15 million. Today more than $68 million of tokenized stock is backing loans. 

Solana Still Leads, but Robinhood Chain Is Close Behind

Solana remains the largest chain for tokenized stocks in DeFi with $95.9 million, a 36.6% share. Robinhood Chain sits right behind at $79.9 million, or 30.5%, and almost all of it showed up in September. 

BNB Chain ($35.3 million) and Ethereum ($34.7 million) hold around 13% each, and Base trails at $16 million. 

Uniswap V4 followed a similar path. For most of the year, Kamino and Solana DEXs carried the market, with V4 a thin sliver at the top of the chart. Its share jumped through September, and total TVL roughly doubled over the month.

Crypto Treasury Stocks Lead the Asset List

The single largest asset is STRCx, a tokenized version of Strategy’s STRC preferred stock, with $34.3 million deployed. FWDI, the stock of Solana treasury firm Forward Industries, follows at $25.4 million. MSTRx, tokenized Strategy common stock, adds $9.6 million. Crypto treasury stocks account for about a quarter of all tokenized equity TVL.

That concentration makes sense. People holding Strategy exposure onchain usually already use DeFi, so borrowing against a preferred share on Kamino is a small step for them.

Mainstream equities are catching up. S&P 500 trackers SPYx and SPY hold a combined $30.1 million, and Nvidia tokens across two issuers hold $15.6 million. Tesla’s TSLAx sits at $6.2 million.

The long tail runs deep. Token Terminal tracks 1,495 separate tokenized stock assets in DeFi, and everything outside the top 10 still makes up 48.9% of the total. The float is broad, and most of it has been put to work within the last few weeks.