Tokenized equity holders hit 5.3 million but DeFi usage lags
DeFi & Yields ·
Holder counts for tokenized stocks grew tenfold since June, while actual capital deployed in DeFi lending and collateral markets remains comparatively small.
Tokenized equities reached 5.3 million holders in October, up more than 10x from June, according to a breakdown posted on X. Over the same period, open interest in RWA perpetuals climbed toward $20 billion, pointing to sustained demand for onchain exposure to traditional assets. Tokenized equities now make up nearly 83% of all RWA holders across the sector.
Solana accounts for a large share of that growth. The network has 1.5 million addresses holding tokenized equities, a fivefold increase since August alone. That expansion in address counts illustrates how broadly these assets are being distributed, but it says nothing about whether the underlying capital is actually circulating through onchain markets.
That distinction matters because deposits are a separate metric from holders. Tokenized-stock deposits in DeFi have just passed $300 million, about 25x higher than a year ago, yet more than a third of that total is concentrated in just five assets. The gap between wide distribution and concentrated deposits suggests that most holders are not yet using these tokens as active collateral.
Turning tokenized shares into usable DeFi collateral depends on factors beyond simple ownership: liquidity depth, reliable price feeds, borrowing demand, and the ability of liquidation systems to hold up under stress. The broader RWA ecosystem now includes more than 1,000 builders spanning blockchain infrastructure, asset issuance, stablecoins, trading venues, and lending protocols, but these layers are not yet well connected, which limits settlement efficiency and collateral quality.
Regulatory clarity around stablecoins may help onchain settlement generally, but tokenized equities carry their own separate legal and custody questions, including the legal rights attached to each token, custody and redemption terms, transfer restrictions, investor eligibility rules, and issuer or custodian risk. None of these have been fully resolved industry-wide. What remains to be seen is whether liquidity, collateral quality, and borrowing demand begin to catch up with holder growth, a shift that would determine whether tokenized equities become functional DeFi collateral rather than largely dormant holdings.