Tokenized Stock TVL Surges Nearly 2,000% to $247.8M in DeFi

The total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols for tokenized stocks jumped by 1,961% over the last year, reaching $247.8 million. Token Terminal released this data on Thursday.

Binance Research attributes the expansion to improved onchain infrastructure. Tokenized equities now serve purposes beyond simple holding, including lending, smart contract deployment, and markets paired with stocks.

3 Chains Dominate Tokenized Stock TVL

According to Token Terminal, Robinhood Chain holds $98.2 million of the total, followed by Solana with $87.4 million and BNB Chain at $36.3 million. Together, these three chains account for 89.5% of the TVL.

Binance Research came to a similar finding. Its report shows that active DeFi TVL grew from $21.6 million in January to $289.1 million by September 9.

Relative to its own active market cap, DeFi's portion climbed from 2.2% to 7.2%. However, the report also examines what these tokens are actually used for, breaking down the TVL by activity.

Liquidity pools represent 65.4% of the TVL, while lending markets account for 28.1%. Yield tokenization makes up 5.7%, with the remaining 0.8% allocated elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the broader market remains significantly larger. The distributed value of tokenized stocks reached a peak near $2.9 billion in mid-September, as reported by RWA.xyz. This metric covers tokens that can move freely between wallets.

Collateral Usage and Meme Coin Pairs Boost Turnover

Data from bStocks provides specifics on the lending portion. Outstanding borrowing against bStocks surged from 5.5% of deposited collateral at the end of June to 46.2% by September 10.

That translates to roughly $3.1 million borrowed against $6.8 million in collateral. While the pool is modest compared to the broader market, utilization has increased.

Binance Research also noted that tokenized stocks are fueling activity in “markets that are not direct stock-token trades.” Between July 26 and September 9, stock-paired meme coin markets generated about $2.49 billion on Robinhood Chain and $2.90 billion on BNB Chain.

Onchain analytics firm SQD examined a sample on Robinhood Chain. It found that $711.2 million, or 32.1%, of cumulative stock token volume through August 30 came from trades against other tokens, predominantly meme coins.

“Tokenized stocks are therefore becoming quote assets for crypto-native trading, which can lift turnover without requiring a proportional increase in buy-and-hold equity demand,” the report added.

Issuance is no longer the limiting factor. The key question ahead is how much of that $2.9 billion finds a purpose once it arrives onchain.