Binance Research: the RWA Market Is Entering the Capital Activation Era

• According to Binance Research, total RWA market AUM reached $34.18 billion, up 85.2% year to date.
• The report introduces two metrics — the Programmable Asset Ratio and the Capital Activation Rate — which measure not only the scale of tokenization, but also how assets are used in onchain finance.
• Binance Research notes that only about 0.01% of underlying markets are currently tokenized, while the overall capital activation rate is around 12%.

Binance Research, the research arm of the Binance exchange, has released a report titled The RWA Activation Era, focused on a new stage in the development of the tokenized real-world assets (RWA) market. This was stated in a press release for Incrypted. 

The study notes that RWA growth is no longer limited to the question of how much traditional assets are being moved onchain. The next phase is about how these assets are used after tokenization — in trading, liquidity pools, lending, and as collateral.

According to Binance Research, total assets under management in the RWA market reached $34.18 billion, up 85.2% year to date as of September 15, 2026.

Bonds and money market funds remain the largest category at $18.29 billion. Equities, meanwhile, became one of the fastest-growing categories, rising 390.4% year to date. Together, these two segments accounted for more than three quarters of the market’s growth.

Growth is also extending to gold and commodities, private credit, and real estate. Binance Research believes this shows that tokenization is no longer just a story about crypto-native collateral and is expanding to a broader set of traditional markets.

The Market Remains at an Early Stage

Despite the growth, Binance Research estimates the share of tokenized assets at roughly 0.01% of the corresponding underlying markets.

The clearest example is equities. The onchain volume of tokenized stocks has reached $4.43 billion, but that is only 0.0029% of the $151.9 trillion public equities market.

Binance Research believes this points to significant upside potential. At the same time, the key question is not only whether the supply of tokenized assets will grow, but whether they can become fully fledged financial instruments in an onchain environment.

According to the report, bond funds and money market funds have $18.29 billion in onchain assets and an estimated PAR of 0.0171%. Their larger existing asset base creates a sizable pool of yield-bearing instruments for onchain applications, while equities are scaling faster thanks to broader distribution and access.

New Metrics for Assessing RWAs

The Binance Research report introduces two metrics to assess the market’s shift from simply issuing assets to putting them to financial use.

Programmable Asset Ratio (PAR) measures what share of the relevant underlying market is already represented as programmable onchain assets.

Capital Activation Rate (CAR) shows what share of the tokenized base is actually deployed in onchain financial applications. This includes liquidity pools, lending protocols, and collateral markets.

According to Binance Research, overall PAR is about 0.01%, and overall CAR is about 12%. This means that roughly $12 out of every $100 of tracked tokenized asset value is already being used in onchain financial applications.

Binance Research notes that the aggregate metric masks significant differences across asset classes. Private credit has the highest CAR at 49.67%, while equities posted one of the largest increases — from 1.95% to 7.54% since the start of the year.

The use of tokenized equities in DeFi is concentrated in financial infrastructure. Liquidity pools account for 65.4% of tokenized equities TVL in DeFi, with another 28.1% in lending. Together, these areas make up 93.5% of the deployed value.

Binance Research notes that the next phase of the RWA market will be tied not only to the question of “how many assets are tokenized,” but also to what users can do with those assets after issuance.

This shift is described in the report as the RWA activation era. Tokenized assets are starting to serve not only a representative function, but are also becoming programmable financial instruments.

Equities Show a Shift From Adoption to Usage

Tokenized equities are one of the clearest examples of this shift. According to the report, their volume has grown by 390.4% since the start of the year, and the onchain balance reached $4.43 billion.

At the same time, the share of tokenized equities remains extremely small compared with the underlying market. As Binance Research notes, $4.43 billion onchain corresponds to just 0.0029% of the $151.9 trillion public equities market.

However, the use of tokenized equities in DeFi is already growing. Equity CAR increased from 1.95% to 7.54% since the start of the year.

According to Binance Research, the combination of low penetration and rising usage makes equities one of the key segments to watch. The assets are not only being issued onchain, but are also starting to be used in liquidity, lending, and collateral mechanisms.

Scenarios for Tokenized Equities

In its 2030 scenarios, Binance Research draws on equity forecasts from its earlier report, Tokenization’s Trillion-Dollar Runway. They project roughly $61 billion, $349 billion, and $987 billion in tokenized equities under the conservative, base, and bull scenarios, respectively.

Given the current market size of $4.43 billion, these figures correspond to roughly 0.04%, 0.23%, and 0.65% PAR by 2030.

All else being equal, higher AUM should generally translate into higher PAR. However, CAR can evolve independently — depending on whether liquidity, lending, and collateral applications scale alongside asset issuance.

One takeaway from the report is that AUM growth and higher utilization can reinforce each other.

In Binance Research’s base-case scenario for 2030, around $349 billion in equities could become programmable. If CAR is 10%, activated capital would reach $34.94 billion. If CAR rises to 20%, that figure would increase to $69.87 billion without any additional issuance of tokenized assets.

This means the next phase of RWA growth may be driven not only by bringing more assets onchain. A meaningful role could be played by increasing the utility of capital that has already been tokenized.

What’s Next

Binance Research notes that broader RWA adoption can raise PAR by bringing new assets and users into the onchain environment. At the same time, integrations with liquidity, lending, and collateral markets can increase CAR by giving holders more ways to use assets after purchase.

In the authors’ view, a stronger signal for the industry would be not only AUM growth, but also a simultaneous increase in PAR and CAR. This would indicate that tokenization is moving from asset issuance to repeatable financial use.

As a result, the RWA market is entering a phase where not only the scale of tokenization matters, but also the real-world usability of the assets. After the stage of bringing traditional instruments onchain, the next question becomes their financial role within onchain infrastructure.

Сообщение Binance Research: the RWA Market Is Entering the Capital Activation Era появились сначала на INCRYPTED.