Invest1 publisher2 min readPublished
Credit tokens, under a quarter of the RWA market, supply 76% of DeFi's real-world collateral
Dune's Q3 report puts tokenized credit at 76%, about $1.61 billion, of the real-world collateral in DeFi lending. Holders borrow against credit for its yield, and part of that yield comes from loans to crypto firms.
The Investor · Invest desk
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What happened
- Cash equivalents total about $17.8 billion, roughly half the tokenized market, and Dune describes the segment as largely inactive, with limited trading or lending.
- Tokenized credit is a $7.8 billion segment, up 111% from a year earlier, and private credit makes up 75% of it.
- Morpho, Kamino and Aave together account for 83% of RWA lending activity, according to the report.
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- exposure Stress at Morpho, Kamino or Aave would hit most of DeFi's real-world collateral at once, and Morpho's lending terms alone cover close to half of it.
- contradiction RWAs are pitched as uncorrelated real-world exposure, yet the asset DeFi lenders favour is partly owed by crypto firms whose credit moves with crypto markets.
- decision Issuers of cash-equivalent tokens cannot rely on DeFi lending for distribution while their yields are too low to clear the cost of borrowing against them.
Credit is about 23% of the $34.5 billion tokenized market and 76% of the real-world collateral posted in DeFi lending [1][3][1]. Take the $1.61 billion of credit out of the $2.11 billion of RWA supply sitting in lending protocols and $500 million is left for every other asset class combined [2]. Even if all of that were cash equivalents, no more than about 2.8% of the $17.8 billion cash bucket would be posted as collateral [3]. For credit, Dune puts the figure at roughly 19 to 21% of supply [6]. The report measures the market as of August 31, 2026, across 21 chains, more than 2,600 products and over 250 issuers [2][15].
Crypto Briefing, reporting the findings, puts the gap down to yield [8]. Dune puts returns on tokenized credit between 3.32% and 13.84% [7]. The trade Crypto Briefing describes is a carry: deposit a credit token earning one rate, borrow against it at a lower rate and keep the spread [8]. Cash equivalents, by that account, do not yield enough to make the trade pay [8]. The report as described does not give borrowing rates on the lending venues, so these figures cannot show how wide that spread is.
Some of that yield is paid by crypto firms. About 32% of tokenized credit involves crypto counterparties, according to Dune [13]. Applied to the $7.8 billion segment, 32% comes to roughly $2.5 billion [4]. Maple and Centrifuge are among the private-credit issuers the report highlights [12]. The venues are concentrated too. Morpho alone holds about $1 billion of RWA deposits, close to half of everything in lending protocols [9][5].
The 76% could move for reasons that have nothing to do with credit quality. Should issuers open permissioned products to more holders, some idle cash could reach lending venues, and credit's share would fall without a dollar of credit leaving [14]. A crypto drawdown would put pressure on the crypto borrowers just as collateral values are tested, and the $1.61 billion would shrink from the credit side [17]. If neither happens, the carry lasts as long as credit yields stay above borrowing costs [8].
I think the 76% mainly measures how much leverage holders want on credit yield, and about a third of the segment carries crypto credit risk [13]. That view is wrong if credit deposits on Morpho, Kamino and Aave hold their size through the next crypto drawdown, or if the crypto-counterparty share falls well below 32% as private-credit issuance grows [10][13].
What to watch
- Dune's next quarterly reading of the share of tokenized RWA supply deployed in lending, now 6.1%, and whether non-credit collateral grows beyond about $500 million.
- Whether Morpho's share of RWA deposits, close to half the lending total, rises or falls in Dune's next report.