Crypto Market Convergence: RWA and DeFi Merge into One Financial Loop

HTX Research has published a new report examining the evolution of Regulated Wrapper Assets (RWA) and Decentralized Finance (DeFi). The report, titled 'From Asset Tokenization to Cash-Flow Tokenization: RWA and DeFi Enter the Second Half of Programmable Finance,' analyzes how tokenization of traditional assets and DeFi cash-flow valuation are converging into one financial loop. This shift is moving the crypto market from 'asset existence' to 'asset utility' and from 'protocol usage' to 'protocol profitability.'

The report found that the market size of tokenized assets excluding stablecoins has grown from less than $3 billion in mid-2024 to surpass $30 billion in April 2026. This growth confirms that traditional financial assets can be effectively mapped onchain, and institutions are beginning to treat blockchain as new infrastructure for issuance, settlement, and asset management.

However, the report notes that this growth is still a small slice of the global bond, equity, gold, and credit markets measured in tens of trillions of dollars. RWA is more accurately positioned today as 'proven feasible' rather than mainstream. Onchain issuance, holding, and settlement have been demonstrated, while large-scale composability, credit creation, and secondary liquidity have not.

The report highlights the 'scale, activity inversion,' where the largest asset categories often show the lowest onchain utilization. Public data shows that tokenized bonds are among the largest categories, yet only around 5% of their supply is deployed in DeFi, while reinsurance tokens, far smaller in scale, see a much higher proportion deployed in DeFi protocols.