Half of the $60 Billion Tokenization Market Has No Real Activity

More than half of the tokenized real-world asset market showed no weekly transfer activity, according to new research from BeInCrypto.

The report, Real State of Tokenization in 2026, tracked roughly $60 billion in tokenized real-world assets across more than 7,000 products and 12 asset classes. It found that the market is growing fast, but actual on-chain activity remains far thinner than the headline numbers suggest.

Across 1,289 tokenized assets worth more than $100,000, 910 showed zero weekly transfers. Those dormant assets represented $32.9 billion in value, or 56% of the market measured for transfer activity.

Only 379 assets showed weekly movement. Together, they represented $26.2 billion in active value.

Tokenization Has Value, But Not Always Movement

The finding points to one of the biggest gaps in tokenized finance. Assets may be brought on-chain, but that does not mean they are actively traded, transferred, or used across financial infrastructure.

The report draws a distinction between “Distributed” assets and “Represented” assets. 

Distributed assets can move on public blockchain rails and may be used across wallets, platforms, or DeFi protocols. 

Represented assets use blockchain more like an internal ledger or digital record of an off-chain position.

But why does this distinction matter? Because about $27 billion of dormant value came from Represented assets. 

In these cases, low transfer activity does not necessarily mean failure. Some products were not designed for public secondary-market movement in the first place.

However, the data still shows that tokenized finance has not yet become a broad, liquid market. Even among active assets, activity is concentrated in a much smaller group than the total product count suggests.

The Next Problem Is Infrastructure

The research concludes that tokenization’s next phase depends less on launching more assets and more on building the systems that allow those assets to move, settle, comply with regulation, and reach investors.

Without stronger infrastructure around access, transfer controls, compliance, collateral use, and market depth, many tokenized assets may remain digital records rather than usable financial instruments.

The full BeInCrypto Research report is available here.