Tokenized Stocks Draw $247.8 Million Into DeFi: What Are They Actually Used For?

Tokenized stock total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols climbed 1,961% over the past year to $247.8 million. Token Terminal published the figures on Thursday.

Binance Research links the growth to wider onchain infrastructure. Lending, smart contract deployment, and stock-paired markets now give tokenized equities a role beyond passive ownership.

3 Chains Hold Almost All the Tokenized Stock TVL

Robinhood Chain accounts for $98.2 million of the total, followed by Solana at $87.4 million and BNB Chain at $36.3 million, Token Terminal said. The three hold 89.5% between them.

Binance Research reached a similar conclusion. According to its report, active DeFi TVL rose from $21.6 million in January to $289.1 million by September 9.

Measured against its own active market cap, DeFi’s share rose from 2.2% to 7.2%. But what are those tokens actually being used for? Binance Research breaks the TVL down by activity.

Liquidity pools account for 65.4%, and lending markets take 28.1%. Yield tokenization accounts for 5.7%, with 0.8% elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the broader base remains far larger. Distributed value for tokenized stocks hit a high near $2.9 billion in mid-September, according to RWA.xyz. Distributed value covers tokens that can move freely between wallets.

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Collateral and Meme Coin Pairs Lift Turnover

Borrowing data from bStocks puts numbers on the lending share. Outstanding borrowing against bStocks rose from 5.5% of deposited collateral at the end of June to 46.2% by September 10.

That works out to roughly $3.1 million borrowed against $6.8 million of collateral. The pool is small next to the wider market, though utilization has climbed.

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

Onchain analytics firm SQD studied a Robinhood Chain sample. It found $711.2 million, or 32.1%, of cumulative stock token volume through August 30 came from trades against other tokens, mostly 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 therefore no longer the constraint. What matters next is how much of that $2.9 billion finds a use once it lands onchain.

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