The $300T tokenization bet – Why Grayscale foresees massive upside for the segment

Tokenized assets tripled to $19.3 billion in Q1 2026, dominated by tokenized treasuries and followed by commodities such as gold. 

According to a recent Coingecko report, the overall real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is now equivalent to 6.9% of the stablecoin market. 

In particular, tokenized treasuries contributed to nearly half of the growth, adding $9 billion. These are yield-bearing instruments, mostly designed for institutions for corporate treasury management like BlackRock’s BUIDL. 

Gold dominates tokenized commodities

The second growth driver has been commodities. In fact, the report went on to say that the segment was primarily driven by gold-backed tokens over the past year. 

Tokenized commodities grew 289% to $5.5B. Gold-backed tokens Tether’s $XAUT and Paxos’ $PAXG dominate tokenized commodities, driving 89.1% of growth.

Most of the tokenized commodities, spanning gold, silver, and oil, got massive traction during the West Asia crisis. 

Interestingly, the perp’s version of these products (leveraged contracts with no expiry) became popular during the crisis too. Perps have seen massive demand because they allow traders to potentially maximize their profit through leverage, despite the risk of liquidations and amplified losses.  

Consider this – RWA perps trading volume topped $300 billion, with commodities (yellow bar) dominating the sub-segment.  

And with most of the RWA perps traction happening on Hyperliquid, HYPE became a key beneficiary as the West Asia crisis triggered the momentum in Q1. The altcoin rallied by +70% from $26 to over $45. 

However, the tokenization ‘megatrend’ could lift more altcoins in the long run and act as a viable way to gain investment exposure to the sector, according to Grayscale. 

Grayscale believes one of the primary ways to invest in this megatrend is through this first category, the underlying blockchain infrastructure.

According to the asset manager, the trend is still in an early stage, with Grayscale projecting that it could hit $300 trillion. 

Over time, we believe much of the ~$300 trillion securities market — along with other types of assets like real estate-will migrate onchain.

Listing potential beneficiaries of the trend, the firm went on to add, 

Near-term: big opportunity for $CC (privacy) Long-term: large opportunity for open networks like $ETH, $SOL.

Final Summary

• Tokenized assets tripled in Q1 2026 to nearly $20B, majorly dominated by treasuries and commodities.
• Tokenization is a $300 trillion megatrend that will rally Canton (CC) in the near-term and ETH and SOL in the long run.