Treasuries, Gold and the S&P 500: The Assets Growing Fastest On-Chain Are the Most Traditional Ones
Rhea-AI Summary
CoinShares (Nasdaq: CSHR) released its joint research report with Token Terminal, The Growth of Hybrid Finance, showing that deposits of tokenised real-world assets (RWAs) on-chain more than tripled from $2.3 billion to $7.4 billion between Q2 2025 and Q2 2026, while overall decentralised finance (DeFi) deposits fell about 15%.
The study finds on-chain activity increasingly concentrated in traditional assets such as Treasuries, multi-strategy funds, private credit, gold, oil, precious metals, equity indexes like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100, and technology and semiconductor stocks. According to CoinShares, these trends support its Hybrid Finance thesis that regulated traditional assets and blockchain settlement are converging rather than operating as rival systems.
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News Explained
The added evidence concerns spot-market usage within a defined transferable-asset sample, not a new company or holder commitment.
The report extends its evidence beyond aggregate deposits: across collateral, spot trading and perpetual futures, tokenised real-world assets grew while broader venues contracted.
Its dataset covers distributed tokenised funds, stocks and commodities—assets that can move to wallets outside the issuing platform—so networks lacking broad transferability are outside the analysis.
In spot trading, decentralised-exchange volumes fell around
The report's conclusion therefore applies to the measured, transferable-asset sample and depends on data supplied by Token Terminal.
Key Figures
Historical Context
| Date | Event | Sentiment | 24h Move | Catalyst |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 27 | Conference participation | Neutral | +0.7% | CEO scheduled to participate in Canaccord Genuity growth conference fireside chat |
| Jul 21 | UCITS platform launch | Positive | +3.4% | CoinShares launched UCITS platform targeting Europe’s regulated fund ecosystem |
| Jul 01 | Shareholder letter | Positive | +0.5% | Management highlighted profitability, transparency, capital allocation and long-term shareholder alignment |
| Jun 25 | Adviser survey | Neutral | +2.0% | Survey identified digital-asset visibility gaps among European wealth advisers |
| Jun 24 | Industry award | Positive | -6.8% | CoinShares received Best Crypto Investment Product recognition from Finimize Awards |
24h Move is the share-price change in the day after each event; other market factors may also have contributed.
Recent company-news reactions were mostly positive, with one notable negative divergence.
Key Terms
tokenised real-world assets financial
decentralised finance financial
perpetual futures financial
open interest financial
AI-generated analysis. How Rhea-AI works. Not financial advice.
New CoinShares and Token Terminal research finds deposits of tokenised real-world assets more than tripled to
JERSEY, Channel Islands — 6 August, 2026 — CoinShares PLC (Nasdaq: CSHR) ("CoinShares" or the "Company"), a leading global asset manager specialising in digital assets, today published The Growth of Hybrid Finance, its second research report produced with on-chain data provider Token Terminal.
Earlier this year CoinShares set out Hybrid Finance as its investment thesis: the argument that finance is not being disrupted by blockchain technology but rewired by it, at the intersection of performant blockchains, decentralised lending and trading venues, and tokenised representations of traditional asset classes. The industry spent a decade arguing that one system would replace the other. This report, covering the period from the second quarter of 2025 to the second quarter of 2026, sets out the evidence that neither happened. The two are merging, and the movement is coming from the traditional side.
What is actually being used on-chain is not crypto
The clearest evidence is the composition of demand. The tokenised assets being deposited into on-chain lending venues are Treasury and multi-strategy funds first, followed by private credit and delta-neutral strategies. The largest share of spot trading volume in tokenised assets is in gold. On perpetual futures venues, activity is concentrated in oil and precious metals, in equity indexes including the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100, and in technology and semiconductor stocks.
None of these are crypto assets. They are the most conventional exposures in global markets, and they are the ones growing fastest on-chain. Investors are not leaving traditional finance for a parallel system. They are taking traditional assets onto infrastructure that settles in seconds and does not close overnight or at weekends, which is why the assets attracting the most on-chain derivatives activity are those with continuous global interest and discontinuous trading hours.
The same pattern in three separate markets
Across collateral, spot trading and derivatives, tokenised real-world assets grew while the market hosting them contracted.
Deposits of tokenised real-world assets into lending platforms and decentralised exchanges more than tripled over the year, rising from
Jean-Marie Mognetti, Co-Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of CoinShares, said:
“For a decade the industry told itself it was building a replacement for the financial system. We took a different view. The data has now caught up with it. Look at what is actually being used on-chain: Treasuries, gold, the S&P 500, semiconductor stocks. Not one of them is a crypto asset. Investors are not leaving traditional finance behind. They are moving traditional assets onto infrastructure that settles in seconds and does not close at night. That is convergence, not disruption, and it is arriving from the traditional side. This is the second report to show that it is measurable.”
Hybrid Finance
Hybrid Finance describes a single market in which regulated traditional assets and blockchain settlement infrastructure operate together rather than in parallel. It is where CoinShares has positioned itself since 2013, and where it operates as a regulated asset manager on both sides.
About the report
The Growth of Hybrid Finance covers the second quarter of 2025 to the second quarter of 2026, with longer time series where available. All data is provided by Token Terminal. Tokenised real-world assets here means tokenised funds, stocks and commodities.
The analysis covers distributed assets only, meaning tokenised assets that can be moved to wallets outside the issuing platform. Networks hosting assets that are not broadly transferable across the venues examined fall outside its scope.
Visit the Hybrid Finance Report: https://coinshares.com/insights/research-data/token-terminal-hybrid-finance-q2-report
About Token Terminal
Token Terminal is a full-stack onchain data platform that sources raw data directly from blockchain networks, transforms it in-house, and maintains standardized financial and alternative metrics for the most widely used blockchains, apps, and tokenized assets. Token Terminal’s data is leveraged by the leading institutional investors globally.
About CoinShares
CoinShares is a leading global asset manager specialising in digital assets, that delivers a broad range of financial services across investment management, trading and securities to a wide array of clients that includes corporations, financial institutions and individuals. Focusing on crypto since 2013, the firm is headquartered in Jersey, with offices in France, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US. CoinShares is regulated in Jersey by the Jersey Financial Services Commission, in France by the Autorité des marchés financiers, and in the US by the Securities and Exchange Commission, National Futures Association and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. CoinShares is publicly listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker CSHR.
For more information on CoinShares, please visit: https://coinshares.com
Company | +44 (0)1534 513 100 | enquiries@coinshares.com
Investor Relations | +44 (0)1534 513 100 | corporateir@coinshares.com
Press Contacts
CoinShares
Benoît Pellevoizin
bpellevoizin@coinshares.com
M Group Strategic Communications
Peter Padovano
coinshares@mgroupsc.com
This announcement is provided for information purposes only. It does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation to buy, or an invitation to engage in any investment activity in any jurisdiction. No information contained herein should be construed as investment advice, recommendation, or an endorsement of any product or service.
