Aave Crosses $1B in RWAs as Capital Rotates From DeFi to Tokenized Assets

Lending protocol, Aave, has recently seen deposited Real World Assets (RWA) on its platform surpass over $1 billion. This reiterates the growing trend of capital being shifted more from DeFi to tokenized assets.

Aave Sees $1B in RWA Deposits Amid Capital Rotation

In a new post, the lending platform revealed that it has a cumulative total of $1 billion in Real World Assets. With its market, Aave Horizon, the protocol introduced tokenized RWA and reached $600 million in deposits by January 2026.

In less than a month, the platform was able to double the deposits, with active and on-chain RWA totaling $527 million.

Aave is the first lending protocol with over $1 billion in RWAs deposited. pic.twitter.com/H9d4Nh0Aol

— Aave (@aave) February 19, 2026

This comes as tokenization platforms continue to see a new trend of capital shifted to their platform. For context, the TVL in DeFi has fallen 25% in the last month to $95 billion, as per DeFi Llama data.

This is because almost all the major protocols, such as Aave, Binance Staked ETH, and others have registered double-digit declines in the last 30 days.

The RWA sector, on the other hand, saw a growth of 8.68% in the value of distributed assets for the last month. It reached $25 billion, as per RWA.xyz. The represented asset value, which tracks the tokenized assets that cannot be moved from one wallet to another or from the platform, remained flat with just a 0.51% increase to $372.97 billion.

In contrast to the declining TVL in DeFi, the distributed value of tokenized real-world assets, excluding stablecoins, has been growing steadily across various sectors as highlighted in Aave’s growth.

Tokenized U.S. Treasury debt, commodities, and private credit with $10.7 billion, $6.9 billion, and $2.9 billion in distributed value are up 10%, 20%, and 15%, respectively, over the last month.

NYSE Says Tokenization Offering Now Pivotal

Recently, Lynn Martin, the President of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), stated that she felt a “responsibility” to become involved in tokenization.

This is in light of the NYSE’s plans to roll out a blockchain-based platform later this year, which will allow for the 24/7 trading of tokenized stocks and ETFs, provided that the relevant authorities give their approval, which will deviate from its current 6.5-hour, five-day-a-week trading schedule. Aave’s new record only highlights the dire need for these offerings.

“We’ve felt the responsibility to enter into the tokenization conversation,” She said. “The exchange has already developed its tokenization technology and is working with regulators to understand how it can be used within the existing financial framework.”

More institutions are now tapping into RWA tokenization daily. Securitize recently highlighted on X the growing capital in this market.

The Tokenization Era is here. pic.twitter.com/r9irOev06p

— Securitize (@Securitize) February 18, 2026