Tokenized stocks have seen an increase in onchain trading and lending collateral use, though they still represent a minor segment of decentralized finance (DeFi), according to Token Terminal data released on July 16.
Trading and Lending Activity Details
Over the past 90 days, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) recorded $1.8 billion in trading volume for tokenized equities. Usage of these assets as lending collateral reached a total value locked (TVL) of $23 million. The growth is primarily driven by exchange-traded fund (ETF) trackers such as QQQ and SPY tokens, issued by Binance and xStocks. The BNB Chain and Solana networks host most of this activity, with Uniswap, Orca, and Kamino serving as leading trading venues.
Trading volume is nearly equally divided between BNB Chain (47.3%) and Solana (45.5%). The QQQ token accounted for 40.5% of volume, closely followed by the SPY token at 40.4%, while individual stock tokens contributed a much smaller share. Despite this, tokenized stock trading remains a fractional component compared to the broader DeFi market. For context, Uniswap alone posted $45 billion in 30-day volume as of July 17, making tokenized stock turnover over three months less than a fraction of one month’s volume on a single exchange.
Lending collateral use is even more concentrated. Of the $23.1 million tokenized-stock lending TVL, xStocks represented 86.5% of the issuer share, Solana accounted for 85.5% of the chain share, and Kamino's lending market contributed 82.6% of the venue share. xStocks’ total value locked stood at $330 million on Solana, implying that only a small percentage of outstanding xStocks tokens are being deployed as lending collateral, with the majority held or traded.
Kamino’s total TVL of $1.1 billion on Solana dwarfs the tokenized-stock collateral amount, which constitutes a fraction of a percent of its lending book. collateral deployment in tokenized stocks remains in the low tens of millions against a much larger token supply.
Market Context and Implications
The data indicates growing but limited adoption of tokenized equities within the DeFi ecosystem. While trading volumes on DEXs are trending upward, they still represent a minor share compared to traditional DeFi tokens and liquidity pools. Lending activity, concentrated on specific issuers and venues, remains a niche use case.
Such figures suggest tokenized stocks function predominantly as trading instruments rather than significant collateral sources in lending protocols. This could influence how projects prioritize development and integration strategies for tokenized assets in DeFi markets.
