How RWA trading works in 2026

RWA trading becomes easier to access, enabling more users to explore tokenized equities, collateral markets and new liquidity venues without getting lost in technical complexity.

You’ve heard about tokenized real-world assets, or RWAs. But maybe they still sound too technical, too institutional or simply too hard to use.

That is changing.

The RWA market is still growing, but the focus is shifting. It is no longer just about bringing assets on-chain. It is also about making them usable: easier to trade, easier to move and easier to access through wallets and DeFi infrastructure.

In this article, we look at the state of RWA trading in 2026, why this asset class is gaining attention and why it may be worth exploring sooner rather than later.

RWA trading is becoming more practical

The market is no longer built only around one asset type.

Aave Horizon is pushing the institutional lending angle, connecting DeFi credit infrastructure with tokenized real-world collateral. Ondo has become the largest tokenized securities platform in the space, expanding from Treasuries to hundreds of stocks and ETFs with leverage trading via Ondo Perps. xStocks has similarly brought tokenized equities and ETFs on-chain, also with assets backed 1:1 by underlying securities and live across multiple chains.

NAV-style products point to another important direction: tokenized fund infrastructure. For funds and structured products, net asset value data is not a side detail. It is what lets markets price, redeem and manage exposure with more transparency.

Together, these products show where RWA trading is heading: from isolated issuance to active infrastructure.

Tokenized equities are the clearest user story

Tokenized equities are quite easy to understand. People already know Apple, Tesla, Nvidia and major ETFs. What is new is that these assets can now move on-chain.

Kraken launched xStocks for eligible non-US clients in June 2025, starting with 60 tokenized US stocks and ETFs powered by Backed. Ondo launched Ondo Global Markets in September 2025, with a breakthrough liquidity model that taps into the liquidity of traditional exchanges. It quickly became the largest platform and was the first to surpass $1 bln in total value locked. Ondo tokenized stocks and xStocks can be traded 24 hours a day, five days a week and withdrawn to self-custodial wallets.

xStocks now presents itself as infrastructure for exchanges, DEXs, wallets, aggregators and liquidity venues, with more than 100 stocks and ETFs and support for tokenized equity routing across platforms. Ondo’s 260+ tokenized stocks and ETFs are increasingly being deployed as high-quality collateral across the DeFi landscape. 

This is important for DeFi. Once tokenized equities are transferable on-chain, they can become part of a wider trading and collateral ecosystem.

Liquidity is still the main challenge

Tokenization alone does not create a market.

A 2025 academic paper on RWA liquidity warned that many RWA tokens still suffer from low trading volume, long holding periods, limited active users and weak secondary markets. The paper describes liquidity as one of the core bottlenecks for the sector.

This is exactly why routing matters.

RWA liquidity will not appear in one place. It will be spread across issuers, chains, venues, pools and market makers. For traders, that creates price gaps and execution risk. For apps, it creates integration work.

Aggregated routing can help solve this problem by connecting fragmented liquidity into a single execution layer.

1inch and the RWA execution layer

1inch has already integrated Ondo and xStocks, reflecting a broader shift in the market: RWA trading needs more than issuance. It needs reliable access and efficient execution.

For tokenized equities and other RWAs, the role of aggregation is straightforward:

• find liquidity across venues;
• reduce manual routing for traders;
• help apps support more assets without rebuilding every integration;
• improve execution where liquidity is fragmented.

That is the same problem 1inch was built to solve in DeFi.

As RWAs move on-chain, the execution layer becomes more important. Traders do not want to think about which venue has the best route. They want the asset, the price and the transaction to work.

The 2026 takeaway

RWA trading in 2026 is no longer just about putting traditional assets on-chain.

The real test is whether those assets can become usable in DeFi.

Aave Horizon, Ondo, xStocks and NAV-style products all point to the same direction: more real-world value is entering blockchain rails. But the next stage depends on liquidity, routing, compliance-aware access and better UX.

Tokenized assets need markets. Markets need execution. And execution needs infrastructure.

Disclaimer 1:

This content is for general information purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any particular digital asset or to employ any specific investment strategy.

Disclaimer 2:

Not available in the US, EU, UK and other restricted jurisdictions.

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