13.6% of tokenized RWAs now have fewer than five holders

On-chain data show tokenized real-world assets with fewer than five holders represent 13.6% of the non-stablecoin market, carrying about $7 billion in value.

The share has climbed from 6.4% a year earlier, more than doubling over 12 months. The broader market carries an estimated $46 billion to $60 billion in value as of mid-to-late 2026. The estimate spans a wide range, but concentration persists across that range.

The market analysis frames the tension directly: “Tokenization was supposed to open up finance to everyone. A growing slice of it is instead being held by almost no one.”

How concentrated is the market?

The dataset excludes stablecoins. Tokenized RWAs cover traditional financial products, including Treasury funds and credit instruments, recorded on a blockchain rather than a conventional ledger.

The distribution shows how heavily value concentrates in a small number of products:

• Just 62 assets account for roughly 88% of total tokenized RWA value.
• Five products make up roughly half of the entire market.
• Tokenized Treasury and credit funds together represent nearly half of the market.

These figures mean a rising headline market value can coexist with ownership that remains narrow among a small group of large wallets.

What do large balances reveal?

Circle’s USYC carries an estimated value of $2.96 billion, yet only 44 addresses hold it. BlackRock’s BUIDL also sits within a narrow ownership base. Together, the examples point to a market that remains institutional in character rather than retail-led.

Address counts do not necessarily equal ultimate investor counts. Custodial and institutional wallets can sit behind a single address, which makes the concentration figures harder to interpret. The underlying growth nevertheless suggests that new value increasingly arrives through those wallets.

Some products valued above $100 million have only one holder address. That structure limits visible secondary trading even when the reported asset value is substantial.

Why do transfer counts matter?

Among assets valued above $100,000, a group worth roughly $32.9 billion in total, 56% showed zero weekly on-chain transfers.

Holder counts indicate whether an asset supports a functioning secondary market: a holder needs a counterparty to sell to. An asset with four holders and no weekly transfers has, for practical purposes, no visible trading.

The analysis states: “Its price on-chain may be accurate, but its liquidity is largely theoretical.”

The data do not show that these products are broken. Many institutional tokens serve a narrow set of qualified buyers and include transfer restrictions. Under that design, the blockchain mainly records ownership and settles positions; it does not function as an open venue for trading with strangers.

Headline RWA values have continued climbing, but total market capitalization can conceal how value distributes. The increase in low-holder assets suggests new capital increasingly arrives through custodial or institutional wallets rather than an obviously broader base of individual participants.

For market observers, a billion-dollar product with 44 holders and one with thousands of holders present very different liquidity and adoption profiles. Holder distribution and transfer frequency can therefore reveal more about actual use than market capitalization alone.

What does this change for investors and issuers?

For investors, the immediate issue is liquidity risk. Assets with tiny holder bases and no regular transfers may be difficult to exit quickly, particularly during periods of market stress.

For issuers, USYC and BUIDL demonstrate that large institutions will commit serious capital on-chain. They do not yet demonstrate that a broad secondary market follows. Transfer restrictions may support compliance and controlled settlement, but they can reduce observable trading.

Rankings and dashboards built around total value can also overstate how decentralized or widely used the sector is. Those measures need holder distribution and transfer activity alongside market capitalization.

The forward test is whether the sub-five-holder share stops rising and whether the 56% zero-transfer figure begins to shrink. If neither metric changes, additional market capitalization will continue to say little about broad adoption or executable liquidity.