Tokenized real-world assets reached $34.5 billion on Aug. 31, up more than 140% year over year, according to a Dune report published Wednesday — yet most of that value never moves. Tokenized Treasury funds, half the market by supply, turned over just 0.006% of supply in August, while equities, only 8% of the market, generated 93% of spot volume.

The report, After Issuance: Reading the Onchain RWA Market, measures how much tokenized value is actually traded, lent against or held in liquidity pools, and compares the results with the traditional markets the tokens reference. Its landing comes two weeks after the Securities and Exchange Commission granted a five-year exemption permitting onchain trading of tokenized US-listed stock.

"That record shows tokenization is working where assets can move freely, and stalling where they can't," Arnaud Simeray, vice president of institutions at Dune, said in a statement. "Onchain equities have passed a million holders, while most tokenized money funds have never traded onchain."

Why do Treasury funds sit still?

Cash equivalents, the largest class at $17.8 billion, grew 133% over the year but remain concentrated and illiquid. Twelve products hold $11.6 billion and returned between 3.22% and 3.59% on a 90-day trailing basis — every one below the 3.71% 13-week bill available on June 3, with Dune attributing most of the gap to fees. Circle's 10% performance fee on USYC cuts a 3.58% gross yield to 3.22% net.

Of 26 cash-equivalent products marking NAV at least weekly, only three traded onchain in August. The other 23 held $14.2 billion, or 86% of the measurable class.

Distribution is thin. BlackRock's BUIDL holds $2.82 billion across 93 addresses; USYC holds $2.76 billion across 28. One address controls 98% of USYC, 96% of thBILL, 95% of JTRSY and 78% of WTGXX. Midas's mTBILL shows 5,102 holders, with the top 10 addresses holding 99.1% of supply. Dune cautions that one custodian address can represent many investors.

Where does credit fit?

Tokenized credit reached $7.8 billion, up 111%, with realized yields from 3.32% to 13.84%. Credit dominates DeFi collateral: $1.61 billion of credit tokens sat in lending protocols, 76% of all RWA lending deposits, measured by protocol records. Morpho alone holds roughly $1 billion; Morpho, Kamino and Aave (excluding Horizon) hold 83% combined.

Only 6.1% of total RWA supply, or $2.11 billion, sat in lending protocols at the cutoff. The four products open without allowlists — Maple's syrupUSDC and syrupUSDT, Hastra's PRIME and Huma's PST — hold $2.68 billion and generate most secondary activity, while roughly $3 billion in KYC-gated products recorded little to no holder-to-holder transfers over 90 days.

Maple absorbed the sharpest shock. Private credit peaked at $5.85 billion in March and fell to $4.67 billion after Maple's pools halved on more than $800 million of redemptions over 72 hours following the KelpDAO bridge exploit in April.

What drives the equity boom?

Tokenized equity supply rose 2,393% over the year and holders 2,454%, to more than 1 million. August spot volume hit $12.6 billion, with equity perpetuals at $72.4 billion — 84% of all RWA perpetual volume on Hyperliquid. Ondo Global Markets leads issuers at $936 million, followed by Binance's bStocks at $645 million.

One token inflates the spot figure: QQQB, a bStocks token tracking Invesco's QQQ, traded $7.9 billion on $31.2 million of supply after Binance listed it June 30 with zero maker fees. Excluding it, equities still account for 83% of DEX spot volume.

"Because every position settles onchain, that shift toward individual companies is visible in the data," Armand Khatri, head of ecosystem at Ondo Finance, said in comments published in the report.

Commodities reached $5.5 billion, with gold at 97% of the class; Tether's XAUt ($3.2 billion) and Paxos's PAXG ($1.9 billion) hold 92% of supply. Oil runs the opposite way: perpetuals carry 97.6% of onchain oil and gas exposure against $4.3 million in tokenized spot.

Dune's total excludes stablecoins and its cutoff is Aug. 31. RWA.xyz counted $38.46 billion in distributed tokenized assets excluding stablecoins on Wednesday. "The next twelve months are more informative than another increment in AUM," the report concludes — a window in which the SEC's tokenized-stock exemption will face its first real market test.