Stellar RWA Market Cap Surges 184%: Veteran Public Chain Welcomes Revaluation

The first quarter of 2026 is not yet over, but the real-world asset tokenization (RWA) track has already delivered a result far beyond market expectations. Data from RWA.xyz shows that by the end of March 2026, the tokenized US Treasury bonds reached approximately $10 billion, and the total on-chain RWA value surpassed $2.75 trillion, an increase of about 30% from the previous quarter. Among the most notable structural changes is Stellar—a blockchain once regarded as an “old-school payment public chain”—whose on-chain RWA market cap soared 184% over the past year, breaking the $1 billion mark. Meanwhile, the NYSE and Securitize signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly build on-chain securities infrastructure, and Nasdaq officially received approval to pilot stock tokenization. The high coincidence of these three events’ timelines points to a critical turning point: the RWA track is shifting from “narrative-driven” to “infrastructure implementation.”

Three Parallel Tracks in RWA

From March to early April 2026, the RWA track has seen a series of milestone events.

NYSE partners with Securitize to build on-chain securities infrastructure. On March 24, 2026, the New York Stock Exchange signed a memorandum of understanding with tokenization platform Securitize. According to the agreement, Securitize is designated as the digital transfer agent, qualified to mint native on-chain securities for corporate issuers and ETFs on the NYSE tokenized securities platform. The two parties will also jointly develop industry standards for digital transfer agents and tokenization agents, focusing on regulatory compliance, operational processes, and technical specifications.

Nasdaq approved for stock tokenization pilot. On March 18, 2026, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved Nasdaq’s rule change proposal, allowing components of the Russell 1000 index and some mainstream ETFs to be traded in tokenized form. This marks one of the world’s most liquid stock markets officially opening a channel to distributed ledger technology (DLT).

Currenc Group completes cross-chain tokenization of Nasdaq-listed stocks. On April 8, 2026, Nasdaq-listed Currenc Group announced the tokenization of its common stock, issuing tokens simultaneously on Ethereum and Solana via the Securitize platform. These tokenized stocks will support 24/7 trading, fractional ownership, and DeFi application integration.

These three developments collectively point to a trend: the latest progress in RWA tokenization in 2026 has moved from the stage of technical feasibility validation to large-scale implementation involving exchanges, asset management institutions, and listed companies.

Dissecting Stellar’s RWA Growth Logic

According to RWA.xyz statistics, Stellar has entered the top five public chains based on its on-chain RWA market cap. As of early April 2026, the total value of “decentralized custody” tokenized assets on Stellar’s network first exceeded $1.3 billion, with a 25% increase over the past 30 days and a roughly 50% growth since early 2026. The RWA market cap surged 184% year-over-year to over $1 billion, with a highly consistent growth trend.

Stellar’s RWA growth is not evenly distributed. The largest single on-chain asset is Franklin Templeton’s on-chain money market fund BENJI, with a size of about $678 million, accounting for over half of Stellar’s total RWA. The rest of the growth mainly comes from tokenized private credit and real estate assets.

From a temporal perspective, Stellar’s RWA growth is highly correlated with its infrastructure upgrade pace. In early March 2026, the oracle service provider RedStone officially launched price feed infrastructure on Stellar, providing institutional-grade data support for on-chain DeFi protocols and offering dedicated price feedback services for the BENJI fund. This indicates Stellar is extending from the “asset issuance layer” to the “asset application layer”—RWA can not only be issued on-chain but also be collateralized, split, and reconfigured.

It’s important to distinguish two sets of data: the market cap growth of RWA on Stellar’s network and the price performance of its native token XLM. According to Gate data, as of April 10, 2026, XLM’s price was $0.1552, with a 24-hour trading volume of $735,950 and a market cap of $5.13 billion. Over the past year, XLM’s price has fallen approximately 35.91%. In other words, the prosperity of the RWA ecosystem has not yet translated into a positive impact on the token price.

Mainstream Market Judgments on Stellar RWA Narrative

The bullish camp’s core arguments focus on three dimensions. First, Stellar has a first-mover advantage in compliance frameworks. Its long-term strategic focus on cross-border payments and cooperation with financial institutions has accumulated experience in regulatory communication and compliant product design, which constitutes a competitive edge amid the current wave of RWA compliance. Second, endorsement from top asset management firms creates positive feedback. Franklin Templeton choosing Stellar as the issuance network for BENJI signals “institutional-level usability.” Third, the improvement of oracle infrastructure reduces technical barriers for ecosystem expansion and paves the way for deploying more DeFi applications.

The cautious camp worries about excessive concentration in Stellar’s RWA growth. A single product worth over $678 million accounts for more than half of the total RWA on-chain, indicating strong path dependence on a single product. Additionally, the disconnect between XLM’s price and RWA ecosystem growth is seen as a structural concern—markets have yet to find an effective mechanism to convert RWA prosperity into token value capture.

Evaluating the “Value” of Stellar RWA Growth

Is the growth sustainable?

In terms of asset composition, Stellar’s RWA growth stems from financial products capable of generating ongoing yields (money market funds, private credit), rather than short-term speculative assets. BENJI itself represents the core function of on-chain “risk-free yield anchoring,” aligning with the current mainline of RWA evolving from “asset on-chain” to “income financialization.”

Is there a risk of data inflation?

RWA.xyz’s data collection for Stellar is based on “decentralized custody” asset value, meaning assets are indeed on-chain with liquidity and settlement attributes, differing from off-chain registered representative assets. This approach is relatively strict and reduces the risk of nominal scale inflation.

The core reason for the disconnect between token price and RWA ecosystem

The core reason for the disconnect between XLM’s price and the RWA ecosystem is that most RWA issuance currently uses independent tokenized products (like BENJI fund share tokens) rather than directly denominating or settling in XLM. In other words, RWA growth has expanded Stellar’s on-chain economic activity but has not yet translated into increased demand for XLM. This systemic issue requires further ecosystem-level design to change.

Industry Impact Analysis: The “Dual Variables” of NYSE and Nasdaq

Structural impact of NYSE’s collaboration on on-chain securities infrastructure

The partnership between NYSE and Securitize goes beyond simple product issuance. Its core goals include establishing a digital transfer agency system to support on-chain settlement; developing industry standards covering regulation, operations, and technology; and providing native on-chain securities issuance capabilities for enterprises and ETFs.

This means the core infrastructure of traditional securities—registration, transfer, settlement—is being systematically migrated onto blockchain. The digital transfer agent is a key hub, responsible for on-chain equity registration, real-time settlement, automated compliance, and dividend distribution. Once this infrastructure is built, the boundary between traditional securities markets and on-chain markets will become unprecedentedly blurred.

Demonstration effect of Nasdaq’s stock tokenization

Nasdaq’s pilot establishes a key legal breakthrough: tokenized stocks use the same CUSIP identifiers as the underlying securities, ensuring full legal and rights equivalence, and enabling mutual conversion and substitution. This addresses the fundamental legal issue of “fungibility” between tokenized assets and underlying securities. Nasdaq will collaborate with crypto trading infrastructure to build conversion channels, allowing tokenized stocks to flow freely between regulated markets and on-chain markets. This design paves the way for more listed companies to follow suit in tokenization with compliance.

Indirect influence on Stellar ecosystem

While these actions by NYSE and Nasdaq do not directly involve Stellar, their indirect effects are significant. First, the infrastructure development by major exchanges will enhance overall industry credibility and compliance standards for RWA tokenization, indirectly reducing compliance costs for smaller on-chain platforms. Second, the cross-chain asset flow model created by Nasdaq’s stock tokenization will serve as a reference for public chains like Stellar focusing on RWA. Third, the deep embrace of blockchain technology by traditional financial institutions will accelerate the transition of the RWA track from “crypto-native” to “traditional finance + crypto,” aligning with Stellar’s long-term strategic positioning.

Three Possible Directions for Stellar RWA

Baseline Scenario: Steady Expansion

A report jointly released by Keyrock and Securitize on April 9, 2026, predicts that the freely transferable distributed RWA market on-chain will grow from about $29 billion today to $4 trillion by 2030, an increase of over 1,000%. Under this baseline, Stellar, leveraging its compliant infrastructure and institutional partnerships, is expected to maintain an average annual growth rate of over 50% in on-chain RWA. The continued operation and potential expansion of Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund, along with the gradual adoption of RedStone oracle infrastructure, will be core supports, fostering more RWA-based DeFi applications.

Optimistic Scenario: Breakthrough in Value Capture Mechanisms

If Stellar’s ecosystem can develop mechanisms that directly link RWA growth to XLM demand—such as requiring some RWA products to settle with XLM, use XLM as collateral, or as a liquidity medium—then the disconnect between XLM’s price and ecosystem growth could be alleviated. Additionally, if more traditional asset management institutions follow Franklin Templeton’s lead and choose Stellar as their issuance network, the diversity of on-chain assets will increase, reducing concentration risk. In this scenario, Stellar could leap from being one of the “top five RWA public chains” to the top three.

Cautious Scenario: Competition and Growth Stagnation

Ethereum and Solana still lead significantly in DeFi ecosystem depth and user scale. Currenc Group’s choice to issue tokenized stocks simultaneously on these chains rather than Stellar indicates that, for high-end applications like public stock tokenization, ecosystem richness and liquidity depth are primary considerations. Furthermore, infrastructure developments by NYSE and Nasdaq may spawn more permissioned chains tailored for traditional securities, creating competitive pressures. Under this cautious outlook, Stellar’s RWA growth might encounter phase bottlenecks in the second half of 2026.

Conclusion

The 184% growth in Stellar’s RWA market cap is not an isolated phenomenon but a snapshot of systemic acceleration in the RWA track. The tokenization of US Treasuries reaching $10 billion, stock tokenization surpassing $1 billion, and the entry of NYSE and Nasdaq together sketch a clear evolution curve: RWA is moving from the “technology validation” phase into “infrastructure deployment,” from conceptual narrative into “asset income generation.”

Stellar’s competitive advantage lies in its long-term accumulated compliance capabilities, institutional partnerships, and relatively mature asset issuance system. However, challenges are also evident: high ecosystem concentration, lack of a clear token value capture mechanism, and ongoing liquidity and ecosystem depth competition from rivals. The race for RWA has yet to reach its final stage, but the leaders at the starting line are already visible.