DeFi RWA deposits near $4B, up 300x in 3 years

The scale of this move matters less than its composition: RWA deposits reaching this level signals that tokenized traditional assets are no longer a niche experiment inside DeFi, but a meaningful share of protocol collateral and yield sources. That shifts risk in ways the sector has not fully stress-tested — these instruments carry issuer, custody and regulatory exposure that native crypto collateral does not. Whether the growth reflects durable institutional demand or a handful of large, concentrated positions is the open question, and it is the one that will determine how this trend behaves under stress.