The tokenized asset market has nearly doubled in 2026. Most of those assets, however, are about as useful inside DeFi as a gift card at the wrong store.
Centrifuge’s “Tokenization Snapshot 2026,” released on September 2, reveals that only 12% of tokenized assets scored high enough on Pantera Capital’s Tokenization Progress Index to qualify as meaningfully integrated into decentralized finance ecosystems. The finding is drawn from Pantera’s Q1 2026 analysis, which evaluated 542 tokenized assets and found that the vast majority function more like digital wrappers around traditional financial products than truly composable on-chain instruments.
A $37 billion market with a composability gap
Tokenized asset market value climbed from roughly $25 billion to $37 billion in the first seven months of 2026, a roughly 48% jump that occurred while broader crypto markets actually contracted.
Pantera scored those 542 assets on a five-point scale across multiple dimensions, and the average score landed at just 2.04 out of 5. The weakest dimension was issued redemption, which scored a dismal 1.82 out of 5.
