
Stellar Hits Milestone $500 M in Tokenized Assets — A New Era for Real-World Assets
n a landscape where the term tokenization has too often been diluted by hype, Stellar has quietly achieved what many larger networks only theorize: a functional, regulated ecosystem of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) with tangible liquidity and institutional weight. The network has now surpassed $533 million in tokenized value, led primarily by asset-backed instruments such as U.S. Treasuries and regulated money market funds.
This milestone, while symbolic, marks something larger: the beginning of a structural phase shift in blockchain finance—from speculative architecture to institutional infrastructure.
A Ledger Built for Real-World Utility
Since its inception, Stellar’s design philosophy has differed from that of Ethereum or Solana. It wasn’t built to host NFTs or meme-tokens; it was engineered for asset issuance, interoperability, and low-friction payments. Those technical roots—fast finality, near-zero fees, compliance-friendly controls—are now proving decisive as institutional finance finally turns toward tokenization.
At the heart of this transformation lies the Franklin Templeton BENJI Fund—a tokenized representation of shares in the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX). This single instrument alone accounts for roughly $496 million of the total, or nearly 93 % of Stellar’s tokenized RWA ecosystem.
BENJI’s tokens are redeemable for underlying fund shares, and all ownership records are maintained directly on the Stellar ledger. Each transaction, each redemption, each issuance is transparent, instant, and auditable. The fund’s on-chain life mirrors its off-chain compliance, a rare synthesis between trad-fi rigor and blockchain efficiency.
This integration has effectively transformed Stellar from a “payments chain” into a regulatory-grade asset network.
Why This Moment Matters
To understand the significance of Stellar’s progress, it’s necessary to grasp the broader transformation of financial infrastructure underway.
The tokenization of real-world assets—once a theoretical construct championed by the BIS and World Bank—has become a race among financial institutions to digitize liquidity. The reasons are straightforward but profound:
Efficiency and instant settlement — Tokens eliminate intermediaries, collapsing multi-day settlement cycles into seconds.
Programmability and transparency — Smart contracts automate compliance, redemption, and reporting, replacing reconciliation with verification.
Liquidity unbundling — Once illiquid instruments (like private credit, commercial paper, or real estate stakes) can be fractionally issued and globally distributed.
Resilience — On-chain representation reduces single-point dependency on custodians, registrars, and clearing houses.
For Stellar, this is not theory—it is working policy. Its consensus model, anchored by trusted validators and known anchors, balances decentralization with regulatory trustworthiness. It allows regulated issuers to retain oversight while users interact freely within permissioned rails.
The result: institutional usability without ideological compromise.
The Ecosystem’s Architecture
Stellar’s tokenization architecture depends on a system of anchors—entities that custody the real-world asset and issue its digital twin on-chain. Each tokenized unit is fully backed, auditable, and compliant with financial regulations in the issuer’s jurisdiction.
Today, beyond Franklin Templeton, these anchors include Mercado Bitcoin, which plans to tokenize up to $200 millionin equity and debt instruments, and RedSwan Digital, preparing tokenized commercial real estate listings. Other participants, like Centrifuge, explore debt-financing models that use Stellar’s settlement layer for cross-border liquidity.
While Ethereum’s ecosystem still dominates tokenization by total value, Stellar’s approach differs: it optimizes for institutional alignment rather than DeFi composability. Its objective is not to host endless experimental protocols but to provide a stable, compliant base layer for regulated assets.
This distinction—between speculative ecosystems and operational finance—will define the next phase of blockchain adoption.
The Concentration Challenge
Still, the network’s impressive $533 million figure carries a caveat. Nearly all of it stems from U.S. Treasuries, a relatively narrow slice of the tokenization spectrum. That dominance underscores the current reality of blockchain finance: treasuries are the first, safest, and most liquid use-case.
The next test for Stellar will be diversification. The chain’s real success will come when tokenized corporate bonds, equities, and private-market securities begin to populate its ledger alongside government debt. Only then will tokenization fulfill its promise as a universal financial fabric rather than a niche for yield-hunters and fintech funds.
But Stellar’s readiness for that next leap—its stable fees, established issuer base, and proven regulatory rapport—positions it to lead.
The Road to Institutionalization
Stellar’s trajectory mirrors the larger story of financial digitization unfolding in 2025. Banks, asset managers, and sovereign funds are all experimenting with on-chain models for issuance, settlement, and reporting.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has issued bonds on blockchain. JPMorgan’s Onyx division is building tokenized deposit networks. The Monetary Authority of Singapore is testing multi-CBDC corridors. In this mosaic, Stellar occupies a pragmatic niche: bridging open infrastructure with real regulation.
Its success hints at a more profound truth — the blockchain era is not replacing traditional finance; it is re-engineering its plumbing. And Stellar, designed for that plumbing, is finally being recognized not as an experiment but as a prototype for the system to come.
A Turning Point
Surpassing half a billion dollars in tokenized assets is not just a numerical milestone — it’s a cultural one. It signals that blockchain networks can sustain regulated, high-value operations without abandoning transparency or efficiency.
For Stellar, it is validation. For institutions, it is a signal: tokenization is no longer a laboratory exercise. It’s a market.
As on-chain finance matures, the names that built quietly and thoughtfully—rather than loudly and hastily—will shape the standards that follow. Stellar may well prove that sometimes, the most transformative revolutions are the quietest.
Source: DailyCoin — “Stellar Surpasses $500 Million in Tokenized Assets, Expands RWA Ecosystem” (October 2025)
Written by Brian Leclere