Aave’s RWA Deposits Hits $1B Milestone as Tokenization Market Heats Up

Aave, an Ethereum-based decentralized platform, has attained a significant milestone, becoming the first lending protocol to surpass $1 billion in real-world asset (RWA) deposits. The surge comes amid growing investor interest in the RWA market.

Aave is the first lending protocol with over $1 billion in RWAs deposited. pic.twitter.com/H9d4Nh0Aol

— Aave (@aave) February 19, 2026

Aave Hits $1B in RWA Market

Recall that Aave delved into the RWA market through a partnership with Centrifuge in December 2021. The market exposure allows crypto natives and TradFi investors to gain exposure to the tokenized commodities market. This means traders can invest in assets such as gold, silver, and even stocks.

In August 2025, the decentralized lending protocol introduced lending services to the RWA market via Aave Horizon. This Ethereum-focused initiative allows retail and institutional investors to secure stablecoin loans using RWAs as collateral.

Attaining the $1 billion milestone shows that Aave investors are strongly interested in gaining exposure to real-world assets rather than relying solely on cryptocurrencies. Sebastian Pulido, Aave’s Director of Institutional & DeFi Business, reiterated this in a tweet:

“RWAs diversify exposure beyond crypto correlated markets and expand the yield surface area available on [Aave]. This is how you build weather proof yield that survives across cycles.”

Meanwhile, AAVE’s price trades at $122 at the time of writing, down 3.66% in the past 24 hours. This means the asset did not experience any price increase following news of the RWA deposit milestone.

RWA Market Booms

Growing metrics in the RWA market indicate that more investors share a similar sentiment. This is especially so as the crypto market continues to be enveloped by bearish trends. Since mid-January, the crypto market capitalization has decreased from $3.28 trillion to $2.28 trillion.

The RWA market, on the other hand, has been steadily increasing. On-chain data shows that the monthly active addresses have soared by over 95% in the past month. Although it currently has only around 230,000 addresses, its valuation has grown to over $6.8 billion.

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