The State of Onchain Vaults: TVL, Chains, and Trends in 2026

Introduction

Real-world asset (RWA) protocols just overtook decentralized exchanges to become the fifth-largest DeFi category by total value locked. That milestone, reached in early 2026, marks a shift that has been building for three years: onchain vaults are no longer a niche DeFi primitive. They are becoming the default infrastructure for tokenized investment products.

At Lagoon, we build vault infrastructure across 18+ EVM chains and have deployed over 800 vaults to date, giving us direct visibility into how this market is evolving. This article maps what the data shows: TVL, chain distribution, capital flows, the standards powering adoption (ERC-4626 and ERC-7540), the institutional players entering the space, and the projections for where it goes next. Every data point is sourced and timestamped.

Market Size: Where Onchain Vaults Stand Today

The total value of tokenized RWAs on public blockchains reached $23.6 billion in March 2026 (data: DefiLlama, rwa.xyz), up from $14.1 billion at the start of the year. That 66% growth in under three months outpaces the 2025 full-year trajectory, when onchain RWA value grew from roughly $6 billion to over $30 billion.

Composition by Asset Class

The $23.6 billion breaks down into four segments:

• Tokenized funds ($10.5 billion, 44.5%): U.S. Treasuries, money market funds, and bond products dominate. Tokenized U.S. Treasuries alone hit a record $11 billion in March 2026, up 27% year-to-date.
• Gold and commodities ($6.5 billion, 27.5%): Tokenized gold products (PAXG, XAUT) and metals represent the second-largest category.
• Tokenized equities ($4.0 billion, 16.9%): Stocks, ETFs, and index fund tokens are growing as regulatory frameworks clarify.
• Private credit and other ($2.6 billion, 11.1%): Lending protocols, real estate tokens, and other RWA categories.

For context, total DeFi TVL across all chains sits at approximately $95.4 billion as of March 2026, meaning tokenized RWAs now represent roughly one-quarter of all value locked in DeFi.

Vault-Specific TVL

ERC-4626 and its async extension ERC-7540 collectively account for over $15 billion in vault TVL, up from near-zero in early 2023. Over 1,300 ERC-4626-compliant stablecoin vaults are tracked, with USDC vaults alone holding $3 billion.

The Vault Stack: Standards Driving Adoption

Two Ethereum standards form the technical foundation of the onchain vault ecosystem. Understanding their relationship explains why vault adoption accelerated so rapidly.

ERC-4626: The Foundation

ERC-4626, finalized in 2022, standardized how tokenized vaults handle deposits, withdrawals, and share accounting. Before ERC-4626, every protocol implemented its own vault interface, making composability between protocols difficult. The standard solved this by defining a common API that any vault could implement.

The result: protocols like Yearn, Morpho, Euler, and hundreds of others adopted ERC-4626, creating an interoperable vault layer across DeFi. Aggregators and front-ends could integrate any ERC-4626 vault without custom code.

ERC-7540: The Async Extension

ERC-4626 assumes synchronous settlement, where deposits and withdrawals complete in the same transaction. That works for liquid DeFi strategies but breaks down for assets that need processing time: real-world assets with T+1 or T+2 settlement, institutional funds requiring compliance checks, or strategies involving off-chain execution.

ERC-7540, finalized in June 2024 and recognized on ethereum.org in January 2025, extends ERC-4626 with asynchronous deposit and redemption flows. The request-then-claim pattern allows vaults to handle settlement delays, forward pricing (where the exchange rate is determined at settlement, not at request time), and role-based governance without breaking ERC-4626 compatibility.

Lagoon's entire vault infrastructure is built on ERC-7540, enabling asset managers to run tokenized fund structures with async settlement, independent net asset value (NAV) computation, and four distinct governance roles.

Protocol Landscape

The vault standard stack has enabled a diverse protocol layer:

Risk curation has emerged as a key differentiator. Professional curators like Gauntlet ($1.41B managed) and Steakhouse ($1.28B managed) allocate depositor capital across isolated lending markets, earning 3 to 8% APY on conservative stablecoin strategies.

Lagoon occupies a different position in the stack: rather than a single strategy vertical, it provides general-purpose vault infrastructure — any strategy type, any custody model, any EVM chain — enabling managers and institutions to launch tokenized products without building custom smart contracts.

Chains, Curators, and Capital Flows

Institutional Entrants

The distinction between "DeFi protocols" and "financial institutions" is blurring. Several developments in late 2025 and early 2026 illustrate this convergence:

• BlackRock BUIDL on Uniswap (February 2026): BlackRock's tokenized Treasury fund became tradable on Uniswap for pre-qualified investors. This is a $10 trillion asset manager using DeFi rails for fund distribution.
• Circle overtakes BUIDL: Circle's USYC token surpassed BUIDL as the largest single tokenized U.S. Treasury product in early 2026, as the total tokenized treasury market expanded to $11 billion. BUIDL's share of that market fell from a 46% peak to roughly 18%, not because it shrank, but because new entrants grew faster.
• Kraken DeFi Earn (January 2026): Kraken launched a product routing centralized exchange deposits into onchain lending vaults managed by professional risk teams. Tens of millions flowed in within weeks.
• Bitwise onchain vaults: Bitwise launched a non-custodial stablecoin vault on Ethereum targeting yields up to 6%, built on top of Morpho markets.

Capital Concentration

One pattern stands out in the data: capital is concentrated among large depositors. According to Keyrock's onchain asset management report, whales (over $1M) and dolphins ($100K to $1M) account for 70 to 99% of vault AUM across most protocols, while retail depositors (under $10K) contribute less than 1% of capital despite representing the majority of unique addresses.

This concentration has implications for vault design. Institutional depositors require custody infrastructure (MPC wallets, multisig, role-based permissions), compliance tooling (whitelisting, KYC gates), and professional reporting. Protocols that serve only retail are leaving the largest capital pools unaddressed.

This is why Lagoon's vault architecture separates governance into four distinct roles — vault admin, valuation manager, curator, and whitelist manager — each with independent permissions. Combined with flexible custody (multisig, MPC, or hybrid), KYC/KYB whitelisting, and automated reporting, the infrastructure is designed for the capital profile the data reveals: institutional depositors who require operational controls before committing capital.

Multi-Chain Expansion

Onchain vaults are no longer Ethereum-only. Pendle operates across 11 chains. Kamino dominates on Solana with a $2.36 billion TVL. Lagoon supports 18+ EVM chains with identical vault contracts on each, enabling managers to deploy the same strategy across networks without custom integration work.

The multi-chain trend is driven by a practical reality: institutional capital does not sit on one chain. A manager running a treasury strategy may want Ethereum for liquidity depth, Arbitrum for lower gas costs, and Base for access to Coinbase's distribution. Vault infrastructure that supports permissionless multi-chain deployment, like Lagoon's Vault Factory, removes the friction of cross-chain expansion.

What's Next: Projections and Catalysts

Market Projections

Three data points frame the forward outlook:

1. $64 billion (base case) in onchain vault AUM by end of 2026, per Keyrock Research. The bull case is $85 billion; the bear case is $41.6 billion.
2. $100 billion+ in tokenized RWAs by end of 2026, with more than half of the world's top 20 asset managers expected to launch tokenized products (CoinDesk).
3. $16 trillion in tokenized assets by 2030, projected by Boston Consulting Group. McKinsey's estimate is $2 trillion, while Citi projects $4 to $5 trillion in tokenized securities alone.

Key Catalysts

Several forces could accelerate adoption through 2026:

• Regulatory clarity: As tokenized fund frameworks mature in the EU (MiCA), Singapore (MAS guidelines), and the U.S. (SEC engagement with tokenized securities), institutional allocators gain the legal certainty they need to deploy capital.
• Institutional onramps: Products like Kraken DeFi Earn and BlackRock BUIDL on Uniswap lower the barrier between traditional finance and onchain vaults. Each new onramp expands the addressable depositor base.
• Vault composability: ERC-4626 compatibility means vault shares can be used as collateral, traded on secondary markets, or composed into structured products. This programmability creates network effects that traditional fund structures cannot replicate.
• Performance premium: Onchain vault strategies outperform traditional equivalents by 230 to 380 basis points after fees across most categories, according to Keyrock. As awareness of this performance gap grows, capital rotation from traditional to onchain accelerates.

Each of these catalysts maps to infrastructure requirements Lagoon already addresses: ERC-7540 for institutional compliance flows, permissionless multi-chain deployment for geographic and chain expansion, custody integrations (Safe, Fireblocks, Fordefi) for institutional onramps, and full ERC-4626 backward compatibility for vault composability. As the market scales from $15B toward $64B+, the infrastructure layer becomes the critical enabler — and the opportunity.