Jack Paul 
The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation runs a tokenization trial with about 40 firms, including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Vanguard and the NYSE. The goal: represent shares and Treasuries on-chain. But these tokens become usable collateral only when a lending market can answer who prices them and what happens when the venues behind that price go silent.
DefiLlama puts on-chain RWA market cap above $51 billion, but those assets generate only about $3.8 billion in DeFi active total value locked, a utilization rate near 7.7%. That gap points directly to pricing as the gatekeeper.
Pricing becomes the gatekeeper
A lending market needs a feed, venues, and rules for when those venues go quiet. Matthew Fisher, CEO of Katana Network, said institutions delegate oracle vetting to professional curators like Steakhouse and Gauntlet. These vault operators evaluate collateral, approve markets, and set exposure limits. A December 2025 study found that a small number of curators now intermediate a disproportionate share of total value locked, concentrating underwriting decisions.
Fisher warned that a single oracle manipulation in one market a curator trusted can taint the curator’s entire track record. An investment committee then gives a hard no.
Who pays when it fails
The curator absorbs reputational fallout, but the depositor typically absorbs financial losses directly. Pool-based models like Aave or Morpho often leave the protocol with no direct liability. April’s KelpDAO exploit highlighted this: Aave estimated $230 million in bad debt from a position originating outside its codebase, with only $50 million absorbed by its Umbrella module. First-loss capital, mandatory insurance, and auditable disclosures could close that gap.
The adoption test
Tokenized equities, bonds, and commodities inherit a market calendar their reference asset observes. Fisher said there is no objective right approach to pricing when the primary market closes. Some platforms use moving averages from quotes; Katana closes markets to new positions after the underlying exchange closes.
Citi projects tokenized assets reaching $8.2 trillion by 2030 in a bull scenario, with DeFi utilization possibly climbing to 12-18%. That would put RWA-linked DeFi active TVL near $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. In the bear case, assets reach $2.7 trillion, but utilization stays at 2-4%, leaving RWA DeFi TVL at $54-108 billion.
Institutions need a governance stack around price feeds durable enough to survive an investment committee, and a settled answer for who absorbs the loss when a feed fails.