a16z crypto: Most tokenized assets are merely digitized, and true on-chain composability has yet to be unlocked

a16z crypto pointed out that not all tokenized assets are fully utilized on-chain. Bonds are currently the largest category of tokenized assets, with a market value of $15.2 billion, but only about 5% of the supply is used for DeFi; precious metals are similar, having been tokenized but mostly idle.

In contrast, smaller categories perform differently: reinsurance tokens have 84% of their supply deployed in DeFi, while private credit stands at 33%. a16z believes this makes sense, as the categories with the highest DeFi usage were built for DeFi from the start, such as Nexus Mutual and Maple Finance.

a16z noted that many practices currently referred to as tokenization are actually closer to digitization, meaning that records are moved onto the blockchain but do not unlock more new features, while one of the core value propositions of on-chain financial systems is composability.