Blockchain network Avalanche saw rising institutional adoption across tokenized money market funds, loans, and indices in the fourth quarter, driving the value of real-world assets on the layer 1 to a new high, even as its token underperformed the broader market.
The total value locked of tokenized real-world assets on Avalanche rose 68.6% over the fourth quarter of 2025 and nearly 950% over the year to more than $1.3 billion, boosted by the $500 million BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) that launched in November, Messari research analyst Youssef Haidar said in a report on Thursday.
Fortune 500 fintech FIS partnered with Avalanche-based marketplace Intain to launch tokenized loans in November, further boosting Avalanche’s TVL, Haidar said. Intain enables 2,000 US banks to securitize over $6 billion worth of loans on Avalanche.
The S&P Dow Jones also partnered with Dinari, an Avalanche-powered blockchain, to launch the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index tracking 35 crypto-linked stocks and 15 crypto tokens on Avalanche.
TradFi firms are increasingly experimenting with crypto tokenization under the Paul Atkins-led Securities and Exchange Commission, which has shown an openness to approving more innovative crypto products over the past year.
Asset managers Bitwise and VanEck filed S-1s to launch spot Avalanche exchange-traded funds late last year, which included staking. VanEck’s spot Avalanche ETF launched on Monday.
AVAX continues to tank
The Avalanche (AVAX) token didn’t fare too well in Q4, dropping 59% to $12.3 and has slid another 10.5% so far in 2026 to around $11.
AVAX hasn’t seen price action like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) this market cycle, which have both hit new all-time highs, with AXAX down over 92% from its all-time high of $144.96 in November 2021, CoinGecko data shows.
Avalanche DeFi on the up
The value locked in native decentralized finance in AVAX rose 34.5% over Q4 to 97.5 million AVAX, while the number of average daily transactions on the Avalanche blockchain increased 63% to 2.1 million over the same timeframe, Haidar said.
The total stablecoin market cap on the Avalanche main chain remained relatively flat in Q4, increasing 0.1% over Q4 to $1.741 billion, adding around $1 million.
Tether’s stablecoin USDt (USDT) overtook Circle’s USDC (USDC) to become the dominant stablecoin on Avalanche, representing 42.3% of the total supply by the end of 2025 with $736.6 million in circulation.
