ARK Q3 DeFi Report: Tokenized stock trading volume surges 9x, DEX spot trading volume rebounds to $571 billion

October 21 — ARK Invest's Q3 2026 DeFi report shows an overall recovery in on-chain financial activity, with tokenized stocks emerging as the main driver of growth in decentralized exchange (DEX) trading. The report notes that Q3 DEX spot trading volume rose 13% quarter-over-quarter to $571 billion, its first rebound after four consecutive quarters of decline. Among this, tokenized stock spot trading volume surged roughly 9x quarter-over-quarter to $50 billion, with its share of total DEX spot trading volume rising from about 1% in Q2 to about 9%.

Over the same period, stablecoin adjusted trading volume rose 16% quarter-over-quarter to $781 billion, and average monthly active addresses grew 39% to about 73 million; the total market cap of real-world assets (RWA) rose 19% quarter-over-quarter to about $39 billion. Lending protocol deposits grew 51% quarter-over-quarter to $81 billion, and active loans grew 41% to $29 billion. In the derivatives market, open interest in perpetual contract DEXs grew 76% quarter-over-quarter to about $24 billion, but trading volume fell 16% to about $1.4 trillion, indicating an expansion in market positioning while trading activity cooled.