Chainalysis: most tokenized Treasuries held outside the US
Holders in Italy, Portugal and Singapore control 66.9% of geolocated tokenized US Treasury value, Chainalysis says; US holders account for just 10.5%.
CryptoGroup Newsroom · · 2 min read
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US government debt is the biggest real-world asset on blockchains, but most of the identifiable holders of on-chain Treasuries are not American. Chainalysis says holders in Italy, Portugal and Singapore controlled 66.9% of the geolocated value of tokenized US Treasury products as of 1 July 2026, against just 10.5% for US holders. The finding comes from the North America chapter of its 2026 Geography of Cryptocurrency report and was widely picked up again over the weekend.
Value versus number of holders
| Country | Share of geolocated value |
|---|---|
| Italy | 29.9% |
| Portugal | 18.8% |
| Singapore | 18.2% |
| United States | 10.5% |
| Japan | 0.4% |
Japan shows the opposite pattern: it has the most holders of any country, 16.4% of the total, yet only 0.4% of the value. The figures cover only holdings Chainalysis could link to a country, so they describe identified buyers rather than the whole market. The gap between value and head count is the point, the firm says: a small number of large foreign holders drives the market, while a wider retail base, led by Japan, holds small positions.
Why foreigners buy on-chain
According to the report, tokenization lowers the minimum investment and removes the need for a US brokerage account. That turns a wholesale instrument into something an investor in Lisbon or Singapore can buy directly. "A holder outside the United States who buys a tokenized Treasury product is creating demand for US government debt rather than for their own government's," Chainalysis wrote. Dollar stablecoins work in a similar way, since their reserves sit largely in short-dated Treasuries.
A growing, mostly passive market
- Tokenized Treasuries rose 125% in the 12 months to July, from $6.86 billion to $15.42 billion, and make up 42.8% of all tokenized real-world asset value.
- The wider tokenization market ended the second quarter at $36.07 billion.
- Lending against tokenized Treasuries fell 23%, while private-credit lending grew sharply. Chainalysis reads this as investors holding Treasuries rather than using them as collateral.
- BlackRock's BUIDL fund took back the top spot among tokenized Treasury products in late August.
Banks are moving into the same space: see our reports on BNY and Citadel's tokenized Treasuries test and how big US banks view tokenization.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Crypto assets are volatile; do your own research. Read our disclaimer
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