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Institutional adoption on the Avalanche blockchain surged in the fourth quarter as tokenised real-world assets hit a record value, even as the AVAX token sharply underperformed the broader crypto market.
Tokenised real-world assets on Avalanche rose 68.6% in Q4 and nearly 950% year on year to more than $1.3 billion, driven largely by BlackRock’s $500 million USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, according to research from Messari.
The growth was supported by new institutional use cases, including a partnership between Fortune 500 fintech FIS and Avalanche-based marketplace Intain to launch tokenised loans for US banks.
S&P Dow Jones also expanded its presence on Avalanche through a partnership with Dinari to launch the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index, tracking crypto-linked stocks and tokens on the network.
Despite the surge in tokenisation activity, the Avalanche token fell 59% in the fourth quarter of 2025 and has continued to slide in 2026, leaving it down more than 90% from its 2021 peak, CoinGecko data shows.
On the decentralised finance side, value locked in Avalanche-native DeFi rose 34.5% in Q4, while average daily transactions jumped 63% to about 2.1 million, Messari said.
Stablecoin usage remained steady, with Tether’s USDT overtaking USDC as the dominant stablecoin on Avalanche by the end of 2025, even as tokenisation growth increasingly diverged from AVAX’s price performance.
At the time of reporting, Avalanche price was $10.95.