Tokenized Treasuries Quietly Find Their Biggest Fans in Italy, Portugal, and Singapore 🇮🇹

Tokenized US Treasury debt grew 125% in the 12 months ending July 1, 2026, climbing from $6.86 billion to $15.42 billion, and the largest holders of the instruments are not based in the United States, according to Chainalysis' 2026 North America report. US government debt remained the largest real-world asset on-chain, representing 42.8% of all tokenized RWA value, and BlackRock's BUIDL fund retook the top spot among such products in late August.

Geolocated tokenized Treasury value is concentrated abroad. Italian holders account for 29.9%, followed by Portugal at 18.8% and Singapore at 18.2%, while US holders rank fourth at 10.5%. Japanese holders make up 16.4% of geolocated holders, the most of any country, but just 0.4% of value. Chainalysis said a small group of large foreign holders drives the market while a broader retail base builds smaller positions, and that tokenization shrinks the minimum investment size and removes the need for a US brokerage account. The report noted these buyers tend to hold tokenized Treasuries rather than post them as collateral, with Treasury lending activity contracting 23% over the period, the only RWA lending category to shrink. "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 said.

Stablecoins provide a second channel for that foreign demand. Tokens from American issuers are backed largely by short-dated US government debt, so dollar stablecoins purchased abroad also feed demand for that debt. Dollar tokens accounted for 99.1% of stablecoin order book volume, while euro stablecoins held just 0.45%, trailing even after the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation improved conditions for their issuers. Circle's USD Coin (USDC) illustrated the scale, with the US-based issuer reporting $73.3 billion in circulation at quarter end, up 19% from a year earlier.

The preference for dollar tokens is visible in Canada as well. By June 2026, stablecoins made up 44% of Canadian dollar order book trading, up from 30% a year earlier, with USDC leading that share and little trading flowing to Canadian dollar stablecoins. Morva Rohani, executive director of the Canadian Web3 Council, said dollar stablecoin purchases build demand for US government debt that Canadian debt could otherwise capture. "This is a trend that Canadian policy-makers are following closely," Rohani noted, with Ottawa having laid the groundwork for its own framework.