For twelve months at DefiLlama, the DeFi data platform, I built its real-world-asset coverage from nothing into a dataset now cited by Pantera Capital, an academic taxonomy paper and the financial press. Three production dashboards, a registry of more than 9,000 assets behind them, and the published methodology that defines what counts.
There was no dataset to inherit, no accepted taxonomy and no published methodology, so I wrote them. The field definitions, asset classes, classification bar and revenue framework are original work, published openly so anyone can contest them. I authored the public methodology. DefiLlama's engineers built the dashboards to those specifications. The platform and its data are DefiLlama's, and I do not speak for it.
I go by Meta, and my handle is @themetaisok. Ten years in these markets is where my judgment about which metrics matter comes from.
Cited by
Where the measurements have been used by others. Rows marked contributed are work I took part in, as distinct from independent use.
Pantera Capital
Contributed: named reviewer
Q1 2026
Sept 2026
PDF
Credited by name in two consecutive editions of “The State of Tokenization”
“…Bhaji Illuminati from Centrifuge, Meta from DefiLlama, Fayçal Drissi from University of Oxford, Fahad Saleh from University of Florida, for their valuable reviews and comments.”
The Q1 2026 edition adopted DeFi Active TVL, a metric I defined, as its measure of productive onchain TVL. The September 2026 edition names DefiLlama among the data sources on five market charts, and carries a section on DeFi utilization by class.
Quoted from the acknowledgements of the September 2026 edition. Also credited in the Q1 2026 edition. Q1 2026 report (PDF)
Citi Institute
Jun 2026
p.19
PDF
Sourced its market size figure to DefiLlama
“The global tokenization market for financial assets is estimated at $17 billion, according to DefiLlama in April 2026, up about 3x from just a year ago.”
“Wall Street On-Chain: Tokenization 2030”, June 2026, p.19. Report (PDF)
CoinGecko
2026
pp.16, 17
PDF
Measures its RWA chain chart in Active Market Cap, sourced to DefiLlama
The 2026 RWA Report sources its RWA-chains and on-chain private-credit sections to DefiLlama, and its chain chart measures daily active market capitalization, the metric I defined.
CoinGecko, 2026 RWA Report, pp. 16 and 17. Report (PDF)
Academic
Used as an external selection criterion in peer research
“The taxonomy was applied to the twenty largest tokenized real-world asset protocols listed on DeFiLlama's RWA dashboard… The use of DeFiLlama provides an external selection criterion and reduces arbitrariness in the construction of the sample.”
Vella, Pennella and Ballandies, “A Taxonomy of Real-World Asset Tokenization for Blockchain-Based Financial Infrastructure”, arXiv:2606.08534, June 2026. Paper
RWA Foundation
Contributed: I arranged the partnership
Uses the perpetuals data in its own reporting
I arranged the data partnership that put DefiLlama's RWA perpetuals figures into the RWA Foundation's published work on the category.
In press
CoinDesk links the perpetuals dashboard for its headline open-interest figure. The treasury flow series became a recurring beat at Cointelegraph, Decrypt, BeInCrypto and The Defiant, syndicated to Yahoo Finance. CryptoSlate runs DeFi Active TVL as a column heading in its own reporting, and the measures have crossed into Spanish-language coverage.
Metrics I defined
Definitions, and where each one is used by someone else.
- Onchain Market Cap
- Onchain Market Cap is circulating supply, excluding burned, at reference price.
- Active Market Cap
- Active Market Cap is the portion of Onchain Market Cap in user or protocol hands, excluding issuer and custody wallets. The operational test: would compromising this wallet let someone extract meaningful value?Cited in CoinGecko
- DeFi Active TVL
- DeFi Active TVL is the subset of Active Market Cap deployed in third-party DeFi protocols, excluding issuer-managed contracts.Cited in Pantera Capital and CryptoSlate
- Utilization
- Utilization is DeFi Active TVL divided by Onchain Market Cap, as a percentage. It is not lending-market utilization, which is borrowed over supplied.
- Net Flows, Flow vs Price, Capital Rotation
- These separate minting and redemption from repricing. For an asset like tokenized gold, where supply is flat and the price moves, that separation is what tells a flow from a price change.
What I do
Most research tells you what a number is. I write down what it counts, publish the rule, and apply it the same way to everyone, including my own projects.
Fractional research
Market structure, methodology design and primary-source analysis for teams that need research depth without a full-time hire. I write the specification, build the dataset and defend the numbers.
Evidence: the methodology and data dictionary
Research retainers for funds
Recurring coverage of real-world assets, tokenized equities and digital asset treasuries, with the sourcing trail attached. Two consecutive editions of Pantera’s State of Tokenization credit my review, and one adopted a metric I defined.
Evidence: Pantera Capital
Standards readiness for issuers
If your product is mismeasured or missing from the dashboards the market reads, I can tell you why, because I wrote the inclusion rules while I was at DefiLlama. Schema conformance and attestation standards. DefiLlama makes every inclusion and classification decision, I have no say in them, and no engagement with me changes that.
Expert networks and advisory
Calls and written work on RWA taxonomy, treasury company valuation, perpetuals market structure and how the category's data actually gets assembled.
Evidence: the metrics and the Indexed episode
The dashboards and the methodology are public, and you are welcome to use them. They cannot answer your question. An engagement is where I apply the same classification bar to the assets, issuers or companies you care about, tell you where the published numbers are weak for your purpose, and stand behind the answer.
Built at DefiLlama
August 2025 to September 2026. Zero to one on all three.
DefiLlama's view of tokenized real-world assets, generated from a registry I built and maintained. More than 9,000 tracked assets and markets across 116 fields, spanning 450+ issuers, 330+ platforms and 170+ blockchains.
Running the whole registry against the classification bar produced a finding worth stating plainly: fewer than one in five tokens marketed as real-world assets clear the transferable, self-custodial, redeemable and verified test. The rest are better described as programmable finance.
An aggregate view of real-world-asset perpetuals. Before it the data lived only inside each venue's own front end with no way to compare across them. It covers equities, indices, ETFs, commodities, bonds and forex, broken out by venue and asset group. Markets are normalized to common reference assets through a 17-field market schema, and each one carries a canonical market ID, so the same underlying stays comparable across venues that name contracts differently.
- Active markets, onchain default view
- 1,000+
- With centralized exchanges
- 3,300+
- Market schema
- 17 fields
- Forex book
- 75+ markets
Nearly 100 listed companies, with every purchase traced to the filing it came from. These companies were widely quoted on a single mNAV figure that hid future share issuance. I replaced it with three defensible variants and showed that a company quoted at 0.33x can sit at 2.42x once contractual dilution is counted.
Sole author of the public documentation: eligibility and exclusion criteria, metrics, definitions and taxonomy, the perpetuals spec and a standalone treasury methodology, plus a 29-column public data dictionary. Five inclusion criteria, six exclusion criteria, seven evidence flags and five access models, with expulsion rules and a review status short of removal.
Also the fee and revenue methodology that made issuer economics comparable across assets: an identity equation splitting holder fees between asset manager and tokenization platform, a blank-versus-zero rule separating unresearched from verified-no-fee, and every estimate carrying a confidence grade and a dated primary-source audit trail. Primary sources always win over aggregators.
docs.llama.fi/real-world-assets/real-world-assets · docs.llama.fi/analysts/dat-methodology
DefiLlama declined to list an asset with a claimed $10B+ because its backing could not be verified onchain. I ran the assessment, under exclusion criteria I had written. DefiLlama made the decision.
Listed publicly on Llama Corp, DefiLlama's parent company, as Meta (DAT & RWA).
Writing and speaking
Published work and appearances.
Meta (ex-DeFiLlama) on the Future of Real World Assets
Guest on Indexed, the crypto data podcast, for an hour on the real-world-asset market and a full tour of the DefiLlama RWA dashboard. Hosted by Danning Sui, Research Director at Pantera Capital, with Boxer of Dune and Hildobby of Dragonfly.
Also listed as “The RWA Boom: How Much Is Actually Being Used?”. YouTube · Spotify · indexedpod.com
The Digital Asset Treasury Playbook: How to Print, Buy and Compound to ‘Alchemise’ mNAV into a Market Engine
DL News. Syndicated to Yahoo Finance.
What is mNAV? How to calculate and trade it? Your DefiLlama guide to the metric for digital asset treasuries
DL News. Syndicated to Yahoo Finance, BNC Times and Meme Insider.
Interests I hold
Current work alongside independent engagements. Listed because I measure this market and you should know where I stand in it.
Advisor, stakeholder and treasury signer
A decentralized exchange for tokenized stocks on Robinhood Chain. Involved since before launch and one of three signers on the project treasury.
I advise on product and growth. The launchpad exists because I proposed it. I brought in the specialists who handled search and AI-search optimization, and I mapped the aggregator landscape the exchange needed to be listed across, so the founder could take the integrations forward.
The chain whose real-world-asset activity I was measuring at DefiLlama is now the one I help build trading infrastructure on.
Co-founder
Sealed Pokemon packs held in vaults and tokenized on Solana.
The structure is a treasury vehicle applied to collectibles. The vehicle holds the packs, the token tracks the holdings, and there is no redemption right, so a holder gets exposure rather than a claim on a particular pack.
That puts it between the two things I spent a year measuring. By the classification bar I wrote at DefiLlama it would not clear the True RWA test, because redeemability is one of the four criteria. I would rather say that plainly than describe it as something it is not.
Co-founder
Cryptopoly, an onchain interactive art experience. An ERC-721 collection of 8,889 tiles across 37 entries in 17 categories, laid out on a 40-square board. Still pre-mainnet.
Earlier
Ten years of building in this market.
Crypto Stock Tracker, co-creator
A digital-asset-treasury dashboard covering corporate crypto holdings beyond BTC, ETH and SOL. Concept to live product in about a month. DefiLlama acqui-hired me on the strength of it.
Story Block, co-creator and project lead
An all-onchain collaborative narrative NFT on Ethereum. Each mint appends one sentence at the next token ID, with fully onchain SVG concatenated and re-rendered from contract state, editable after mint, with editing rights transferring on secondary sale. Launched August 2022 and still mintable.
Radbro Webring, researcher and contributor
Research, analysis and educational content across the ecosystem, including work on SCHIZOPOSTERS that influenced the Radbro Ordinals collection and Rune #925 RADBRO•WEBRING, among the first 1,000 runes etched on Bitcoin.
Crypto Corp and Built by Coins, co-founder
An ICO pool management tool used through 2018, and 24hourcrypto, a crypto news aggregator with sentiment analytics, whose sentiment engine I helped design. Built by Coins was a crypto education site offering one-to-one tutoring, started December 2017 and wound down in 2019.
Work with me
If the numbers your market trades on are wrong, I can tell you why.
Taking fractional research contracts, fund retainers, issuer engagements and expert network calls.
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