Brickken deployed its infrastructure on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) on February 8, 2024. Just 6 weeks later, it claimed the Number 1 spot on BSC for all tokenization projects. Since then, Brickken has rapidly climbed rankings across Base, Ethereum, and the broader Real-World Asset (RWA) ecosystem.
This post breaks down how Brickken’s Total Value Locked (TVL) is calculated—along with the benefits and limitations of the methodology.
TVL (Total Value Locked) is a widely used metric in decentralized finance (DeFi) to measure the total capital deposited into a protocol. It reflects the value of assets actively staked, invested, or managed, providing insight into a protocol’s scale and adoption. TVL is often used to gauge the health and trust level of a project. A higher TVL suggests stronger user engagement and greater confidence in the platform’s underlying technology.
TVL measurement varies depending on how a protocol is structured. For Brickken, TVL is tied to the tokenization of real-world assets through our Digital Asset Platform. Each time an issuer tokenizes assets using Brickken’s infrastructure, tokens representing those assets are minted. However, the TVL only reflects market-validated tokenizations—i.e., those that go through a public offering and successfully raise capital.
To enforce transparency, the valuation is not set when the issuer is tokenizing their assets. Why? Because in theory, applying a self-perceived value of an asset can arbitrarily misrepresent the actual valuation and thus TVL generated within the Brickken Ecosystem.
Instead, the valuation is set according to market demand & dynamics. This means that a valuation of a particular asset, or token, is only set once a Token Offering has been successful since the market responds to a valuation set by the Issuer. Once the Token offering has been successful, Brickken is attributed a TVL of the Price of the asset multiplied by the distribution of the Token Offering + any pre-distribution to current/private stakeholders.
Brickken’s TVL = The cumulative value of each successful Real-World Asset token offering multiplied by its circulating supply.
Even though the tokens are created, no TVL is yet attributed to the Brickken Ecosystem as there is no way of verifying a valuation of the asset on-chain.
Result: Since the Offering was successful, the market validated the value of the rental property at $100 for 0.1% of the of Property.
Thus, $100 X 1.000 $RES = $100.000 is added as TVL created through the Brickken Ecosystem.
Unsuccessful offerings will not count towards the TVL as the valuation was not acknowledged by the market. This does not mean that the tokenized asset was without inherent value, just over-valued, unsuccessfully marketed to the public, or any other factor. However, the tokenized asset will not have a representation in the TVL number.
Private distribution, such as stock options to Employees, or simply tokenization and distribution of ownership to current investors, will not conduct a Token Offering. Therefore, no valuation can be set since the asset doesn't reach the open market. In such cases, the value of the asset will not count towards the TVL.
Brickken’s TVL represents the sum of all market-validated tokenized assets created through our public token offering infrastructure. This approach ensures that only real, investor-backed valuations are counted—making our TVL a transparent reflection of actual traction in the RWA tokenization market.
It’s worth noting that TVL will always underrepresent the total value tokenized using Brickken, as some issuers use our platform for private offerings or internal asset management, which don’t go through public fundraising. That’s why there can be a difference between the total tokenized value mentioned by Brickken and the TVL displayed on aggregators like DeFiLlama.
Nonetheless, this model remains the most transparent and market-oriented way to track growth within Brickken’s ecosystem.
