If you drop tokenized stocks into a lending pool or liquidity pool, can you still collect dividends? Reality, a tokenized US equities protocol within the Bitget ecosystem, says yes. The platform has formed a strategic partnership with DeFi rewards infrastructure provider Merkl, using a reward-forwarding mechanism to identify the actual holders of rTokens deployed across supported protocols, so that users can still receive dividends in stablecoin form under the applicable rules even within decentralized finance scenarios.
The crux of the problem lies in the "identity" of on-chain positions. rTokens offer tokenized exposure to publicly listed stocks and ETFs, along with qualifying economic benefits such as dividends. But once these tokens are deposited into lending markets, liquidity pools or staking contracts, the holder shown on-chain is often the smart contract itself rather than the individual investor, which in turn makes it difficult to determine who should receive dividend payments.
Merkl's reward-forwarding technology is designed precisely for this. The system can penetrate multiple layers of nested DeFi contracts, factor in each protocol's specific fees, trace the underlying asset ownership relationships, and then distribute payments according to the applicable rules. Users and developers can use the Forwarder Scan tool in Merkl Studio to check whether a given contract falls within the supported range.
Pablo Veyrat, CEO and co-founder of Merkl, said: "The challenge with DeFi assets is knowing who sits behind each position." He explained that the forwarding technology traces ownership through nested smart contracts, giving Reality a clear picture of who holds what, so dividends can reach the right people no matter where the tokens are deployed.
Under this division of labor, Reality continues to handle rToken issuance and dividend entitlement management, while Merkl provides the reward-forwarding infrastructure. Under Reality's model, qualifying cash dividends are calculated separately from the token price, with net cash dividends generally settled in USDT; distributions through DeFi channels still depend on whether the contract is supported and on the relevant distribution rules.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen noted that the value of tokenized stocks should not be limited to trading: "If someone puts rTokens to work in DeFi, they should still be able to receive the dividends they qualify for." She believes partnering with Merkl helps solve this problem and makes tokenized stocks more practical in everyday financial applications.
The partnership builds on rTokens' growing adoption within the Bitget UEX ecosystem. According to the DeFiLlama report, rToken cumulative trading volume reached $1.16 billion between June and July 2026 (about NT$38 billion); in July 2026, the number of users trading both crypto assets and rTokens grew 23.54% from the previous month, indicating continued rising demand for tokenized stocks in cross-asset strategies.
From a market perspective, tokenized securities have mostly been positioned as trading tools in the past, and once they leave an exchange wallet they become decoupled from dividends — a major concern for institutions and long-term holders when entering the market. Extending dividend distribution to DeFi positions effectively fills the gap in the yield structure of tokenized stocks and expands rToken use cases from spot trading to lending, market making and staking.
However, actual coverage still depends on which contracts Merkl supports, and profit sharing must comply with each protocol's rules — not every DeFi operation can unconditionally preserve dividend eligibility. For investors focused on the real-world asset (RWA) tokenization theme, the maturity of this kind of infrastructure will be a key indicator for assessing whether tokenized stocks can truly enter everyday financial applications.
