Tokenised Private Credit

Private Credit: A Trillion-Dollar Market Goes On-Chain

Private credit — loans made by non-bank lenders to businesses and individuals — is a $1.7 trillion global market that has grown rapidly since 2020 as banks retreated from lending. It's also one of the most natural fits for tokenisation: private credit is illiquid, opaque, and inaccessible to most investors. Tokenisation addresses all three problems by making loans fractional, transparent and tradeable on-chain.

Centrifuge

Centrifuge is the pioneer of on-chain private credit, operating since 2021. It allows asset originators (lenders) to create pools of real-world loans — invoice financing, consumer credit, real estate loans — and fund them using decentralized liquidity. Key features:

• Uses "Tinlake" and the newer Centrifuge Chain for pooling and tokenisation
• Two-token structure: DROP (senior tranche, lower yield, lower risk) and TIN (junior tranche, higher yield, first-loss)
• Over $500 million in assets financed since inception
• Integrated with MakerDAO — Centrifuge pools have received DAI liquidity
• Loan-level transparency: every underlying loan is visible on-chain

Centrifuge's model is powerful because it bridges DeFi capital with real-world lending. A US business needing invoice financing can get funded by liquidity providers around the world, without going through a bank.

Maple Finance

Maple Finance is an institutional lending protocol that facilitates under-collateralised loans to crypto and real-world borrowers. Unlike DeFi lending platforms (Aave, Compound) that require over-collateralisation, Maple uses professional pool delegates who assess creditworthiness:

• Pool delegates manage lending pools and earn management fees
• Lenders provide liquidity and earn yield from interest payments
• Borrowers are vetted institutions (trading firms, RWA companies)
• Maple's Mappings product allows direct lending against RWA collateral
• Over $5 billion in cumulative loan originations

Maple suffered defaults during the 2022 crypto credit crisis (notably from Alameda Research borrowers), which led to improved risk management and the launch of their Syrup token for staked insurance. The protocol has since rebuilt and expanded into RWA lending.

Figure Markets

Figure Markets (formerly Figure Technologies) is a fintech company founded by Mike Cagney (former SoFi CEO) that uses blockchain for loan origination and securitisation:

• Originates home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), mortgage refinances and personal loans
• Each loan is tokenised on the Provenance Blockchain
• Over $10 billion in loan origination volume to date
• Figure's tokenised loans can be traded on a secondary marketplace
• The company raised $200 million at a $1.2 billion valuation in 2023

Figure is notable for being a real lending business that uses blockchain as infrastructure rather than as a marketing buzzword. The loans are real, the borrowers are real, and the blockchain improves efficiency of securitisation and secondary trading.

Goldfinch

Goldfinch is a decentralised credit protocol focused on emerging market lending. It enables real-world lending businesses in developing countries to access DeFi capital:

• Borrowers are fintech lenders in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia
• Uses a "Backer" model where participants stake first-loss capital to vouch for borrowers
• Over $100 million in loans originated across 15+ countries
• Yield for liquidity providers comes from real-world loan interest payments
• Focuses on USDC-denominated lending to avoid local currency risk

Other Platforms

• Clearpool — institutional credit marketplace with both permissionless and permissioned pools
• Tradecraft — tokenised trade finance and supply chain lending
• PeerProtocol — on-chain private credit by TrueFi, with credit-rated borrower pools
• Atlendis — French platform for tokenised revolving credit lines

Risks Specific to Tokenised Private Credit

• Default risk — borrowers may fail to repay; private credit has higher default rates than government bonds
• Valuation opacity — private loans don't have market prices; NAV calculations depend on the originator's reporting
• Liquidity risk — even tokenised, private credit pools may have limited secondary market activity
• Originator risk — if the lending company goes bankrupt, loan servicing may be disrupted
• Legal enforceability — in some jurisdictions, the link between the token and the legal claim on the loan may be untested

The Bottom Line

Tokenised private credit is one of the most promising RWA use cases because it addresses real inefficiencies in a trillion-dollar market. Platforms like Centrifuge and Figure are already processing hundreds of millions in real loans. However, private credit carries meaningfully higher risk than tokenised Treasuries — defaults are real, valuations can be opaque, and liquidity is limited. Investors should approach with appropriate due diligence and position sizing.

Learn More

• Tokenised Treasury Bills — the lower-risk RWA category
• Risks of RWA Tokenisation — comprehensive risk assessment
• RWA vs Traditional Investing — how they compare

Nothing on this site is financial advice. All content is for educational purposes only. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions. Back to all guides