Tokenized Private Credit Surges to $14B, Figure Commands Market With $10B Loan Book

Key Takeaways

• Private credit has emerged as the largest category of tokenized real-world assets.
• With a $10 billion loan book, Figure stands out as the leading platform.
• Private credit has traditionally been inaccessible to most retail investors.
• Tokenized products can significantly lower the barrier to entry.

Since 2024, tokenized real-world assets (RWA) have broken out into the financial mainstream thanks to the success of headline offerings like BlackRock’s BUIDL. But although tokenized money market funds have boomed, they still account for just a fraction of the overall market.

Meanwhile, the private credit market has emerged as the technology’s leading champion, with the latest research from RedStone revealing it as the largest RWA tokenization segment, valued at $14 billion.

The leading platform, Figure, now has over $10 billion in active loans on its books.

Private Credit: A $30 Trillion Opportunity

Not so long ago, non-bank lenders were an insignificant niche in global credit markets. But by 2024, private credit had ballooned into a $3 trillion industry.

Moreover, growth may only just be beginning. PwC estimates that the total addressable market for private lending stands at around $31 trillion dollars.

Traditionally, private credit infrastructure was slow, manual, opaque, and difficult to scale.

But increasingly, blockchain-based platforms like Figure, a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) provider, offer more accessible ways to connect investors with borrowers.

Figure Emerges as Top Tokenized RWA Platform

Launched in 2023, Figure is among a crop of blockchain based credit platforms that securitize retail loans to issue tokenized assets.

Since its inception, Figure has lent out more than $15 billion, serving over 200,000 households in 49 states.

Besides the HELOC model, Figure’s other offerings include crypto-collateralized loans and debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) loans.

Democratizing Private Credit

One of the biggest advantages of tokenized private credit is that it grants retail investors access to an asset class that was previously only available to institutions and the super-rich.

Through Figure Markets and similar platforms, everyday investors can trade and earn yield from diverse loan pools and private credit funds.

Increasingly, major financial institutions are getting in on the action, too.

Since 2022, leading investment firms, including Hamilton Lane and Apollo, have launched tokenized private credit products, unlocking a whole new investor base.

These are no longer niche or experimental projects.

Apollo’s ACRED, which acts as a feeder fund for its diversified credit fund, now has a market capitalization of over $100 million .

Hamilton Lane has established a similar tokenized feeder fund for its $1.34 billion Senior Credit Opportunities Fund (SCOPE).

Because tokenized assets lend themselves to fractionalization, these vehicles, lower the barrier to entry for private credit markets.

For example, SCOPE has a minimum investment of $2 million, which is actually quite low compared to some of its peers. Meanwhile, the feeder fund has a much lower minimum investment of $20,000.