Key takeaways
- In tokenized private credit pools, the junior tranche absorbs default losses first, and senior holders lose money only after the junior layer is used up, according to Centrifuge.
- Goldfinch gives a borrower who misses a payment a 45-day grace period, then writes the loan’s value down in its senior pool over 120 days.
- Figure reported about $18 billion of HELOC originations from late 2018 to 30 September 2025, recorded on its Provenance Blockchain, in its 17 November 2025 SEC filing.
- Putting a loan on a blockchain leaves its legal status unchanged: SEC staff said on 28 January 2026 that tokenized securities are still securities.
- Most tokenized private credit in the US is limited to accredited investors, who need a net worth above $1 million excluding their home or income above $200,000.
$41.52 billion. That is the value of non-sovereign debt recorded on blockchains as of 29 October 2026, according to RWA.xyz, a category that includes tokenized private credit. Tokenized private credit is a loan made outside banks and public bond markets whose ownership is issued or recorded as a blockchain token, so the interest a borrower pays flows to the token holders.
The token is only the wrapper. The loan underneath is still judged by a credit team and enforced through courts, which makes this the part of real-world asset markets where ordinary borrowers can and do miss payments. A tokenized Treasury bill carries US government risk. A tokenized loan carries the risk of a private borrower, such as a company or a homeowner.
So before any yield figure, two questions decide whether a product fits you: who takes the first loss when a borrower stops paying, and whether US rules let you buy it at all.
How Does a Loan Become a Token?
A loan becomes a token when an originator records the claim to its repayments on a blockchain and issues that claim to investors. The originator is the firm that finds the borrower and checks whether that borrower can repay, a step called underwriting. It also sets the interest rate and the collateral the borrower must pledge. A smart contract, which is code on a blockchain that runs automatically, then tracks deposits and pays out what the borrower sends back.
Investors usually fund these loans with a stablecoin such as USD Coin (USDC). The token they receive works like a receipt for a share of a loan pool. Its price or balance rises as interest arrives and falls if the pool records a loss. Everything that decides whether you get paid happens off-chain: the borrower’s business, the legal contract, the collateral and the court that would enforce it. Read the tokenization basics if the term is new to you.
Who Issues Tokenized Private Credit?
Issuers range from crypto-native lending protocols to the largest names in traditional credit, and these four show how differently they sell.
Maple Finance (syrupUSDC)
- Model: pooled, fixed-rate loans; the token’s value per unit rises as interest accrues.
- Borrowers: institutional borrowers, unnamed in Maple’s FAQ.
- Collateral: “All syrupUSDC, syrupUSDT, and syrupUSDG loans are overcollateralized,” according to Maple’s FAQ.
- Who can buy: non-US investors only, with no minimum, according to RWA.xyz.
- Honest drawback: withdrawals can take up to 30 days when lenders all want out at once.
Apollo Diversified Credit Securitize Fund (ACRED)
- Model: a token giving access to the Apollo Diversified Credit Fund, launched with Securitize on 30 January 2025.
- Borrowers: corporate direct lending, asset-backed lending, and performing, dislocated and structured credit.
- Collateral: set inside the underlying fund’s loans, not visible on-chain.
- Who can buy: qualifying investors only, through Securitize Markets, according to the launch release.
- Honest drawback: eligibility rules shut out most individual buyers.
Figure (Provenance Blockchain)
- Model: a lender that records its home equity line of credit (HELOC) loans on its own blockchain.
- Borrowers: homeowners borrowing against the value of their homes.
- Collateral: the borrower’s home equity.
- Who can buy: no retail token is described in Figure’s 2025 registration filing.
- Honest drawback: the chain records the loans, so you gain transparency without a direct way to invest.
Centrifuge pools
- Model: loan pools split into senior and junior tranches.
- Borrowers: vary by pool and asset originator.
- Collateral: the pool’s underlying assets, such as invoices or loans.
- Who can buy: set pool by pool, usually after identity checks.
- Honest drawback: junior holders absorb losses first, so the higher yield carries real risk.
How Big Is the Tokenized Credit Market in 2026?
It holds $41.52 billion of recorded value but only $8.15 billion in tokens spread across investor wallets, according to RWA.xyz data dated 29 October 2026. The same page counts 2,721 credit assets and 205,431 holders. RWA.xyz labels the two totals “represented” and “distributed” value.
That gap is the most useful number in private credit tokenization. Much of the larger total is loans kept as records on a blockchain, and Figure is the clearest case. Its Form S-1, filed with the SEC on 17 November 2025, says “All of our loan originations are recorded on the Provenance Blockchain as a hashed record.” The Figure S-1 also reports about $18 billion of cumulative HELOC originations from late 2018 to 30 September 2025. Those loans sit on a ledger, yet you cannot buy them with a wallet. When you read a headline about the size of tokenized private credit, check which of the two totals it quotes.
Where Does the Yield Come From, in Dollars?
The yield is the interest borrowers pay, minus the platform’s cut, and it moves with borrowing demand. Take syrupUSDC, Maple’s token. According to RWA.xyz data retrieved on 29 October 2026, it traded at $1.1883 with $966.65 million outstanding. Its 30-day annualized yield was 3.59%, and its seven-day figure was 1.57%.
Put $10,000 in at that price and you hold about 8,415 tokens. At the 30-day rate, a year earns roughly $359. At the seven-day rate, it earns about $157. The same position produced two very different answers inside one month, and the 30-day figure itself was down 23.71% from a month earlier. Treat any dashboard yield as a recent average that will change.
What Happens When a Borrower Defaults?
The loss falls first on whoever sits lowest in the pool’s payment order, and the token’s value is marked down over time. Centrifuge’s documentation spells out that order: “In the event of a default, the junior tranche absorbs the losses first.” Senior holders start losing money only once the junior layer is gone. Picture a building in a flood: the basement fills before water reaches the ground floor, and the junior tranche is the basement.
Goldfinch, a lending protocol, published its own default procedure. According to the Goldfinch default process, a borrower who misses a payment gets a 45-day grace period before the loan is marked in default on-chain. The senior pool’s value of that loan is then “automatically written down over 120 days” on a daily straight-line basis. On a $1 million position, that is about $8,333 of value removed each day for four months. Repayments reverse the writedown, and lenders’ last resort is legal action against off-chain collateral.
What Changed for Tokenized Credit in 2025 and 2026?
Large traditional managers moved in, and US regulators confirmed that the old rules still apply. On 30 January 2025, Apollo and Securitize launched ACRED across Aptos, Avalanche, Ethereum, Ink, Polygon and Solana. “The next wave of demand for tokenized assets has emerged around fixed income, including private credit,” said Carlos Domingo, Securitize’s co-founder and chief executive, in the launch release.
Figure’s filing shows how fast record-keeping moved on-chain. Loans boarded onto its blockchain-based DART platform rose from 2% in 2024 to 91% in the quarter ended 30 September 2025. Then on 28 January 2026, staff from three SEC divisions issued a Statement on Tokenized Securities, saying that putting a security on a blockchain does not change its status as a security.
Can You Legally Buy Tokenized Private Credit in the US?
Most products are closed to ordinary US buyers, and income is taxed when you receive it. A private credit token is usually a security, so it is sold under exemptions limited to accredited investors. According to the SEC’s investor bulletin of 14 April 2021, an individual qualifies with a net worth over $1 million, excluding the primary home, or earned income above $200,000 ($300,000 with a spouse) in each of the past two years. Some products, syrupUSDC included, exclude US investors entirely.
On tax, the IRS’s Topic 403 page, updated on 7 October 2026, says most interest “is taxable income in the year it becomes available to you.” Tokens that grow in value per unit, with no interest paid out, may be taxed when you sell or redeem them, so the product’s legal form decides the timing. None of this is tax or financial advice, and a tax adviser should confirm how your product is treated.
What Tokenized Private Credit Means for You
If you are a US investor without accredited status, your realistic exposure to tokenized private credit is close to zero, and an offer that ignores that rule is a warning sign. If you qualify, compare products on the dull details first: who the borrowers are, whether loans are overcollateralized, which tranche you hold, and how long a withdrawal can take.
Price the risk in money too. Losing 5% of principal on $10,000 costs $500, which wipes out about 17 months of income at the 3.59% rate above. Yield on these tokens is pay for lending to someone who might not repay, and the size of the payment tells you how the lender priced that chance. For the wider asset class, start with Block Insider’s RWA coverage.
What the Blockchain Cannot Show You
The chain shows token balances and payments as they happen. It cannot show whether a borrower’s business is healthy or whether the collateral is worth what the originator claims. Nor can it tell you how a court would treat your token if the issuer went bankrupt. Those answers sit in loan files and legal agreements that most token holders never see, and this explainer can describe the structure around them without grading any single pool for you.
Frequently asked questions
How is tokenized private credit different from tokenized Treasuries?
A tokenized Treasury bill is backed by short-term US government debt, so the main risks are interest rates and the issuer’s operations. Tokenized private credit is backed by loans to companies or homeowners, so the main risk is that a borrower stops paying. That extra credit risk is why private credit products usually advertise higher yields, and why their documents spend more space on defaults.
Can you sell a private credit token before the loans are repaid?
Sometimes, through the issuer’s redemption process. Maple’s syrupUSDC offers daily redemptions, and its FAQ says withdrawals normally clear within about 24 hours but can take up to 30 days. Requests are paid first in, first out as borrowers repay, according to RWA.xyz. Other products may lock your money until loans mature, so check the redemption terms before you deposit anything.
What does overcollateralized mean for a crypto loan?
An overcollateralized loan is one where the borrower pledges assets worth more than the amount borrowed. If the borrower defaults, the lender can sell the collateral and still cover the debt, as long as the collateral holds its value. Maple’s FAQ says all syrupUSDC, syrupUSDT and syrupUSDG loans are overcollateralized, though it does not publish a single fixed ratio.
Is the yield on tokenized private credit guaranteed?
No. The yield depends on borrowers paying on time, and a default can reduce your principal as well as your income. Maple’s own FAQ says its lending “carries inherent risks, including credit risk and the potential for loss of principal.” Treat the advertised rate as the market’s price for that risk, and size any position so a loss would not hurt your plans.
Why does a junior tranche pay more than a senior tranche?
A junior tranche pays more because it absorbs losses first. Centrifuge’s documentation gives an example: a $100 pool earning 10%, or $10, with a $50 senior tranche fixed at 4%, which earns $2. The junior tranche keeps whatever income is left after the senior layers are paid, so it earns most in good years and loses first in bad ones.
