Private credit

Market state

RWA.xyz reported $6.98bn of distributed value in its tokenised credit category on 25 July 2026, down 0.37% over 30 days, alongside $36.10bn of represented value, up 3.37%, across 2,512 assets and 186,352 holders. The gap between the two series is wider here than in any other class and is the single most important number to read correctly: represented value is dominated by Figure's HELOC Token, recorded at $20.5bn on the Provenance network, which is a blockchain record of loans held in conventional structures rather than a freely transferable onchain claim. A second large represented entry, the DOM X Arizona Copper-Gold Project at $11.1bn on Avalanche via Bridgetower, is a single project-level record.

DefiLlama's narrower measure - assets actually deployed in permissionless DeFi protocols - showed $3.833bn of active TVL in its real-world assets category when accessed on 25 July 2026, led by Maple's Syrup USDC at $695.55m and Syrup USDT at $626.12m, Centrifuge's Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Fund at $412.96m, Hastra PRIME at $316.69m, OnRe tokenized reinsurance at $183.42m and Superstate USTB at $139.13m.

By platform, RWA.xyz ranked STOKR first at $1.3bn across four assets on 25 July 2026, then Maple at $964.6m, Centrifuge at $747.5m, Realiz at $500.0m and Securitize at $488.7m. The largest single originator by flow is Figure Technology Solutions, which reported $2.9bn of consumer loan marketplace volume in the first quarter of 2026, up 113% year on year, $1.6bn through Figure Connect, up 237%, and $3.7bn of total ecosystem volume; it said it and its partners had originated more than $25bn of loans to date, on net revenue of $167m and net income of $45m for the quarter.

Market structure

Three distinct architectures sit inside one category. The first is a vertically integrated originator that uses a purpose-built chain as its system of record: Figure originates home-equity lines and records them on Provenance, then sells or finances them through Figure Connect. Volume and cumulative originations are the meaningful metrics there, not a market capitalisation.

The second is a tokenised fund feeder into an established private-markets manager - Apollo's ACRED and Hamilton Lane's HLSCOPE, both issued through Securitize across several networks. These carry manager-struck NAVs, subscription and redemption windows, and very small holder counts: ACRED had 68 holders and HLSCOPE 46 on 25 July 2026.

The third is a permissionless or semi-permissioned lending pool that funds credit with stablecoin deposits, which is where Maple's Syrup pools and Centrifuge's CLO vehicles sit. Only this third group produces continuous onchain pricing and same-day liquidity, and it is the smallest of the three by value.

Underwriting sits off-chain in all three. Loan tapes, covenant tests and recovery work are performed by the originator or manager; the chain carries the register, the cash flows and, in the pool model, the token that represents a pro-rata claim.

Risks

Valuation is the central problem. Most positions are carried at par or at a manager-struck NAV rather than a market price, so reported value falls only when a default is recognised. That makes the headline series a poor early-warning indicator.

Liquidity is asymmetric. Pool tokens can be redeemed subject to available cash; fund feeders redeem on windows; loan-level records do not trade at all. A stress event would show up as gated redemptions rather than price declines.

Concentration is extreme. One originator's records account for the majority of the category's represented value, and a single project record accounts for most of the remainder. Removing either changes the apparent size of the market by an order of magnitude.

Other exposures: borrower disclosure is thinner than in syndicated markets; recovery depends on off-chain enforcement in the originator's home jurisdiction; the crypto-collateralised sub-segment reintroduces correlation to digital-asset prices; and attestation practice varies widely between platforms.

Regulatory treatment

Most tokenised private credit in the United States is distributed as Regulation D or Regulation S private placements to accredited or non-US investors, with Securitize acting as a registered broker-dealer, transfer agent and alternative trading system operator across several of the largest products. There is no bank-style capital, liquidity or provisioning requirement attached to the tokenised wrapper.

Because the instruments are securities, the SEC's 2026 posture on tokenised securities applies: staff no-action relief for the DTC tokenisation pilot in December 2025 and approval of Nasdaq's tokenised trading rule change on 18 March 2026 both concern securities in tokenised form generally, though neither addresses private credit specifically.

In the European Union, tokenised credit funds are AIFs, and secondary trading falls to the DLT Pilot Regime, whose ceilings the Commission proposed raising sharply on 4 December 2025. Luxembourg and Germany host most European issuance vehicles; Germany's Electronic Securities Act underpins the largest share of European tokenised debt issuance generally.

The official sector treats this segment as the least transparent part of tokenised finance, and the disclosure gap between tokenised private credit and public credit markets remains unresolved.