Tokenized private credit

A loan can be tokenized in three forms. A special purpose vehicle can hold one loan or a pool of loans and issue tokens on it, as Allium describes the common setup. A borrower can issue a debt note directly as a token; in Germany a bond can exist only as a register entry under the Electronic Securities Act, which is the route for a note held in a crypto securities register. And a private credit fund can issue a tokenized share class, which works like the tokenized funds already known from money market products.

In all three, the token records who holds the claim. The rights of the lender still come from the loan documents and the law that governs them. If the borrower defaults, recovery runs through those documents, the servicer and the courts of the jurisdiction, not through the ledger.

For an investor the practical change is on the payment side. As the borrower pays interest and principal, a servicer routes the cash to token holders, often in stablecoins, through a smart contract or on a fixed schedule. In euro that cash leg can be an e-money token under MiCA. The servicer also brings loan status and valuation data onto the chain, which makes it a trusted party that the ledger does not replace.

The tokenization platform Brickken describes the gains as smaller tickets, faster onboarding and transfers between verified investors within lockups, geographic limits and investor qualification rules. Brickken's example is a 2 million euro loan split into 2,000 tokens of 1,000 euros.

The limits are the same as in untokenized private credit. A loan is marked with models and appraisals, not live prices, and a transferable token still needs a buyer. Allium lists thin liquidity, subjective valuation and dependence on the servicer among the risks. The tokenized assets page compares private credit funds with tokenized Treasury funds on these points.

Allium's dataset put tokenized private credit and corporate debt at 4.0 billion US dollars on 4 August 2026, out of 30.9 billion in tokenized real-world assets, behind tokenized Treasuries and money market funds at 17.0 billion and tokenized commodities at 4.3 billion.

In the EU a tokenized loan note is usually a financial instrument under MiFID II, and its trading venue can use the DLT Pilot Regime; Brickken names both, together with national civil law for the loan agreement and anti-money laundering rules for onboarding. A token that is not a financial instrument falls under MiCA instead.

Tokenized real-world assets in institutional capital markets were the subject of the Zurich side event Tokenization & On-Chain Capital Markets during the Point Zero Forum. Finance Loop has a cooperation with 21X, the Frankfurt venue for tokenized securities, and the Multichain Asset Managers Association is an event and network partner of Finance Loop.

A private loan, a debt note or a share in a private credit fund recorded as a token on a ledger. The token records ownership and receives the interest; the loan documents define the claim.

Only in part. The token can be transferred to another verified investor, but the loan is still valued with models and a buyer has to exist.

Allium counted 4.0 billion US dollars in tokenized private credit and corporate debt on 4 August 2026. Estimates differ with the definition each data provider uses.

A debt note can be issued as an electronic security under the eWpG; trading falls under MiFID II and, for DLT venues, the DLT Pilot Regime. The loan agreement itself follows German civil law.