Every major outlet covering real-world asset (RWA) tokenization leads with the same story: BlackRock's BUIDL fund, tokenized US Treasury bills, institutional money market products. Those products are important. They are also not the largest category in tokenized RWA markets.
Tokenized private credit — blockchain-recorded loans made to companies, funds, and institutional borrowers — accounts for roughly 58% of all tokenized RWA flows by represented value. That compares with approximately 34% for tokenized Treasuries and the remainder split across commodities, real estate, and equities. The category that receives almost no mainstream coverage is the biggest one.
What Tokenized Private Credit Actually Is
Private credit — lending to companies and funds outside the traditional banking system — has been one of the fastest-growing segments of traditional finance for the past decade. Private credit funds managed by firms like Apollo, Ares, Blackstone, and Blue Owl have grown to trillions of dollars in assets under management (AUM), filling the lending gap left by banks that retreated from certain types of corporate lending after the 2008 financial crisis.
Tokenized private credit applies blockchain infrastructure to this existing market. A private credit loan is underwritten off-chain in the same way as any conventional loan — borrower analysis, credit assessment, legal documentation. The difference is that the loan is then recorded as a blockchain-native asset at origination, with the ownership, repayment schedule, and interest accrual encoded in a smart contract. Investors purchase tokens representing fractional interests in the loan. Repayments flow automatically to token holders as the borrower services the debt.
The result is a loan that can be originated, funded, serviced, and eventually traded with far greater transparency and efficiency than traditional private credit — where ownership records are maintained in legal documents and transfer requires weeks of legal work.
The Numbers — Why This Market Is Larger Than Most People Realize
Maple Finance, one of the largest tokenized private credit platforms, closed the first half of 2026 with $4.6 billion in assets under management — up 81% year-over-year. Centrifuge, the protocol that tokenizes invoices and trade-finance receivables, held $1.62 billion in total value locked (TVL) and has attracted a direct equity investment from Coinbase. Goldfinch, focused on emerging market lending, has originated credit in markets from Southeast Asia to sub-Saharan Africa.
The yield differential with tokenized Treasuries is substantial. Tokenized Treasury products — BUIDL, Ondo's USDY, Franklin Templeton's BENJI — currently yield approximately 3.3% to 3.5% annually, reflecting the risk-free rate on short-duration US government debt. Tokenized private credit yields run 8% to 15% or higher, reflecting real borrower default risk — the same yield premium that institutional private credit funds charge for lending to companies that cannot access public bond markets.
Why It Gets Almost No Coverage
Three reasons explain the coverage gap. First, private credit is inherently less transparent than public markets — borrower information is often confidential, loan terms are customized, and the market lacks the price discovery mechanisms that make equity markets easy to cover. Tokenized private credit inherits this opacity from its underlying market.
Second, the dominant narrative of RWA tokenization has been shaped by the largest single product: BUIDL. BlackRock's involvement, the $5 million minimum, the institutional investor profile, and the clear US Treasury connection make BUIDL an easy story. Private credit platforms serving small and mid-size business borrowers in emerging markets are a harder story to tell to a mainstream audience.
Third, liquidity. Approximately 10% of tokenized RWA value trades actively in decentralized finance (DeFi) markets. Most private credit stays locked — borrower loans run for months or years, and secondary markets for tokenized loan interests are still developing. The absence of active trading means fewer price feeds, fewer market events, and fewer news hooks for outlets that cover price action.
Why It Will Stop Being Ignored
The same institutional forces driving tokenized Treasury adoption are beginning to enter tokenized private credit. Coinbase's equity stake in Centrifuge is a signal. Hamilton Lane, the private markets investment firm with $900+ billion in assets under supervision, has been building tokenized fund infrastructure for private credit distribution. Apollo Global Management has partnered with Securitize to explore tokenized credit products.
As the DTCC October launch normalizes blockchain settlement for liquid public markets, institutional investors who are comfortable with the settlement infrastructure will increasingly look at how that same infrastructure can be applied to the illiquid private credit portfolios that make up a significant share of institutional allocation. The yield premium — 8-15% versus 3.5% — is the economic pull. The infrastructure maturing in public markets is the enabling condition.
The biggest category in tokenized RWAs has been the quietest. That will not last through the DTCC's October launch and whatever comes next at TOKEN2049 Singapore.
→ 0.5% vs 4.8% — why Treasuries matter for retail; private credit is the institutional version of the same argument
→ DTCC October Launch — the public markets infrastructure that enables private credit next
→ What Is Tokenization? — the foundational explainer