Daily News 19

Tag: Private credit

  • Tether and Fasanara Launch $400 Million Stablecoin Private Credit Fund

    Tether and Fasanara Launch $400 Million Stablecoin Private Credit Fund

    Tether and Fasanara Capital Launch $400M StableFund to Bridge SME Financing Gap With USDT Infrastructure

    Tether and Fasanara Capital announced the launch of StableFund on September 9, unveiling an evergreen private credit vehicle backed by $400 million in co-investment from the two sponsors. The fund combines Tether’s USDT settlement infrastructure with Fasanara’s global fintech lending network to finance short-duration, asset-backed credit strategies targeting small and medium-sized enterprises and consumer lending.

    Fund Structure and Capital Targets

    The joint announcement states that StableFund will target up to $3 billion in third-party institutional capital. The sponsors clarified that this figure represents a fundraising objective rather than committed outside capital, while the $400 million reflects sponsor co-investment disclosed at launch.

    StableFund’s evergreen structure is designed to scale as third-party institutions commit capital. However, the release does not disclose target returns, fee terms, redemption conditions, or a timetable for reaching the outside-capital goal.

    Fasanara Leads Investment Management Across 60+ Countries

    London-based Fasanara Capital will act as investment manager, deploying capital through its fintech lending network. The strategy focuses on originating short-duration, asset-backed instruments via fintech platforms operating in more than 60 countries, targeting SME loans, consumer credit, trade receivables, and supply-chain finance.

    Fasanara describes itself as managing more than $6 billion across those verticals. These are company-provided figures included in the sponsors’ release.

    Tether Embeds USDT Into Lending Flows as Co-Sponsor and Originator

    Tether will serve as co-sponsor, originator, and adviser. Its role includes sourcing USDT-linked financing opportunities and providing stablecoin infrastructure for settlement, on- and off-ramp connectivity, and treasury-rail integration. The structure is intended to embed USDT directly into lending operations rather than limit the token to trading or payments use cases.

    Part of a Broader Shift Toward Tokenized Credit

    The launch aligns with a growing trend of digital assets entering credit products. BlockchainReporter recently reported that Arch Lending began accepting tokenized gold as loan collateral, another example of tokenized assets expanding into lending markets. StableFund distinguishes itself as a sponsored institutional vehicle focused on originating real-economy loans rather than solely facilitating crypto-native borrowing.

    No Borrowers or Deployed Capital Disclosed at Launch

    The sponsors cited demand for alternative financing and a persistent funding gap among smaller businesses as market drivers for the strategy, though those estimates remain projections included in their release.

    Critically, the announcement does not identify initial borrowers, disclose completed loans, or specify which jurisdictions will receive the first capital allocations. As a result, the September 9 development constitutes a fund launch and capital commitment — not evidence that the targeted $3 billion has been raised or that lending outcomes have been realized.

  • Tokenized Assets Are More Active Than the Data Shows

    Tokenized Assets Are More Active Than the Data Shows

    Estimates of how much tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) are actually being used in decentralized finance (DeFi) range from less than 1% to 7%, 11.7% and nearly 20%. All of these figures were published this year, and each can be defended. The problem is that they do not measure the same thing.

    The lowest estimate receives the most attention. Of the roughly $51 billion in tokenized real-world assets on public blockchains, it suggests that only a single-digit percentage is actively used. The figure is often cited as evidence that onchain finance remains a toy: a great deal of tokenized “value,” but very little of it operating in public markets.

    That criticism is not without merit. An asset that moves onchain, incurs transaction fees and gains no additional utility is a worse product than the traditional asset it replicates. However, the statistic used to support that criticism is nearly meaningless—not because the percentage is too low, but because both sides of the calculation are misleading.

    Where tokenized RWA utilization figures come from

    The sub-1% estimate covers only three tokenized money market funds, rather than the broader market. BlackRock’s BUIDL, Circle’s USYC and Franklin Templeton’s iBENJI hold a combined $7.2 billion and have approximately $50 million deployed.

    Expanding the sample produces a utilization rate of 11.7% according to DeFiLlama. Using CoinShares’ $7.4 billion second-quarter estimate against RWA.xyz’s $38 billion total produces a figure of about 19%. The resulting 20-fold gap reflects the lack of agreement over what should be measured, not necessarily a change in the underlying market.

    Why the denominator distorts the calculation

    According to Bernstein research, private credit accounts for approximately 47% of the $51 billion in tokenized real-world assets onchain. Private credit also tends to move infrequently in traditional finance. Tokenization does not change its redemption schedule or its holder base.

    Including private credit in the denominator of a metric intended to measure composability is therefore a category error rather than evidence of disappointing adoption. A meaningful assessment of DeFi usage must distinguish between assets designed for frequent onchain activity and assets whose underlying structure makes limited movement normal.