In a move highlighting the growing intersection of traditional finance (TradFi) and blockchain technology, Hamilton Lane, one of the world’s largest asset managers, has announced the launch of a private credit fund on the Solana (SOL) blockchain.
The fund, named Senior Credit Opportunities Fund (SCOPE), will now be accessible to investors through the Solana network, according to a recent report by Fortune.
Institutional Fund Directly On The Solana Blockchain
Hamilton Lane, which has over $290 billion in assets under management, has partnered with Libre, a Web3 protocol developed by Brevan Howard’s WebN Group and Nomura’s crypto firm Laser Digital to facilitate this initiative.
According to Fortune, Libre will serve as the “backbone infrastructure,” enabling the issuance and distribution of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) on-chain. With this, Hamilton Lane aims to expand its distribution channels and reach a broader range of investors, including the “mass affluent” and crypto-native traders.
Dr. Avtar Sehra, CEO and founder of Libre, emphasized that Solana’s “low latency and high throughput capabilities” make it an ideal network for tokenization.
Interestingly, this move marks a significant milestone for the Solana ecosystem, as it is the first institutional fund to be launched directly on the blockchain, with the potential for more to follow as RWAs have been an increasing investment vehicle for institutional investors to capitalize on crypto technology over the past year.
Financial Inclusion Through Tokenization?
Hamilton Lane’s foray into blockchain technology is not entirely new, as the firm previously tokenized SCOPE and an equity fund using the digital securities issuance platform Securitize.
Victor Jung, Head of Digital Assets at Hamilton Lane, expressed satisfaction with the inflows generated by these efforts. However, he heralded the launch of Solana as a critical step forward for the company, enabling the tokenization of collateralized lending. Jung said:
This is for the decentralized finance natives. We believe that this is just a start of a portion of the financial asset class that will be available to a new audience with a different risk return profile.
Similarly, proponents of these initiatives argue that the tokenization of financial assets will modernize and democratize conventional financial markets.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, for instance, has expressed his belief that the next step in the industry will involve tokenizing every stock and bond, envisioning a future where all financial assets reside on a unified ledger.
While tokenized private credit has gained traction, Fortune reports that some challenges remain. Startups like Maple and Centrifuge have faced difficulties selling to crypto investors due to factors such as long lock-up periods and the varying risk appetite of this particular audience.
Additionally, some crypto investors prefer higher returns offered by meme coins, which can overshadow the more modest returns from traditional assets over a longer time horizon.
At the time of writing, SOL was trading at $173, down nearly 5% in the 24-hour time frame, led by Tuesday’s broader market decline.
Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com