- Maple Finance CEO Sidney Powell predicts the influx of institutional capital in tokenized private credit in 2026.
- He called it the next big growth opportunity in RWA tokenization.
Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization continues to gain steam as it scales to massive institutional use. Among the popular use cases of tokenization are stablecoins, Treasuries, and Repos.
Private credit tokenization activities are also growing steadily in the background. Maple Finance Co-Founder and CEO Sidney Powell believes it will be the next growth opportunity in RWA tokenization.
What is Tokenized Private Credit?
Tokenized private credit turns private loans — money that private firms, instead of banks, lend to companies — into digital tokens using blockchain technology. It allows fractionalization of the loan into smaller denominations, paving the way for participation by small retail investors rather than the traditional model, which is siloed to large institutions.
Additionally, it eliminates bank intermediaries by integrating smart contracts, unlocking better returns for lenders without overburdening borrowers. Likewise, the system makes private lending highly efficient, faster, more transparent, more flexible, more accessible, and more competitive for market participants.
Private Credit Showing Structural Growth Trend
In an interview with Coindesk, Powell stated that private credit already has a structural growth trend in traditional finance. Upgrading its mechanisms through tokenization would further reinforce its market, while removing the friction associated with it.
Powell referred to tokenized private credit as “where tokenization makes sense.” He highlighted that it helps address the fragmentation of information and assets, which are inherent to the traditional private credit sector. Moreover, it democratizes participation to a diverse investor base.
The CEO of Maple Finance claimed that the marginal benefit of tokenizing equities is lower. This is due to brokerage costs collapsing near zero, as many platforms offer commission-free features.
Powell admitted that the risk of default is a typical feature of credit markets. However, bringing them on-chain via tokenization enables transparent tracking of their life cycle, from origination to repayment or default. It also prevents fraud by eliminating the “double-pledging” of assets, in which a borrower uses the same collateral in an existing loan to secure multiple loans from different lenders.
Powell projects that more traditional agencies will rate crypto-backed loans “from good quality to investment-grade assets” this year. This will lead to a significant influx of institutional capital from pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, which are mandated to hold only rated instruments, into the tokenized private credit ecosystem.
Tokenized Private Credit Performance
RWA.xyz data shows that the tokenized private credit market has $36.62 billion in total loans, including $19.94 billion in active loans. Nearly 2,923 loans originated on RWA tokenization platforms, with their current average annual percentage rates at roughly 10.14%.
Among the leading platforms in the sector are Figure protocol under the Provenance (HASH) network, with around $18.48 billion in total loans and $14.64 billion in active loans. Maple, underpinned by the Coinbase, Ethereum (ETH), and Solana (SOL) networks, trails in second place with $7.13 billion in total loans and $1.63 billion in active loans.
