Cast by sadediran
Okay, stop what you're doing — tokenization just grew a whole new arm. 👀 Securitize, the BlackRock-backed platform behind some of the biggest tokenized funds on earth, just agreed to buy River One, a New York financing firm. And this isn't another "we tokenized a thing" headline. This is tokenization moving into lending — into the $6 trillion asset-backed finance market. Here's what that actually means in plain English. River One is building tech that lets lenders use pools of small business loans and receivables as collateral to borrow money — funded by stablecoins — and then lend that money out again. Real-world credit, running on crypto rails. The loans small businesses actually need, financed the onchain way. And look at the bigger picture for a second. Securitize already tokenizes and services assets for giants like BlackRock. Now it wants a seat at the credit table too — arranging the financing, not just issuing the tokens. That's the whole stack: issue it, trade it, and now finance against it. The deal is expected to close before the end of the year. And the race is real — RWA.xyz has Securitize second in the RWA rankings at $3.7 billion, right behind Ondo at $4.1 billion. Everyone is fighting to own the plumbing of onchain finance. Yes, Securitize also posted a $66.3 million quarterly loss alongside this — most of it noncash charges from going public, and revenue still grew 13% — but honestly, that's not the story. The story is that tokenization is no longer just about putting assets on a chain. It's becoming the actual financial system: lending, borrowing, credit, all of it. So here's my question: if the same rails that tokenize a Treasury can now finance a small business loan, what's left that stays offline? Are we watching the old credit system get rebuilt in front of us — or is this still early days? 👇
2 replies
Securitize buying River One is a big step, tokenization moving from funds into actual lending. What do you think this unlocks first, cheaper credit onchain or just more real world assets coming over?
More assets coming over, first. Cheaper credit is the payoff, but it only arrives once there is a deep pool of collateral and lenders who trust the rails. River One is building the financing side — but that only matters once the assets are there to finance. So: assets first, cheaper credit second.
The jump from tokenizing funds to financing real businesses is the part that matters. If the same rails cover issuance, trading and credit, what is left that stays offline? Or is the hard part still the regulation, not the tech?
