Key Takeaways
- • Hamilton Lane, which manages over $920 billion in assets under management and supervision, launched its Senior Credit Opportunities Fund (SCOPE) on the Solana blockchain, making it the first asset manager to launch a fund directly on Solana, according to Fortune.
- • The launch uses Libre, a Web3 issuance and distribution protocol that is a joint venture between Brevan Howard's WebN Group and Nomura's crypto firm Laser Digital, to give accredited, professional and institutional investors on-chain access.
- • SCOPE, launched in 2022, holds approximately $556 million in AUM and offers an annualized yield of 10% for USD investors, per Hamilton Lane's website.
- • Hamilton Lane is targeting "mass affluent, crypto native" traders as a new distribution channel, and this is its first attempt to tokenize collateralized lending.
- • Industry skepticism persists: Ava Labs' Morgan Krupetsky warned that selling tokenized private credit to crypto natives is "very difficult" due to long lock-up periods and a perceived product-market fit mismatch.
Summary
Hamilton Lane, one of the world's largest alternative asset managers with more than $920 billion in assets under management and supervision, announced on Tuesday the launch of its private credit fund, the Senior Credit Opportunities Fund (SCOPE), on the Solana blockchain. According to Fortune, the move makes Hamilton Lane the first asset manager to launch a fund directly on Solana. Previously, the closest Solana users could come to tokenized funds was through Ondo Finance, which tokenizes U.S. Treasury bills and has launched USDY and OUSG on the network, the latter backed by the $95 million BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL).
The fund is issued through Libre, a Web3 protocol for the issuance and distribution of funds on-chain. Libre is a joint venture between hedge fund Brevan Howard's WebN Group and Nomura's crypto firm Laser Digital. According to the companies' joint statement, Libre enables accredited, professional and institutional investors on networks like Solana to access top-tier funds on-chain in a fully compliant manner, along with ancillary services for secondary trading and collateralized lending where available. Libre CEO and founder Dr. Avtar Sehra told Fortune that tokenization allows Hamilton Lane to reach "mass affluent, crypto native" traders, and he cited Solana's "low latency and throughput capability" as a reason for choosing the network.
This is not Hamilton Lane's first blockchain initiative. The firm previously tokenized SCOPE and an equity fund through digital securities issuance platform Securitize. Victor Jung, head of digital assets, told Fortune the firm is "very proud" of the inflows those products have generated. Today's launch, however, marks its first deployment on Solana and its first attempt to tokenize collateralized lending. Jung said the offering is "for the decentralized finance natives" and described it as a start toward making more financial asset classes available to a new audience with a different risk-return profile.
SCOPE, launched in 2022, is positioned by Hamilton Lane as offering "potential safety and yield during both favorable and unfavorable market conditions." The fund has approximately $556 million in AUM and an annualized yield of 10% for USD investors. Fortune notes private credit is estimated at over $3.14 trillion according to JPMorgan. Tokenization of real-world assets is cited by proponents as a way to improve liquidity, transparency and accessibility. Nick Ducoff, head of institutional growth at the Solana Foundation, said on-chain ownership and value transfer occur simultaneously and publicly, in contrast to off-chain settlement that can take a day after transfer-agent recording.
Skepticism remains. Morgan Krupetsky, senior director of business development for Institutions & Capital Markets at Ava Labs, told Fortune that issuers of tokenized private credit such as Maple and Centrifuge are trying to sell to crypto natives, which she called very difficult given long lock-up periods. She noted a "product market fit mismatch" between the target investors and the underlying asset, adding that some crypto investors avoid KYC requirements and can earn far higher returns on memecoins than the roughly 12% return over two years offered by these assets.
The fund is issued through Libre, a Web3 protocol for the issuance and distribution of funds on-chain. Libre is a joint venture between hedge fund Brevan Howard's WebN Group and Nomura's crypto firm Laser Digital. According to the companies' joint statement, Libre enables accredited, professional and institutional investors on networks like Solana to access top-tier funds on-chain in a fully compliant manner, along with ancillary services for secondary trading and collateralized lending where available. Libre CEO and founder Dr. Avtar Sehra told Fortune that tokenization allows Hamilton Lane to reach "mass affluent, crypto native" traders, and he cited Solana's "low latency and throughput capability" as a reason for choosing the network.
This is not Hamilton Lane's first blockchain initiative. The firm previously tokenized SCOPE and an equity fund through digital securities issuance platform Securitize. Victor Jung, head of digital assets, told Fortune the firm is "very proud" of the inflows those products have generated. Today's launch, however, marks its first deployment on Solana and its first attempt to tokenize collateralized lending. Jung said the offering is "for the decentralized finance natives" and described it as a start toward making more financial asset classes available to a new audience with a different risk-return profile.
SCOPE, launched in 2022, is positioned by Hamilton Lane as offering "potential safety and yield during both favorable and unfavorable market conditions." The fund has approximately $556 million in AUM and an annualized yield of 10% for USD investors. Fortune notes private credit is estimated at over $3.14 trillion according to JPMorgan. Tokenization of real-world assets is cited by proponents as a way to improve liquidity, transparency and accessibility. Nick Ducoff, head of institutional growth at the Solana Foundation, said on-chain ownership and value transfer occur simultaneously and publicly, in contrast to off-chain settlement that can take a day after transfer-agent recording.
Skepticism remains. Morgan Krupetsky, senior director of business development for Institutions & Capital Markets at Ava Labs, told Fortune that issuers of tokenized private credit such as Maple and Centrifuge are trying to sell to crypto natives, which she called very difficult given long lock-up periods. She noted a "product market fit mismatch" between the target investors and the underlying asset, adding that some crypto investors avoid KYC requirements and can earn far higher returns on memecoins than the roughly 12% return over two years offered by these assets.
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