News
Institutional Adoption Accelerates for Solana as Hamilton Lane Launches Blockchain-Native Fund — TradingView News
In a move that highlights 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.
According to a recent report from Fortune, the fund, called Senior Credit Opportunities Fund (SCOPE), will now be accessible to investors through the Solana network.
Institutional Fund Directly on the Solana Blockchain
Hamilton Lane, which manages more than $290 billion in assets, has partnered with Libre, a Web3 protocol developed by Brevan Howard’s WebN Group, and Laser Digital, Nomura’s cryptocurrency firm, to facilitate the initiative.
According to Fortune, Libre will serve as a “backbone infrastructure,” enabling the issuance and distribution of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) on-chain. With this, Hamilton Lane aims to expand its distribution channels and reach a wider range of investors, including “massive” and crypto-native traders.
Dr. Avtar Sehra, CEO and founder of Libre, noted that Solana’s “low latency and high throughput” 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 launch directly on the blockchain, with the potential for more to follow as RWAs have become an increasingly popular 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 isn’t entirely new: the firm previously tokenized SCOPE and an equity fund using 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 hailed the launch of Solana as a key step forward for the company, enabling the tokenization of collateralized loans. Jung said:
This is for the decentralized finance natives. We believe this is just the beginning of a part 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.
For example, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, has expressed his belief that the next step in the industry will be the tokenization of every stock and bond, envisioning a future where all financial assets will be recorded in a single ledger.
While tokenized private credit has gained traction, Fortune notes that challenges remain. Startups like Maple and Centrifuge have struggled to sell to crypto investors due to factors like long lock-up periods and the different risk appetite of this particular audience.
Additionally, some cryptocurrency investors prefer the higher returns offered by meme coins, which can overshadow the more modest returns of traditional assets over a longer time horizon.
At the time of writing, SOL was trading at $173, down nearly 5% in the last 24 hours, dragged down by Tuesday’s broader market decline.
Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com