Institutional Adoption Accelerates For Solana as Hamilton Lane Launches Blockchain-Native Fund
July 24 2024 - 5:00AM
NEWSBTC
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. Related Reading: Ethereum ETFs Witness Stellar
Start As Trading Soars; Analyst Sees ETH’s Price Reaching $8,000 In
Q4 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. Related
Reading: Dogecoin Falling Wedge Pattern: Crypto Analyst Predicts
Breakout To $0.22 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
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