These days, the mention of blockchain-based real world assets (RWAs) conjures up traditional finance institutions, like BlackRock, presiding over billions of dollars in tokenized money market funds.
But the original promise of crypto was about opening up finance opportunities to anyone. That’s the ethos Bitfinex Securities is sticking to with its latest tokenized equity issuances: two alternative finance products in the UK, one focused on community banking debt, the other on litigation relating to mis-sold car finance claims.
Announced on Wednesday, Bitfinex Securities’ “TITAN1” product will allocate 5 million british pounds ($6.8 million) into subordinate debt issued by Castle Community Bank, a firm supporting loans to financially excluded customers in Edinburgh, Scotland.
This alternative debt product will provide investors with a 20% dividend per annum (net of fees), which will be paid quarterly for up to 10 years, with non-callable provisions for the first 5 years, according to a press release.
The second structure, “TITAN2,” will invest 100 million british pounds ($136 million) into litigation financing related to car finance mis-selling claims in the UK, a market expected to generate billions in compensation.
Funds will be deployed through equity-linked notes and Investors will receive a 50% share of the claims recovery proceeds split proportionately among investors, Bitfinex Securities said.
Both listings will be accessible to investors as tradable tokens via Bitfinex Securities’ secondary market. The tokens have been issued on the Liquid Network, a side chain of Bitcoin developed by technology firm Blockstream, where transfers require issuer authorization, with a whitelist system ensuring compliance standards and jurisdictional requirements.
Looking back in time, Bitfinex Securities’ foray into tokenized RWAs pre-dates by some years the current trend for blockchain-based financial assets issued by institutions like BlackRock or Franklin Templeton.
The firm started out with niche products like a tokenized bitcoin mining hashrate contract linked to Blockstream, followed by a number of bond issuances, including the first tokenized U.S. Treasuries offering in the nascent crypto hub of El Salvador, bringing T-Bill investments to individuals and organizations who were previously unable to access these products.
Jesse Knutson, head of operations at Bitfinex Securities, takes a philosophical view of the current tokenization trend.
“We want to be able to help people bridge that gap to investors,” Knutson said in an interview. “Whether it’s a company or a bond issuance, or whatever it is, to raise capital and kind of fill that gap that’s left by banks in many parts of the world that just aren’t willing to lend, or where people struggle to get access to capital.”
Fresh off a digital assets panel in London alongside BlackRock and UK asset manager Schroders, Knutson said there’s something of a bias in the ecosystem towards fixed income. Most of the focus is around money market funds, where people tend to buy and hold to get a yield, so there’s just not a lot of trading, he said.
“A big part of this is about disintermediation, and I think that’s something the institutional guys don’t quite get,” Knutson said. “When you look at the details of what they’ve actually done, it’s typically left hand to right hand. It’s the same kind of people. It’s going through depositories, it’s going through transfer payment agents, all of the normal kind of parts of the traditional ecosystem, which I don’t think are technologically probably necessary.”
