Hashed has become the primary backer of a new digital-asset private credit fund targeting $300 million, adding a covenant-based lending strategy to a market that has largely relied on volatile token collateral. The vehicle, established by Abu Dhabi-based investor Mohamed Hamdy and managed by his firm Thoro Capital Management, plans to make U.S. dollar loans settled through stablecoins to digital-asset institutions.
The fund would evaluate borrowers using financial statements, cash flow and management assessments, while requiring them to maintain agreed financial conditions throughout a loan’s term. That framework brings elements of conventional corporate lending into crypto credit, where many existing arrangements have been structured around overcollateralized holdings of liquid digital assets.
Hashed’s backing follows its receipt of a financial services permission from Abu Dhabi Global Market, or ADGM. The South Korean venture firm also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office last week to help South Korean institutions and traders expand into the UAE capital.
Thoro targets direct stablecoin-settled lending
Thoro Capital Management intends to lend dollars directly to institutions operating in digital assets, with settlement handled through stablecoins. Stablecoin settlement could allow borrowers to receive and deploy dollar-denominated liquidity on blockchain rails without relying on traditional banking payment windows for every transfer.
The fund’s $300 million target reflects what Thoro described as the size that fits the strategy’s market opportunity and execution capacity. No individual borrower targets, maturity ranges, interest-rate terms or eligible collateral requirements were disclosed in the material provided.
Hamdy, Thoro’s managing partner, set up the fund as institutional digital-asset companies seek financing structures that can account for operating revenue and business performance rather than only the market value of crypto held on their balance sheets. That distinction is particularly relevant for firms with recurring income, such as infrastructure providers, market makers, custodians, trading platforms and service companies, whose access to credit may not be accurately captured by a single collateral ratio.
A stablecoin loan remains exposed to borrower default risk and to the operational and legal structure supporting the stablecoin used for settlement. The covenant model seeks to manage the first of those risks by setting ongoing requirements, rather than waiting until collateral values fall or a borrower misses a repayment.
Covenants put the focus on a borrower’s finances
Covenant-based lending refers to loan agreements containing financial or operational conditions that borrowers must meet during the life of a facility. These can include minimum liquidity levels, leverage limits, reporting obligations, restrictions on additional debt or requirements to preserve certain financial ratios.
In conventional private credit, covenants give lenders earlier visibility into a borrower’s weakening position and can trigger negotiations or remedial action before a payment default. The model differs from loans secured mainly by crypto assets, where a lender’s protection often rests on maintaining a sufficient collateral buffer and liquidating assets if their price falls below a threshold.
That collateral-first approach can work for highly liquid assets, but it can become fragile in sharp market declines. Falling token prices may force liquidations precisely when market liquidity is weakest, increasing losses for both borrowers and lenders. A lending process based on cash flow and financial reporting could give credit providers a different basis for judging repayment capacity, though it also requires deeper underwriting and continuous monitoring.
Thoro has framed the strategy against the growth of traditional private credit after the 2008 global financial crisis, when banks reduced lending activity and specialized non-bank managers filled part of the gap. Digital-asset lending has already experienced its own severe retrenchment following the failures of several centralized lenders in 2022, including firms whose models relied heavily on short-duration funding, opaque balance sheets and collateral that could lose value rapidly.
The comparison has limits. Traditional private-credit managers operate within developed legal systems for corporate lending, bankruptcy and creditor enforcement. Digital-asset borrowers often operate across multiple jurisdictions, use token-based treasury assets and face fast-changing regulatory obligations. Those conditions make loan documentation, collateral custody and enforcement mechanisms central to any covenant-based model.
Tokenized credit has become a leading onchain RWA use case
RWA.xyz, a blockchain-data platform tracking tokenized real-world assets, describes private credit as the largest category of real-world asset lending by cumulative onchain origination, with total loans exceeding $14 billion. The category has included credit facilities to fintech businesses, trade-finance borrowers and crypto-native companies, with loan records or fund interests represented through blockchain-based systems.
That $14 billion figure remains small beside the multitrillion-dollar conventional private-credit market cited in Thoro’s comparison. Yet onchain credit’s growth has drawn attention because tokenization can make fund administration, settlement and reporting more programmable, while stablecoins provide a familiar unit of account for borrowers active in digital markets.
Thoro’s proposed fund does not suggest that collateralized lending will disappear from crypto credit. Collateral remains a practical protection where asset values can be verified and liquidated. The fund instead places greater weight on whether a company can sustain debt through its underlying operations, an approach that could suit firms seeking working capital or growth financing without pledging large quantities of volatile tokens.
Abu Dhabi builds on regulated finance ambitions
Hashed’s role also places the fund within Abu Dhabi’s effort to attract digital-asset firms and financial managers operating under formal regulatory frameworks. ADGM has developed a regime for virtual-asset activities and has become a preferred regional base for firms seeking access to the UAE while operating from an English common-law financial center.
The memorandum between Hashed and the Abu Dhabi Investment Office adds a separate channel for South Korean institutions considering expansion into Abu Dhabi. For Hashed, the combination of regulatory permission, local partnerships and an anchored credit vehicle gives the firm a larger role in the region’s developing digital-asset capital markets.
Whether Thoro reaches its $300 million target will depend on its ability to identify borrowers willing to accept ongoing financial covenants and provide the reporting expected in private credit. In a sector accustomed to collateral-driven borrowing, that requirement could favor more established institutions with auditable operations, predictable revenue and management teams prepared for closer lender scrutiny.
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