WisdomTree Inc. launched its first tokenized fund that gives investors exposure to private credit, marking the latest attempt by Wall Street to connect fast-growing markets with blockchain technology.
The WisdomTree Private Credit and Alternative Income Digital Fund (ticker CRDT) went live Friday, tracking an equal-weighted index of 35 closed-end funds, business development companies and real estate investment trusts. The firm already runs an ETF on the same benchmark, introduced in 2021.
The move thrusts one of finance’s hottest markets into Wall Street’s campaign to court crypto-native capital. Tokenization involves turning conventional assets — stocks, bonds or private loans — into blockchain-based tokens that confer fractional ownership.
The tokenized vehicle has a minimum investment of $25 and allows for redemption within two days. CRDT follows an index of public vehicles tied to private credit, a design that lowers entry costs and adds liquidity, but leaves investors one step removed from the underlying loans.
“It’s really just about bringing the asset class to a whole universe of different investors,” said Will Peck, head of digital assets at WisdomTree.
Private credit has boomed in recent years as institutions chase yield outside traditional markets. By tracking funds and companies tied to that market, CRDT offers a proxy way into the asset class. Advocates say tokenization can lower barriers and speed up settlement. In practice, it does not change the underlying risks of the market it tracks.
The fund adds to WisdomTree’s dozen tokenized products with nearly $900 million in assets, 90% of it institutional. The broader market is about $28 billion, according to data-provider rwa.xyz, a fraction of the trillions in mutual funds and ETFs. JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts this year called the overall tokenization market “rather insignificant,” citing fragmented oversight and uncertainty around the enforceability of blockchain contracts.
Still, BlackRock Inc.’s $2 billion tokenized money-market fund has gained traction, and Fidelity Investments and VanEck are testing on-chain Treasury offerings.
Some see parallels with the early days of ETFs — dismissed as niche before they rewired investing. Whether tokenization will truly take off is unclear, but WisdomTree’s move underscores Wall Street’s bet that real-world assets are ripe for digital disruption, pulling them into the orbit of decentralized finance.
“For us, it’s marrying what we think is a great exposure to private credit in a vehicle that works for the DeFi community,” said Peck.
Meanwhile, BlackRock is exploring ways to make exchange-traded funds available as tokens on the blockchain, Bloomberg News reported. Janus Henderson Group, for its part, recently debuted a tokenized version of a flagship credit strategy.
At launch, WisdomTree’s CRDT will be tokenized on the Ethereum and Stellar blockchains with plans to expand to others, such as Avalanche, in the coming weeks.
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