What Is Figure Adding to Its Tokenized Credit Marketplace?
Figure and Hastra are expanding their tokenized credit platform to include auto loans, marking a move beyond home equity products into broader consumer lending. The new asset class will be introduced through Democratized Prime, a decentralized lending marketplace on Figure Markets.
The platform is designed to enable different types of consumer credit to be issued, traded and funded onchain. Auto finance becomes the first new category added as part of a wider plan to build a multi-asset marketplace for tokenized private credit.
“We’ve been purposefully building toward this,” said Michael Tannenbaum, CEO of Figure, noting that the platform has already originated more than $22 billion in onchain loans.
The expansion reflects an attempt to move tokenized credit beyond niche use cases and into mainstream lending categories, where demand is larger but risk profiles are more complex.
Why Are Auto Loans a Key Test for DeFi Credit?
The introduction of auto loans represents an early test of whether tokenized private credit can scale into widely used consumer lending segments. While home equity products are typically backed by higher-quality collateral, auto loans—particularly non-prime—carry higher default risk and are more sensitive to economic cycles.
Bringing these assets onchain could widen access to real-world yield for DeFi investors, but it also introduces credit risk dynamics that are less predictable than overcollateralized crypto lending.
This shift moves DeFi closer to traditional credit markets, where underwriting quality, borrower behavior and macroeconomic conditions play a central role in performance. It also raises questions around how these risks are priced, distributed and managed in decentralized environments.
Investor Takeaway
How Does Hastra’s Multi-Chain Expansion Fit In?
Alongside the new asset class, Hastra is expanding beyond its initial deployment on Solana to Ethereum-compatible chains. The platform will begin with Ethereum, opening access to a broader DeFi ecosystem while extending its existing credit infrastructure, including home equity loan exposure, across multiple networks.
The auto finance product will launch first on Solana, with a planned rollout to Ethereum around June. This phased approach allows Figure to test product performance in one environment before scaling to a larger and more liquid ecosystem.
The multi-chain strategy reflects a broader trend in DeFi, where platforms seek to maximize liquidity access and user reach by operating across different blockchain environments rather than remaining tied to a single network.
Investor Takeaway
What Risks and Market Signals Are Emerging?
Despite growth in tokenized lending, the underlying risks of consumer credit remain unchanged. Non-prime auto loans can exhibit higher default rates, particularly during economic downturns, and performance may be difficult to assess in volatile market conditions.
Regulatory uncertainty also remains a factor. Questions persist around transparency, reporting standards and how these blockchain-based credit products would behave under stress scenarios.
At the same time, market sentiment around Figure remains constructive. Bernstein analysts recently assigned the company an “Outperform” rating with a $67 price target, citing growth in its tokenized lending business. Loan originations exceeded $1.2 billion in March, with first-quarter volumes reaching $2.9 billion.
Figure went public in September 2025 on the Nasdaq under the ticker FIGR, and its expansion into new credit segments suggests continued efforts to scale its onchain lending model beyond its initial focus areas.
