Bitcoin-backed lender Ledn has sold about $188 million of bonds tied to Bitcoin-collateralised consumer loans in what Bloomberg described as the first securitisation of its kind in the mainstream asset-backed securities market.
One of the two tranches, the investment-grade portion, was reportedly priced at roughly 335 basis points over a benchmark rate, indicating investors are demanding a 3.35 percentage point premium to assume crypto-linked credit exposure instead of conventional consumer ABS risk.
The transaction, structured through Ledn Issuer Trust 2026-1, securitises 5,441 short-term fixed-rate balloon loans to 2,914 US borrowers backed by 4,078.87 Bitcoin as collateral, according to preliminary documentation from S&P Global Ratings dated Feb. 9.
S&P assigned preliminary BBB- (sf) and B- (sf) ratings to the $160 million senior Class A notes and $28 million subordinated Class B notes respectively, while Jefferies Financial Group acted as sole structuring agent and bookrunner for the deal.
“These loans generally have a low default rate because they tend to have low LTV (loan-to-value) ratios and are well capitalised with BTC,”
Said Bitwise, head of research Europe, Andre Dragosch.
Dragosch added that packaging the loans into a traditional ABS structure suggests Bitcoin is “increasingly seen as safe and legit collateral by traditional financial institutions,” while Jinsol Bok of Four Pillars said liquidity “can instead be expanded into new lending” as the market matures.
Founded in 2018, Ledn says it has originated more than $9.5 billion in loans across over 100 countries and received a strategic investment from Tether in November 2025, though it had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
At the time of reporting, Bitcoin price was $67,083.47.