Ledn sees bitcoin-backed lending hitting $1T via…

Ledn co-founder Mauricio Di Bartolomeo projects the bitcoin-backed lending market could reach $1 trillion within five to ten years, with investment-grade securitization as the key unlock. Speaking at BTC Prague, he argued no single balance sheet can supply the liquidity a market that size requires — pointing instead to the mortgage and auto-loan playbook, where 60–70% of mortgages and roughly 25% of auto loans are packaged into bonds and sold to institutional buyers.

Why it matters

Ledn recently issued what Di Bartolomeo described as the first BTC debt instrument rated by S&P Global, receiving an investment-grade rating with Fidelity as custodian and Jefferies as bookrunner. That rating matters structurally: pension funds and endowments are mandated to allocate to investment-grade debt, opening a capital pool that spot BTC ETFs and Strategy-style preferred-stock offerings cannot reach. The bond was marketed during February's bitcoin correction and ended up three times oversubscribed — with Di Bartolomeo noting that institutional investors reviewing the deal in a downturn saw zero loan defaults, which he said meaningfully improved their comfort with the sector.

Market impact

Ledn estimates it holds roughly 30% of the global bitcoin-backed lending market, originating $1.4 billion in loans during 2025. The broader thesis — packaging bitcoin-backed loans into asset-backed securities — would tap a multi-trillion-dollar market that dwarfs current crypto-native lending volumes. The 2022 collapse of Celsius, BlockFi, Voyager, and Genesis still shadows the sector, but an investment-grade rated, institutionally custodied bond product represents a structurally different risk profile than those centralized balance sheets.