Crypto VC firm Hashed has anchored a new digital asset private credit fund targeting $300 million, founded by Abu Dhabi-based investor Mohamed Hamdy and managed by Thoro Capital Management. The fund will lend U.S. dollars settled via stablecoins directly to digital asset institutions using covenant-based underwriting rather than asset-backed collateral. Hashed's participation follows its recent financial services permission from Abu Dhabi Global Market and a memorandum of understanding with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office to support South Korean institutions expanding to the UAE.

This matters because it addresses what Hashed calls a critical financing bottleneck in institutional crypto. Traditional banks remain constrained by regulatory capital requirements, while existing crypto lenders underwrite only against collateral, forcing profitable audited firms to rely on expensive short-term borrowing rather than business-fundamentals-based credit. Thoro's covenant-based approach mirrors the rise of traditional private credit after 2008, when specialized fund managers replaced retrenching banks by assessing borrowers as operating businesses with financials, cash flow, and agreed covenants. Tokenized private credit has reached $14 billion in cumulative onchain origination and is the largest real-world asset category by this measure, yet this remains a fraction of the $3 trillion traditional private credit market.

For traders, the signal is not in token prices but in capital flow. Hashed backing a covenant-based fund indicates institutional crypto is moving toward traditional credit underwriting, which could expand the addressable market for digital asset infrastructure firms and potentially reduce their cost of capital. The $300 million target, set based on market fit and executability according to Thoro, suggests the VC sees deployment opportunities. Stablecoin settlement infrastructure may benefit as loan volume converts to onchain rails, but the direct trade lies in equity exposure to the platforms that will borrow, not in liquid tokens.

Watch for disclosed borrowers and loan terms in the coming months. If Thoro names major infrastructure participants as early clients, it would suggest institutional crypto is meeting private credit underwriting standards.

Source: The Block