It is no secret that stablecoins have quietly become more than just a safe harbour from volatility, offering investors a gateway to earning interest much like a traditional savings account, but turbocharged.
In fact, sophisticated decentralised finance (DeFi) strategies now mirror and even exceed traditional yields because by mid-2025, some inventive DeFi investors were employing “looping” strategies across lending protocols to earn up to 25% annual returns on stablecoins with purportedly low risk.
As these yields have lured more mainstream attention, the once-parallel tracks of trad-fi and crypto have begun to converge in tangible ways.
The integration is perhaps best exemplified by the boom in tokenised real-world assets (RWA), bringing traditional assets like bonds, loans, and real estate onto the blockchain.
After years of talk, 2024 was the tipping point when pilot projects turned into full-fledged products, and by December 2024, the on-chain RWA market (excluding fiat-backed stablecoins) had ballooned to $15.2 billion, up 85% year-over-year.
And it didn’t stop there because by mid-2025, that figure had surpassed $24 billion, making RWA tokenisation one of the fastest-growing sectors in crypto.
In terms of what’s driving this push, it appears as though traditional institutions and investors are looking for ways to enhance liquidity and access for assets that have historically been illiquid or restricted to elite circles.
Private credit, for instance, emerged as the single largest segment of the tokenised asset market, hitting about $14 billion by June 2025.
Bridging yield and RWAs to Africa
To encapsulate the convergence of Trad-Fi and crypto, especially within an African context, VALR, the continent’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, recently unveiled the USD Private Credit Token (USDPC), a yield-bearing token that gives everyday investors access to a portfolio of US-based private loans.
In plainer terms, VALR has taken a traditional private credit fund (the kind usually limited to wealthy investors or institutions) and wrapped it into a crypto token available on its platform, allowing participants to buy a piece of an American private debt fund through an African crypto exchange, that too in token form.
What makes USDPC particularly compelling is the yield on offer.
The underlying loans, managed by Canada-based Garrington Capital, target annual returns of 8–10%, a rate on par with robust traditional private credit funds and well above typical bank deposit rates.
And this isn’t some degen DeFi experiment because Garrington is a seasoned firm that has deployed over $6 billion in loans since 1999 and boasts a long track record of consistent quarterly returns.
In fact, the fund has reportedly not had a negative quarter in over 15 years, and by tokenising their strategy, VALR and its partners are offering stablecoin holders and investors a chance to earn 8-10% yields backed by real-world assets like senior secured loans.
And, since the token is denominated in USD, users in South Africa or anywhere have a way to earn dollar interest without complex offshore accounts (while also gaining a hedge against local currency fluctuation, a big selling point in African markets where currencies can be volatile).
A larger narrative is brewing
VALR’s move did not come out of the blue but seems to be reflective of a global trend wherein exchanges and fintech companies are rolling out crypto-powered yield products.
But VALR’s positioning is unique geographically, as until now, an African retail investor’s options for yield were mostly limited to local savings (often with low interest) or risky crypto lending schemes abroad.
USDPC changes that by providing an institutional-grade product through a familiar local platform, with each token representing a claim on the diversified loan portfolio managed by Garrington, which spans over 105 senior secured loans across five sectors.
These are asset-backed loans (think financing secured by real estate, inventory, or receivables) that help protect investors’ capital.
In fact, the portfolio’s performance has been solid, delivering a net annualised return of 10.7% over the past three years (as of June 2025).
Beyond the product itself, the launch of USDPC arrives on the heels of South Africa’s regulators granting crypto service licenses (with VALR being fully licensed by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority), signalling that the environment is ripe for innovation.
Lastly, it stands to reason that VALR’s success could spur other regional players to explore similar offerings, but for now, the exchange has a big first-mover advantage as evidenced by its rapid growth (which saw the platform surpass 1 million users last year).
Therefore, as investors worldwide seek yield and diversification, products like USDPC offer a future where someone in Johannesburg or Nairobi can invest in a North American credit fund as effortlessly as buying crypto, all while staying within the comfort of a regulated local platform.
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