Bitcoin lenders could have to turn out to be extra like conventional finance corporations, not much less, if they need institutional capital to maintain flowing into the sector.
At Consensus 2026 in Miami, Alexander Blume, founder and CEO of institutional bitcoin lender Two Prime, argued that the following stage of crypto credit score development will rely much less on decentralized finance experimentation and extra on standardization, transparency, and threat administration.
“The second you begin attempting to elucidate how any of these things works, they’re identical to, No… We’ll pay extra. Do not lose my cash,” Blume mentioned, referring to institutional debtors evaluating crypto lending merchandise that turn out to be troublesome to defend in periods of market stress.
The feedback mirrored a broader post-2022 shift in crypto lending following the collapses of Celsius, Voyager, and BlockFi, when opaque leverage, aggressive rehypothecation, and weak threat controls triggered a wider credit score disaster throughout the trade. Within the years since, many institutional debtors have moved away from advanced DeFi constructions in favor of merchandise centered on clear custody, standardized contracts, and clearly identifiable counterparties.
Throughout the panel, audio system repeatedly urged that institutional finance and crypto-native finance stay essentially misaligned of their approaches to threat. Whereas DeFi developed round permissionless entry, composability, and capital effectivity, establishments proceed to prioritize predictability, authorized accountability, and operational simplicity.
That pressure was particularly seen within the dialogue round rehypothecation, the follow of reusing buyer collateral to generate further yield, which grew to become one of many defining dangers uncovered throughout the 2022 lending collapse.
“An important factor to ask… is the place is your Bitcoin saved,” mentioned Adam Reeds, co-founder and CEO of Ledn.
Jay Patel, co-founder and CEO of Lygos Finance, mentioned debtors more and more have to “underwrite the lender” themselves earlier than taking loans towards their bitcoin holdings.
“The largest level in my thoughts is unquestionably the rehypothecation piece,” Patel mentioned.
Blume mentioned institutional debtors usually reject crypto-native lending constructions not as a result of they oppose bitcoin, however as a result of the operational complexity surrounding many DeFi techniques stays troublesome to justify to boards, shareholders, and threat committees.
At one level, Blume distilled the divide between crypto-native finance and institutional finance right into a single remark.
“Our entire monetary system is ready as much as have another person guilty,” he mentioned, arguing that institutional debtors nonetheless desire identifiable intermediaries, standardized processes, and authorized accountability over totally autonomous monetary techniques.
For a lot of lenders on stage, the way forward for crypto credit score not seems tied to creating finance extra decentralized. As a substitute, it might rely upon convincing institutional debtors that bitcoin-backed lending can behave predictably sufficient to resemble the standard system they already belief.
