Centrifuge

At a glance

What it does

Centrifuge supplies the pipes for a tokenized fund: the token contracts, the on-chain accounting of deposits and redemptions, and the connections to lending markets on several chains. A manager brings the assets, the legal wrapper and the investors. Centrifuge's software turns fund shares into tokens that can move between approved wallets and be posted in DeFi.

A collateralized loan obligation, or CLO, is a fund that buys hundreds of corporate loans and slices the income into tranches, where the AAA tranche is paid first and so carries the least risk. JAAA is a tokenized fund holding such AAA tranches, managed by Janus Henderson and issued on Centrifuge. JTRSY is its Treasury-bill sibling.

Those two funds carry the protocol. Alea Research put JTRSY at about 881 mn USD and JAAA at about 692 mn USD, together 95.6% of Centrifuge's value locked, in September 2026 readings. The money behind them comes largely from Sky, the issuer of the USDS stablecoin. Its Spark unit allocated 200 mn USD of its first tokenization tender to JTRSY, and Grove, another Sky-linked allocator, started with 1 bn USD in JAAA.

How it is different

The protocol wins when a large manager chooses it as the rails for a fund that DeFi treasuries want to hold. That puts it in the same platform layer as Securitize, but as a protocol with a token rather than a licensed transfer agent.

Its fund tokens are used as reserve assets rather than only as investments. Ethena, for example, holds JAAA as part of the reserve behind its USDe token. Centrifuge's funds also connect to new tooling: on 1 September 2026 RedStone announced an integration for New York Life's HYB fund on Centrifuge, with a Morpho lending vault to follow. Chronicle supplies price feeds for Centrifuge assets.

Where it fits

Anatomy of a tokenized fund places Centrifuge in the platform layer and prices it. RWAs in DeFi follows JAAA and JTRSY into Sky's and Ethena's balance sheets. Who's who in RWA compares its revenue with other layers. A short history of tokenization covers the private-credit wave it came from. Related profiles: Maple, Sky, Ethena and Chronicle.

Risks and open questions

Client concentration is extreme. Two funds from one manager make up almost all of the value locked, and more than half of that value comes from a single allocator, Sky's Grove. Losing one relationship would remove most of the business.

Token holders receive nothing. A fee switch is a governance vote that would start paying protocol fees to token holders. Centrifuge keeps about 5.21 mn USD a year in fees, a take rate of 9.1% on DefiLlama's September 2026 reading, and pays CFG holders zero because its fee-switch vote failed on quorum. On 17 August 2026 a governance proposal suggested converting CFG into equity in the company.

Revenue figures come from on-chain aggregators, not filed accounts, so they are estimates.

What to watch next

• The CFG equity proposal: converting a governance token into shares would be a rare case of token holders gaining a legal claim on a business.
• A third large fund: a new manager on the platform would reduce dependence on Janus Henderson.
• Sky's allocation decisions: Sky and Grove move hundreds of millions at a time, so their next rebalancing sets Centrifuge's size.
• RedStone and Morpho for HYB: a live lending vault on a private-credit fund would test how Centrifuge assets work as collateral.