Enness Global has highlighted a significant supply gap in the crypto-backed lending market, with more than 175 formal enquiries recorded since the beginning of 2024 from high-net-worth individuals across more than 25 countries.
The enquiries involve cryptocurrency holdings ranging from about £250,000 to more than £100 million, showing growing demand from wealthy borrowers who want to use digital assets as collateral without selling their holdings.
Enness Global’s analysis found that demand is coming from clients across jurisdictions including the UK, US, Singapore, Switzerland, UAE, Monaco, India and Japan. Despite the international scale of enquiries, lender supply remains limited.
Of more than 1,200 lenders tracked through Enness Global’s lender intelligence system, only a small number of specialist providers currently offer lending against cryptoassets. The analysis also found that no mainstream UK mortgage lenders are currently operating in this area.
The enquiries recorded by Enness Global have been driven by a range of financing requirements, including purchasing property without liquidating cryptocurrency holdings, avoiding taxable disposals, accessing wealth that may not be recognised by traditional lenders, securing business funding and refinancing existing debt.
Some borrowers are also seeking to maintain their long-term exposure to cryptocurrency while accessing liquidity for other investments or financial commitments.
Enness Global Group CEO Islay Robinson highlights the growing disconnect between the amount of wealth held in digital assets and the limited availability of traditional lending against those assets. For high-net-worth borrowers, crypto-backed finance can provide a way to access liquidity without necessarily selling the underlying assets.
The international nature of the enquiries also reflects the increasingly global profile of crypto wealth, with borrowers seeking financing across multiple jurisdictions and for a range of property, business and investment purposes.
Unlike conventional mortgage lending, crypto-backed transactions often require bespoke assessment and individual structuring because of the nature of the underlying collateral, borrower circumstances, and lender requirements.
The findings highlight an emerging specialist lending market in which experienced intermediaries can play an important role in connecting high-net-worth borrowers with the limited number of lenders willing to consider digital assets as collateral.
As demand for crypto-backed lending continues to develop, Enness Global expects the market to remain an increasingly relevant area of specialist finance for internationally mobile high-net-worth clients.
Read the full article in Fintech Finance News.
