Securitize to acquire River One, expanding into asset-backed lending

The strategic logic here is less about tokenization itself than about closing the loop between tokenized assets and the credit markets that fund them. Pairing stablecoin funding with asset-backed lending puts Securitize closer to the yield-generating side of RWA, where demand has been building, rather than the issuance side alone. The long runway to a fourth-quarter 2026 close leaves room for regulatory and integration friction, and the undisclosed terms make it hard to gauge how much River One's lending book is actually worth. Whether the combined entity can underwrite credit risk as deftly as it mints tokens is the open question.