New York Life Investment Management is moving one of its fixed-income strategies onto blockchain through a partnership with Centrifuge. The firms announced plans to tokenize a US high-yield corporate bond strategy on Avalanche, enabling qualified institutional buyers to subscribe and redeem using USDC.
Centrifuge is providing tokenization infrastructure for an institutional investment strategy managed by New York Life Investment Management, which oversees more than $300 billion in assets. The Avalanche blockchain provides a settlement and ownership layer, while USDC enables digital-dollar transactions for subscriptions and redemptions. For institutions, this approach can streamline operational movement between cash and fund interests, particularly in markets where tokenized products operate outside traditional settlement windows.
Institutional Focus
Access to the product is restricted to qualified institutional buyers rather than the general public. This limitation is significant when evaluating the scope of tokenization adoption.
High-yield corporate bonds represent a different risk and return profile compared to tokenized Treasury products, which have already become a clear area of institutional blockchain adoption. By focusing on actively managed credit strategies rather than cash-like government debt, this tokenization effort expands the types of assets being issued through public blockchain infrastructure.
The announcement adds another established asset manager to those testing how conventional investment products can be issued and serviced through blockchain rails.
