Bernstein Unveils Surprising Insights from Figure’s Q1 Results That Could Redefine Blockchain Marketplaces

Ever wondered if a fintech company could truly defy the typical mold and carve out a niche that’s both groundbreaking and downright fascinating? Well, Figure Technology Solutions might just be that rare gem. Bernstein analysts dropped a bombshell last Friday, highlighting how Figure’s Q1 earnings didn’t just beat Wall Street expectations—they practically rewrote the playbook for blockchain marketplaces. Turning real-world credit assets into slick, blockchain-native instruments? That’s not your everyday fintech story. As Figure weaves this blockchain capital market ecosystem, it’s setting itself apart from your run-of-the-mill balance sheet lenders, with FIGR stock poised to mirror real-time blockchain loan volumes like no other. It’s intriguing to think—could Figures’ forge platform, chopping whole loans into bite-sized, liquid units, be the secret sauce that finally cracks the code for real-world assets on the blockchain? And with a potential $4 trillion market in tokenized credit looming, the question isn’t just if this concept will take off, but how fast. Ready to dive deeper into this shift shaking up both Wall Street and DeFi circles? LEARN MORE.

Bernstein analysts said Friday that Figure Technology Solutions’ first-quarter earnings report shows that the fintech is fast becoming a company that is unique among blockchain marketplaces.

Figure’s May 11 earnings report soundly beat Wall Street estimates on both revenue and EBITDA, with a business that seeks to turn real-world credit assets into blockchain-native instruments that can be traded, funded and financed more efficiently.

As Figures builds out a blockchain-native capital market ecosystem, the analysts expect the company will surprise investors with how it differs from balance sheet-based fintech lending platforms, seeing FIGR stock as a real-time reflection of blockchain loan volumes.

“FIGR’s live blockchain data suggests an all-time high record Q2 upcoming,” Bernstein analysts said in a May 15 note to clients. “As the market gets more efficient in tracking live blockchain volume data, we believe FIGR’s stock price should become a real-time reflection of blockchain loan volumes,” they said.

Figure is trying to sell Wall Street and the DeFi world on the idea that it is not merely a fast-growing home equity lender (HELOC) wrapped in crypto branding, but a full-stack blockchain capital markets platform.

Figure Technology’s ecosystem. Source: Bernstein

On management’s May 12 earnings call, executive chairman and co-founder Mike Cagney said that after bringing Figure’s digital assets over to DeFi for financing about a year ago, it faced a challenge common to all real-world assets (RWA) on blockchain.

“DeFi is asset-based lending. The premise is that the collateral backing the loan is liquid. What are the collateral as a whole loan? Given an LTV breach, how does a lender take a fractional position in the whole loan? Even if they could, where would they sell it?” Cagney said that the company’s Forge platform converts whole loans into small, single-dollar liquid participation units.

Bernstein said it sees Figure building a complete marketplace where real-world assets, both loans and eventually equitie, can serve as active collateral for borrowing and lending liquidity. “That’s going more towards a model where FIGR simply clips a small fee of the entire blockchain economy within its ecosystem,” they said.

Meanwhile, institutional investors remain skeptical of blockchain-for-finance narratives, something CEO Michael Tannenbaum acknowledged in the call, arguing that Figure’s advantage is operational rather than ideological. He described AI as “the brain” and blockchain as “the nervous system,” arguing that blockchain-native data structures make underwriting, compliance and loan verification easier to automate.

Tokenized credit market could draw from wide swath

In previous research, Bernstein has put an estimated value of $4 trillion on the addressable market for total annual volume of credit origination across multiple loan categories that could eventually move onchain as tokenized assets.

That includes lending such as mortgages, auto loans, home equity lines of credit and small-business loans — segments where Figure is expanding beyond its core business.

Tokenized credit remains a small segment of the broader RWA market. Industry data shows the sector is currently valued at around $5.14 billion, highlighting the gap between today’s adoption and the longer-term growth opportunity Bernstein outlines.

Snapshot of current size and scope of global tokenized credit market. Source: RWA.xyz

Other projects are already experimenting with bringing credit onchain. Centrifuge has expanded its decentralized finance platform to include tokenized credit and US Treasury products on new blockchain networks, aiming to connect institutional-grade assets with DeFi liquidity.

Figure has moved into areas such as auto loans through the Hastra DeFI protocol, where tokenized credit products are designed to plug into decentralized finance and broader blockchain markets. Launched last year by the Provenance Blockchain Foundation, the protocol swaps wrapped yields for a Prime token. Recently, Hastra announced its launch on the Morpho protocol on Ethereum, opening up an even larger addressable DeFi market.

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