A brand new report from Bitcoin lending platform Ledn is placing a giant quantity on a market that hardly exists but: $1 trillion. The corporate launched analysis displaying that the buyer Bitcoin-backed mortgage market — at the moment value round $3 billion — might develop 300 occasions bigger inside the subsequent decade.
To place that in context, Galaxy Analysis pegged your entire crypto lending market, throughout each sort of platform and product, at a $73.6 billion all-time excessive in Q3 2025. Ledn is betting the buyer Bitcoin slice alone will dwarf that determine.
The analysis was performed by Protocol Idea, a shopper insights agency, and surveyed 1,244 cryptocurrency holders throughout the US and Australia in February 2026. The headline discovering: 88% of crypto holders stated they’d think about borrowing in opposition to their digital property, however solely 14% at the moment do.
That leaves a 74-percentage-point hole between people who find themselves open to the thought and individuals who have really performed it. So what’s stopping them?
The highest boundaries weren’t about understanding the product. Non-borrowers pointed to a few confidence-related issues: worries about crypto worth swings, the chance of getting liquidated if costs fall, and uncertainty about regulation. When requested what they search for in a lending platform, respondents ranked threat administration practices, platform popularity, and clear phrases forward of rates of interest or options. Belief, in different phrases, is the product.
“The demand aspect of the equation is solved,” stated Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, co-founder of Ledn. “What’s nonetheless catching up is the belief infrastructure that offers debtors the boldness to behave.”
Ledn’s $200 million bitcoin-collateralized bond rated by S&P
That infrastructure is beginning to take form. In February 2026, Ledn closed what it calls the first-ever investment-grade Bitcoin-collateralized asset-backed safety — a $200 million bond cope with its senior tranche rated BBB- by S&P International.
Galaxy Analysis described it as crypto credit score shifting “away from a distinct segment product towards broader institutional acceptance.” Since issuance, these bonds have traded roughly 5% tighter on curiosity, a sign that institutional consumers are pricing the underlying credit score properly.
Among the many 14% who already borrow in opposition to their crypto, the conduct mirrors how rich folks use mortgages or securities-backed loans — accessing money with out promoting a long-term asset. The analysis discovered 72% of crypto holders agree that Bitcoin-backed loans give them a option to entry funds with out promoting their holdings.
Regional variations emerged too. Australian respondents have been extra doubtless than People to borrow as a part of a monetary plan and to buy round between lenders, reflecting a extra fragmented market in Australia the place no single platform has locked up the class.
Ledn’s co-founders first made the $1 trillion forecast publicly on the Bitcoin 2026 Convention in Las Vegas in April. The corporate has serviced greater than $10 billion in loans since launching in 2018 and operates in additional than 100 nations.