RWA narratives take another serious blow—Goldfinch’s default rate is a bit alarming, and the project backed by a16z has also gone under.

CoinWorld News reports that the on-chain credit project Goldfinch has recently been questioned by community participants about whether it has large-scale bad debt issues. Some depositors claim that among the 8 lending institutions the project cooperates with, 2 have defaulted, 6 have entered restructuring procedures, and more than $50 million in funds have been mishandled. Goldfinch went live in 2021 and focuses on using DeFi to provide financing for businesses in Africa and other emerging markets, and is seen as one of the early representative projects of RWA (real-world assets) and the on-chain credit sector. In 2022, a16z led an investment round of $25 million. Its token GFI has fallen more than 99% from its peak of $32.94 in January 2022, and its market cap has also dropped from about $390 million in 2024 to under $6 million.