Pencil Finance Completes $1 Million Onchain Student Loan Cycle in Southeast Asia

Pencil Finance completed a $1 million onchain student loan cycle that financed thousands of students in Southeast Asia who were underserved by traditional lenders. The protocol said it carried out its first fully onchain student loan cycle on the blockchain, deploying $1 million in capital as a lender that was repaid by borrowers to the bundle’s funders with yield, according to a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph. The bundle was funded in July 2025 by Animoca Brands, Open Campus and New Campus, and it was structured as a senior tranche with fixed returns and a junior tranche with variable returns and first-loss risk. Pencil Finance said the cycle provided financing to about 6,600 students across 118 schools and universities in Southeast Asia, and it described the transaction as the first fully onchain lending cycle for student loans transparently recorded on the blockchain network. Of the 6,600 students, about 1,050 received direct funding. The company said the loans were aimed at students underserved by traditional lenders, with 50% female borrowers and 93% from lower-income households. Tokenized RWAs are being used more often to issue or collateralize loans. In July, Brazil’s B3 stock exchange issued a 100,000 Brazilian reais loan secured by 10 tokenized cows as collateral. Each cow received a unique digital token linked to an encrypted digital identity, while AI-powered smart collars from agriculture tech company Cowmed monitored each animal’s health.