Nitin Gaur

EigenLayer started with LRT/restaking, then moved to EigenDA, then EigenCloud, and now Agentic AI. But have any of these stages actually delivered clear, standalone outcomes—or are we just layering new narratives on top of unfinished ones? Is restaking driving real security demand, or just yield? Is EigenDA seeing meaningful adoption? Is EigenCloud more than positioning? Feels less like a linear roadmap and more like successive pivots. Curious if I’m missing where the actual traction is.

Full house at Agentic by EIGEN

New risk order ! @Moodys #DigitalFuture

Industry’s trust infrastructure! @Moodys digital frontiers event !

Check out my latest article: Designing - Cryptographic Architecture on Public Infrastructure linkedin.com/pulse/designin… via @LinkedIn

Nethermind has joined @Mastercard's Crypto Partner Program. We build the Ethereum execution client powering ~30% of the network, and the tokenization and compliant infrastructure for regulated institutions. x.com/Mastercard/sta…

Private credit is in a strange place today. The economy is tied to the cost of money. Low interest rates mean cheap borrowing, which in theory should lead to higher utilization of credit facilities. Conversely, high interest rates mean less affordable borrowing and, in theory, reduced demand for credit. We've been living through a high-interest-rate environment since the Federal Reserve began its aggressive tightening cycle in March 2022, raising rates from near zero to over 5% by mid-2023, the fastest hiking cycle in four decades. Rates have remained elevated through early 2026, with only modest cuts. For many consumers and businesses that initiated borrowing during the low- or mid-rate era, and whose obligations remain outstanding, this translates into a significantly higher cost of capital, a burden that compounds over time. This all sounds normal. Finance is part of almost every phase of a company's lifecycle, from growth to maturity. The problem arises when the cost of capital stays elevated for too long, creating unmanageable expenses for borrowers. Businesses typically borrow from financial institutions like banks, or from asset managers in the form of private credit. How do private credit funds work? Private credit funds are typically either closed-end or semi-liquid vehicles managed by asset managers. This structure makes sense: the funds need to deploy capital into lending opportunities to generate returns. Investors in private credit range from pension funds, insurance companies, and family offices to, increasingly, retail investors. Closed-end funds don't allow redemptions until maturity, usually 7 to 10 years. Semi-liquid funds offer quarterly redemption windows with limits. BDCs (Business Development Companies), which are publicly traded, provide liquidity via daily trading on exchanges. In essence, private credit funds function as private banks: they lend capital to businesses and collect interest. What does private credit fund? Typically, private credit finances leveraged buyouts for private equity, middle-market corporate loans for companies that lack access to public bond markets, certain asset-backed lending (such as aircraft, shipping, and consumer loans), and real estate credit. Private credit funds generally fill the funding gap that banks have vacated. This shift has been driven primarily by post-2008 regulation, particularly Basel III, which pushed banks out of riskier corporate lending. Today, private credit finances an estimated 80 to 90% of leveraged buyouts in the U.S. middle market. Who are the players? Apollo ~$460B AUM Blackstone ~$330B AUM Ares ~$280B AUM KKR ~$220B AUM Carlyle ~$190B AUM Blue Owl ~$170B AUM What's going on? Recently, distress has emerged across private credit. The persistent cost of capital driven by high interest rates remains a reality, and AI is reshaping perceptions of many software companies that private credit has funded, creating uncertainty about these borrowers' futures. The market has already begun repricing private credit: VanEck BDC Income ETF: ~15% decline over the past year Blue Owl Capital: ~50% decline over the past year, with ~30% of that during 2026 Apollo, Blackstone, Ares, KKR: shares down ~20% on private credit concerns The average BDC now trades at roughly a 20% discount to NAV while offering 10 to 11% yields, signaling that loan portfolios may be overvalued, defaults could rise, or liquidity risk is building. What makes this even more concerning is that historically, these funds traded at a premium. Some funds' monitored loan default metrics have risen to as high as 9%. Blackstone's flagship private credit fund, BCRED, is a notable example. BCRED recently limited its redemptions. The fund manages roughly $82B, and during Q1 2026, redemption requests reached $3.7B, approximately 8% of NAV. Blackstone injected $400M of its own capital to support liquidity. Technically, the fund was not gated, but it came very close. Meanwhile, BlackRock's HPS Corporate Lending Fund (HLEND), a $26B fund, received $1.2B in redemption requests, reaching the point where gating was necessary. Roughly $580M in requests could not be honored. Blue Owl's retail private credit vehicle experienced $2.9B in redemptions during Q4 2025, with redemption requests reaching 15% of NAV, largely driven by exposure to software lending. Can the market handle a private credit fund default? While total redemptions have been around $7B+ (5 to 10% of NAV) and public alternative managers are down 20 to 30%, the overall private credit market is still $1.8 to 2T in size. Even the largest funds top out at $20 to 80B, compared to the global bond market at $130T or banking assets at $180T. A single fund default would most likely not collapse the broader market or trigger the kind of contagion that amplifies crises. Large funds also hold diversified portfolios of hundreds of loans, and the semi-liquid or closed-end structure naturally forces investor lock-up, acting as a buffer against bank-run dynamics. I've mapped out three scenarios of increasing severity: Scenario A: One large fund defaults (~$50B)Investors lose capital, some companies lose financing, and credit spreads widen. The system likely absorbs the shock. Scenario B: Several funds fail simultaneouslyCredit markets freeze, leveraged companies cannot refinance, and defaults cascade. This could trigger a credit-cycle downturn. Scenario C: Private credit + leveraged loans collapseA broader corporate credit crisis unfolds: private equity deals fail and banks become exposed. This would be genuinely systemic. Fortunately, private credit funds remain relatively small in the broader picture and are unlikely on their own to pose systemic risk. However, the most worrisome scenario is one where loss of confidence begins in private credit markets, particularly around lending to businesses vulnerable to AI disruption, and then bleeds into public bond markets. This contagion path is plausible because the larger corporates in bond markets are arguably more exposed to automation and AI disruption than the leaner, high-growth businesses that private credit typically funds. How does this affect RWAs and DeFi? The most immediate impact of private credit distress falls on capital allocators. Many private credit funds have been distributed to retail investors via publicly traded BDCs, private credit ETFs, or semi-liquid funds like Blackstone's BCRED, Apollo's Debt Solutions BDC, and BlackRock's HPS Corporate Lending Fund. These funds share common characteristics: quarterly (or monthly) redemption windows, redemption limits typically capped at 5% of NAV per quarter, and target returns of 8 to 11%. Recently, some funds have also begun gating redemptions. From a DeFi capital allocator's perspective, the biggest risk I see is structural: private credit is packaged in DeFi in ways that many retail-oriented users don't fully understand before committing capital. We've seen countless examples of DeFi users eagerly supplying funds into high-yielding RWA strategies, only to discover later that the underlying exposure carries significant duration risk. I believe RWAs represent the biggest opportunity for DeFi in the near term. However, my greatest fear is that institutional opportunists could view DeFi as a channel to offload illiquid and distressed products that Wall Street has already soured on, effectively using DeFi participants as exit liquidity. This risk is amplified by the fact that assessing RWA allocation opportunities is inherently harder: they don't carry the same transparency or onchain verifiability that native DeFi opportunities provide. That said, private credit done well onchain offers something traditional finance fundamentally cannot: smart contract-enforced guarantees. Redemption windows, withdrawal limits, collateral ratios, and distribution rules can be encoded immutably, meaning fund managers cannot arbitrarily change the terms after capital has been committed. In traditional private credit, investors discovered the hard way with BCRED and HLEND that redemption policies can be tightened or gated at the discretion of the manager when conditions deteriorate. Onchain, those rules are transparent from day one and enforced by code, not by a fund administrator under pressure. This is precisely where RWAs and DeFi can outperform the traditional model for this asset category. For RWAs to succeed in DeFi, and for DeFi to scale meaningfully through real-world assets, the industry needs deliberate and careful structuring of opportunities that bridge TradFi and onchain markets. That means robust transparency standards, proper risk disclosure, independent verification of underlying collateral, and governance frameworks that protect onchain participants from asymmetric information disadvantages. Without these safeguards, the convergence of TradFi and DeFi risks becoming extractive rather than additive. DeFi should not become Wall Street's exit liquidity.

"James Bond has retired - who is our new 007?" "Your Majesty - we've found someone who represents Modern London"................

Two famous Franks from Jersey have said it: THE BEST IS YET TO COME.... Thank You @BCG @nitingaur @Clearstream @nchakar @EuroclearGroup @The_DTCC wr know there is a tremenndous amount of work ahead of us but this is the cornerstone. @GBBC_io @GLEIF @chainlink @ethereumfndn

Listen: @TomZschach and I are going to be on the same stage. Don't miss this. We are going to say some wild stuff.

Interoperability is essential to unlocking the full potential of digital asset securities – but what does it take to embed it and support connectivity across TradFi and DeFi? We’ve collaborated with @BCG, @Clearstream and @EuroclearGroup on a new white paper that introduces a practical solution-neutral interoperability framework for capital markets. It explores how shared foundations, common interoperability building blocks, and real-world use cases can help reduce fragmentation across DLT networks and support secure, scalable adoption of digital assets securities. Read more: dtcc.com/dtcc-connectio…

@pbrody Congrats on an amazing career! and Welcome, Looking forward to working with you!

So, momentous news to share today: it's my last day at EY. I'm sad but also super excited for the future. I'm incredibly proud of the team I've built up, and I'm very grateful for the kindness of all the people at EY over the last decade. I'm also proud and happy to share that Clare Adelgren, my deputy for the last few years, is taking on the role of Global Blockchain Leader. I cannot imagine a person better prepared for this role. There's lots more cool stuff happening for me, and I'll share some of that in the near future once it's fully baked.

From Assurance to Proof: Why Formal Verification Is the Next Frontier for Institutional Blockchain Infrastructure? linkedin.com/posts/nitin-ga…

Tokenization scales through rails and custody. To unlock liquidity, infrastructure must be unified across standards, market participants, and technology. DTCC brings its trusted reputation to DLT with programmable, automated, resilient infrastructure. Discover more: dtcc.com/digital-assets…

A must watch from @The_DTCC CTO Dan Doney hosted by @ValidationCloud High Stakes Podcast.

Compliance does not require broad data retention. Zero-knowledge proofs enable verification without holding or transferring underlying personal data. Learn more in our report with @deutschebank 🔗 nethermind.io/blog/zero-know…

@RealDennisO @AscendFi "Right people + right timing = real market plumbing 💪" - Love it!

Big reveal this week from @AscendFi: meet the team I've been working with to lay the foundations for the market structure unlock needed for RWAs. Right people + right timing = real market plumbing 💪

The stablecoin conversation has moved from pilots to infrastructure. As networks compete for issuance, the real challenge is no longer minting tokens — it’s interoperability and unified liquidity. Liquidity today is fragmented across chains, custodians, and post-trade environments. Without secure cross-network coordination, capital efficiency suffers. This is why the Digital Assets, Tokenization & Stablecoins event by @chainlink is so timely. The next phase isn’t about which chain wins. It’s about how liquidity moves — securely, compliantly, and efficiently — across ecosystems. linkedin.com/posts/nitin-ga…

🏆 Pitch Competition #36 by Ga^3in VC at @EthereumDenver – And the Winner Is... What an incredible day of innovation! A huge thank you to everyone who joined us at ETHDenver for an unforgettable pitch competition. 🔥 Congratulations to our 9 amazing finalists: @SatsumeOfficial @LoyyalNetwork @unlloo_protocol @reimburseai @MOI_Tech @hive_3 @0xTwism @unilaunch & @EverreachLabs After intense deliberation, we are thrilled to announce the winner: 🥇 1st Place: @LoyyalNetwork! A massive thank you to our distinguished judges for their time and expertise: 👩‍⚖️ Jenny Xu – HTX Ventures 👨‍⚖️ Nitin Gaur – Nethermind 👨‍⚖️ Brent Fulfer – TBV And a huge thank you to our amazing community and ETHDenver for the incredible energy. To all the startups — keep building. This is just the beginning. 🚀 #ETHDenver #Ga3inVC #PitchCompetition #Web3 #AI #Startups #Winner

@Nethermind just shipped ZK infrastructure for Stellar — a RISC Zero verifier and a ZK-anchored Wormhole bridge. For institutions, this is what makes multi-chain tokenized assets verifiable, not just possible. linkedin.com/posts/nitin-ga…

Nethermind shipped ZK privacy infrastructure for @StellarOrg. BN254 precompiles + Poseidon + @RiscZero verifier. Live on mainnet. Any RISC Zero zkVM program can now be verified. Opens privacy solutions for a network processing billions in payments. x.com/boundless_xyz/…