USD.AI Approves $500M Loan for Australian AI Startup

Superstate Raises $82.5M | Ark Invest Sees Tokenized Assets Reaching $11T by 2030

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
January 23, 2026

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Good Morning

AI needs hardware, not vibes, and hardware needs money fast. USD.AI’s $500M loan to Sharon AI shows how onchain credit is starting to plug a real gap, financing GPUs directly when banks move too slow or not at all.

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In Today's Email:

What Matters: USD.AI Approves $500M Loan for Australian AI Startup 👀
Founders Highlight: Hojin Kim of Maroo 👨
Deal Flows: Superstate Raises $82.5M for Onchain Equity Issuance 💰️

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Narratives: AI x Crypto pt.2

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WHAT MATTERS

USD.AI Approves $500M Loan for Australian AI Startup

State of play: USD.AI has approved a $500M onchain debt facility for Sharon AI, an Australian AI company, to scale GPU deployments. The protocol acts like an onchain bank for AI startups, using tokenized GPUs as collateral instead of TradFi rails.

Sharon AI plans to start drawing this quarter, with $65M allocated to GPU deployments for hyperscale, research, enterprise, and government clients across APAC.
USD.AI says it has already approved more than $1.2B in financing guidance for AI infrastructure operators.
Its model focuses on lending only against verified GPU assets, which are tokenized onchain to directly link physical compute infrastructure with onchain liquidity.

Why it matters: AI infrastructure is capital heavy, and traditional financing often cannot move fast enough. Using GPUs as onchain collateral shows how crypto rails can fund real world buildouts that banks are slow or unwilling to underwrite.

Our take: USD.AI is targeting a narrow but high value use case where asset verification and speed actually matter.

For builders and investors: This points to a broader shift toward onchain credit backed by real assets. The opportunity is in platforms that can verify, price, and finance physical infrastructure, not just circulate capital within crypto itself.

BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

Hojin Kim of Maroo

Intro: Hojin Kim is the leading builder of Maroo, a compliant, open, and sovereign Layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for the Korean Won economy.

He is also the CEO of ShardLab, the innovation lab of Hashed, and the Chief Strategy Officer of UNOPND, a venture builder arm of Hashed.

Previous background: Prior to joining the Hashed group, he was a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group(BCG). He also spent years as a quant analyst at Korea Asset Pricing, a subsidiary of Global credit rating provider Fitch Rating.

Hojin received a BS in Computer Science from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

The big idea: Hojin through Maroo aims to preserve the openness and scalability of public blockchains while also addressing regulatory compliance, auditability, and privacy. Maroo aims to build digital financial infra optimized for the KRW economy.

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INSIGHTS

Ark Invest Sees Tokenized Assets Reaching $11T by 2030

Source: Ark Invest

Ark Invest estimates tokenized assets could grow from roughly $20B today to more than $11T by 2030, driven by traditional financial instruments moving onchain.

Today, tokenization is dominated by sovereign debt, especially US Treasurys.
Ark expects the next phase of growth to come from bank deposits and public equities as institutions move beyond pilots into real deployment.
Momentum is already building, the NYSE plans to launch a blockchain based venue for tokenized stocks and ETFs.
Meanwhile, firms like State Street and F/m Investments are pushing tokenized funds, deposits, and settlement infrastructure.
Even at $11T, Ark notes tokenized assets would still represent only about 1.4% of global financial assets, suggesting most value remains offchain.

DEAL FLOWS

Superstate Raises $82.5M for Onchain Equity Issuance

Deal flows soared this week - we saw $370M+ in deals 💼

Superstate has raised $82.5M in a Series B round led by Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global to scale its onchain equity issuance infrastructure. The funding brings the firm’s total disclosed capital raised to over $100M.

The company plans to expand beyond tokenized US Treasury products into a broader issuance layer for SEC registered equities on Ethereum and Solana.
Its platform allows public companies to issue tokenized shares directly to investors, with stablecoin payments and real time settlement, without relying on traditional underwriters.
Superstate said assets under management across its tokenized products have surpassed $1.2B.
The firm will use the new capital to deepen regulated market infra, including compliant issuance, settlement, shareholder recordkeeping, and transfer agent services, as tokenization moves from pilots into live primary markets.

Deal flows in the past week:

Bitway, $4.44M Seed Round
Akedo, $5M Seed Round
Cork Protocol, $5.5M Seed Round
Veera, $10M Seed Round
Finst, $9.35M Series A Round
Superstate, $82.5M Series B Round
Bitway, $1M Public Token Sale
Sentient, $7.6M Public Token Sale
Space, $14M Public Token Sale
Warden Protocol, $4M Strategic Round
River, $8M Strategic Round
Immunefi, $2.5M IEO Round
BitGo, $212.8M IPO
HyperLend, $1.7M Unknown Round
CheckSig, $4.1M Unknown Round

QUICK BITES

Superstate raises $82.5M Series B funding.
Farcaster to repay $180M to venture backers.
Ledger mulls New York IPO at over $4B valuation.
South Korea loses $48M in seized Bitcoin to phishing scam.
Spot BTC, ETH ETF outflows accelerate, totaling nearly $1B.
YZi Labs backs BitGo IPO as crypto custodian debuts on NYSE.
Ethereum mainnet daily active addresses surpass all layer-2s.
Trump sues JPMorgan over allegedly terminating bank accounts.
US bank lobby says stopping stablecoin yields a top 2026 priority.
US market structure bill faces weeks of delay as focus shifts to housing.
Institutional crypto adoption has passed the ‘point of reversibility,’ PwC says.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

Green But Red’s read on Privacy Thesis for 2026.
Stacy’s read on Why AI Agents Need Blockchains.
DeFi Warhol’s read on 50 High-Conviction Crypto Projects to Track.

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.