Centrifuge tokenizes New York Life’s high-yield bond strategy on Avalanche

New York Life Investment Management is moving a US high-yield corporate bond strategy onto Avalanche through a partnership with tokenization firm Centrifuge, restricting access to qualified institutional buyers who will subscribe and redeem using USDC. The deal extends blockchain-based fund infrastructure beyond the Treasury products that have dominated tokenization to date, pulling actively managed credit onto public rails from a manager overseeing more than $300 billion in assets.

• NYLIM, which manages over $300 billion in assets, is tokenizing a high-yield corporate bond strategy with Centrifuge.
• The product runs on Avalanche, with subscriptions and redemptions settled in USDC rather than traditional cash transfers.
• Access is limited to qualified institutional buyers, not retail investors, under the terms of the September 17 announcement.

• $300B NYLIM’s total assets under management behind the pilot
• Sep 17 date the tokenization partnership was announced
• USDC stablecoin used for fund subscriptions and redemptions

New York Life Investment Management is taking one of its fixed-income strategies onchain, partnering with Centrifuge to tokenize a US high-yield corporate bond product, according to a report by newsbtc.com. The firms confirmed the plan will run on Avalanche, with qualified institutional buyers able to move in and out of the fund using USDC instead of wire transfers.

This is not a retail crypto play. Centrifuge is supplying tokenization infrastructure around an institutional strategy that NYLIM already manages through traditional channels.

NYLIM Brings $300 Billion in Assets to an Onchain Test

NYLIM oversees more than $300 billion in assets, a scale that puts this pilot well beyond the boutique asset managers that have driven most tokenization experiments to date. Using Avalanche gives the fund a blockchain settlement and ownership layer, while USDC acts as the digital-dollar rail for subscriptions and redemptions.

For institutions, that combination can compress the operational lag between committing cash and holding fund interests, particularly as tokenized products are increasingly designed to settle outside conventional market hours. The structure mirrors the mechanics behind tokenized Treasury funds, but applies them to a materially different asset class, according to the announcement from Centrifuge and NYLIM.

Access Stays Limited to Qualified Institutional Buyers

The product is not open to the public. Eligibility is restricted to qualified institutional buyers, a limitation that matters when gauging how far this tokenization effort actually reaches.

What stands out is the asset type moving onchain rather than the distribution model. Tokenized Treasury products have already become the clearest proof point for institutional blockchain adoption.

High-yield corporate bonds carry a different risk and return profile than government debt, and bringing them onto the same rails signals that tokenization is extending into actively managed credit rather than staying confined to cash-like instruments.

Efforts to route mainstream fund yield through blockchain infrastructure point to a broader pattern of asset managers testing where blockchain settlement adds value without changing who can buy in.

Centrifuge Adds a Major Manager to Its Credit Tokenization Roster

The September 17 announcement adds NYLIM to the group of established asset managers testing how conventional investment products can be issued and serviced on public blockchain rails. Centrifuge has built its business around structuring exactly this kind of institutional-grade tokenization, positioning itself as infrastructure rather than a consumer-facing product.

No timeline for launch, minimum investment size, or target fund capacity has been disclosed publicly beyond the partnership announcement itself. That leaves open how quickly qualified institutional buyers will actually deploy capital into the tokenized structure once it goes live.

The CCS read. The real signal here is not the blockchain plumbing but NYLIM’s willingness to let a $300 billion manager’s credit strategy touch public rails at all. If a high-yield fund settles cleanly in USDC on Avalanche, expect other credit managers to treat tokenized Treasuries as the warm-up act rather than the endpoint.

Neither NYLIM nor Centrifuge has disclosed a launch date, minimum ticket size, or expected fund capacity beyond the September 17 announcement, leaving the pace of institutional uptake as the open question heading into the product’s rollout.