NUVA has launched HOME, an ERC-20 token that gives eligible non-U.S. investors exposure to U.S. residential home-equity credit, with a minimum entry point of 1 USDC.
The token is tied to a managed pool that will initially hold home equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, originated through Figure Technology Solutions. NUVA is targeting a 7% annual return from the loans, with that target reset monthly. Interest income and loan performance flow through the vault’s net asset value, which determines the token’s price.
What HOME gives investors
HELOCs let homeowners borrow against the equity in their property. Borrowers receive access to a line of credit for a defined period, typically at a variable interest rate. According to Federal Reserve Economic Data, the value of HELOCs in the U.S. climbed to $460 billion in the second quarter.
HOME does not give holders ownership of individual loans. It gives them exposure to the pool as a whole. That matters because this asset class has usually been accessed through securitizations, private-credit funds or whole-loan purchases. HOME places a managed version of that exposure into decentralized finance.
“Traditional securitization was built primarily for institutional investors,” Nuva Labs CEO Anthony Moro said in an interview with CoinDesk. “For individual investors, those structures can be difficult to access.”
How it differs from earlier tokenized credit products
HOME is not the first tokenized private-credit product. Maple Finance has built onchain lending pools for institutional borrowers, and Centrifuge has been used to bring credit and structured products onchain. Figure already tokenizes HELOCs on its Provenance blockchain.
NUVA’s product differs in how it packages the exposure. Eligible non-U.S. users can enter a managed vault of Figure-originated home-equity loans with 1 USDC instead of buying whole loans or investing through a conventional private-credit fund.
“HOME holders do not directly own the underlying loans,” Moro said. “They hold HOME tokens that provide exposure to the assets held in the vault.”
NUVA has been working to connect Figure-originated assets to public blockchain ecosystems. HOME is also a test of whether crypto users want this kind of exposure in a tradable, composable token built to the Ethereum ERC-20 standard rather than through a conventional fund structure.
The company’s thesis is that DeFi already has demand for yield, so it does not need to create demand for the loans themselves. Figure’s consumer-loan marketplace processed $4.3 billion in volume in the second quarter, including $2.8 billion through Figure Connect, where whole-loan buyers and securitization investors purchase loans.
“HOME is not trying to create demand for residential credit from scratch,” Moro said. “It is taking an asset class that already has substantial institutional demand and making that exposure available through a more accessible onchain structure.”
The underlying market has also been growing. According to the New York Fed, U.S. HELOC balances rose by $13 billion in the second quarter, marking a 17th straight quarterly increase.
Available only to non-U.S. users
HOME will be offered only to eligible non-U.S. users. Moro said the U.K., Hong Kong, China, the British Virgin Islands and sanctioned jurisdictions are excluded. NUVA said it will enforce those restrictions through wallet screening and IP address blocking.
Initial portfolio standards
Moro said the first HOME portfolio will target HELOCs with an average FICO score of at least 735, a combined loan-to-value ratio of no more than 69%, and a debt-to-income ratio of no more than 40%. Exposure to California will be capped at 30%, while other states will be limited to 15%.
He added that debt-service coverage and residential-transition loans could be added later.
Redemptions and risk protections
The product has no lockup. Investors can request withdrawals at any time, though NUVA expects redemptions to take about two U.S. business days. The company said a 5% liquidity sleeve is intended to cover smaller withdrawals. Larger redemptions may require loans to be sold through Figure Connect or over the counter.
Moro said a separate first-loss equity allotment or segment, estimated at roughly 5% of the vault’s value, is designed to absorb defaults or losses from forced sales before they reach HOME holders.
He also said that while the structure provides a buffer, it does not remove the credit and liquidity risks tied to U.S. residential lending.
Loan-level data onchain
Moro said the goal is to make loan-level data available onchain, including collateral, delinquency, borrower-credit and loan-to-value metrics, instead of limiting investors to periodic fund reports.