
Centrifuge is an on-chain protocol for tokenizing real-world assets including trade receivables, mortgages, structured credit, and invoice financing. Asset originators (businesses with receivables) issue pools on-chain, investors provide liquidity, and the protocol manages repayment flows through smart contracts.
Tinlake is Centrifuge’s investment app on Ethereum that allows DeFi investors to supply DAI or USDC liquidity to RWA pools. Each pool is structured around a specific asset originator and asset class. Tinlake was the primary front-end for early Centrifuge pools and integrated with MakerDAO as a vault type, allowing Maker to deploy DAI into Centrifuge’s real-world credit pools.
Centrifuge Chain is a purpose-built Substrate chain that operates as a Polkadot parachain. This gives it access to Polkadot’s shared security and cross-chain messaging via XCMP. CFG is used for transaction fees, governance, and staking on Centrifuge Chain. The parachain model means Centrifuge inherits security from Polkadot’s relay chain validators rather than maintaining a fully independent validator set.
Each Centrifuge pool has two tranches. DROP (senior) receives fixed-rate returns and has first claim on repayments; TIN (junior) receives residual returns and absorbs first losses. This is a standard structured credit waterfall implemented on-chain.
CFG is the native token of Centrifuge Chain. Used for on-chain governance (protocol parameter changes, new feature activation), transaction fees, and staking by validators. It does not directly accrue protocol revenue from the RWA pools; its value is tied to network usage and governance rights over an increasingly active RWA infrastructure layer.