Avalanche Summit: Kevin Miao makes the case for tokenization to reshape consumer lending

Consumer lending is one of the most intermediary-heavy corners of finance. Between the bank that originates a loan, the servicer that collects payments, and the securitizer that packages it all up for investors, a surprising amount of every dollar a borrower pays gets siphoned off before it reaches the people actually providing the capital. Kevin Miao thinks tokenization can fix that.

Miao, co-founder and CEO of Tare, took the stage at the Avalanche Summit 2026 in New York City to argue that onchain infrastructure can strip out those middlemen and return more value directly to borrowers.

From BlockTower to Tare: building the case onchain

Miao previously founded BlockTower Credit, a private credit fund that grew to manage $1.9 billion in assets under management by leveraging blockchain technology to improve capital efficiency in lending operations.

Tare is positioning itself as consumer lending infrastructure built natively on the Avalanche blockchain, designed to move the entire lending stack onchain rather than just tokenizing the final asset. Miao’s argument is that putting a digital wrapper on a traditional loan after it’s already been originated, serviced, and structured through conventional channels misses the point. The real gains come from rebuilding the process itself onchain, eliminating the layers of intermediaries that currently extract fees at every stage.

His challenge to the industry at the summit was straightforward: measure whether onchain methods actually produce better outcomes for borrowers.

Avalanche’s institutional push

The Avalanche Summit, held September 16-17, was heavily oriented toward institutional adoption and real-world asset utilization, with speakers from firms including Franklin Templeton and Securitize discussing onchain credit and the mechanics of bringing traditional financial products onto blockchain rails.

A collaboration with Hanwha Group for tokenized securities was among the developments highlighted at the event. Aave’s V4 launch on Avalanche in July 2026 marked Aave’s first expansion outside of Ethereum. Aave V4 on Avalanche is specifically targeting tokenized asset lending.

Why intermediaries are expensive

When someone takes out a personal loan or finances a car, the interest rate they pay reflects far more than just the risk of default. It includes origination fees, servicing costs, compliance overhead, and profit margins for every entity in the chain. Tokenization, as Miao frames it, automates or eliminates these functions through smart contracts. A loan originated onchain can have its payment collection, compliance checks, and investor distribution handled programmatically, reducing the number of parties that need to take a cut.

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