Lloyd Wahed, CEO of MembersCap, shares how his firm is expanding access to reinsurance through blockchain tokenisation- offering uncorrelated, yield-generating opportunities to both traditional institutions and the growing digital-native investor base.

Unlocking Reinsurance for the Modern Investor

“MembersCap was created to expand access to reinsurance as an asset class,” says Wahed. Traditionally the domain of large institutional players, reinsurance offers portfolio diversification benefits due to its lack of correlation with broader financial markets.

According to Wahed, it’s precisely this attribute that has made it increasingly attractive to both traditional private capital and digital-native investors seeking risk-remote, high-yield assets.

“There is an enormous pool of unserved and underserved capital – both traditional private capital and an expanding class of digital-native capital – looking for greater diversification in their portfolios,” Wahed explains. “We are fundamentally an asset manager delivering on our investment policy, but we have structured ourselves to take advantage of the rapidly converging worlds of TradFi and DeFi to create access for this new class of investor.”

The Mechanics and Merits of Tokenisation

At the heart of MembersCap’s strategy lies blockchain technology. But for Wahed, tokenisation is not about hype, it’s about infrastructure.

“Tokenising any fund, reinsurance or otherwise, really refers to creating a blockchain-based ledger, or book-of-record of ownership of the fund units and the fund,” he says. “Each tokenised fund unit is anchored to this ledger through a smart contract, which carries the data of the fund itself, and the ownership credentials of the unit owner.”

This infrastructure allows near-instantaneous trading, settlement, and redemption, while enabling automated pricing, reporting, and execution of corporate actions.

For institutional investors, tokenisation translates into faster reporting, more efficient compliance monitoring, and reduced operational friction. “Tokenisation makes investing in reinsurance simpler and more accessible, even for institutions,” Wahed adds.

From Lloyd’s to the Blockchain

MembersCap has structured trades to cover exposures like natural catastrophes and cyber risk. The firm works closely with Lloyd’s of London syndicates and top-tier reinsurance brokers to execute these deals.

In an industry where trust and long-term relationships still dominate, MembersCap’s differentiated capital base provides a new kind of reliability.

“Reinsurance is an industry that is built on the concept of trust,” Wahed says. “These relationships are fundamental to our ability to access trades that not only deliver positive outcomes to our investors but also align with the syndicates and other partners’ long-term risk transfer strategies.”

Scaling Up: Roadmap and Strategy

Looking ahead, MembersCap’s strategy revolves around scaling beyond its flagship vehicle, MCM Fund I. While this fund acts as a stable entry point into reinsurance for institutional capital, the future lies in expanding access to wealth managers, DeFi institutions, and digital-native capital pools.

“These investors are looking for capital protection, low duration, and high yield,” Wahed explains. “Traditional institutions can be accessed through actuarial intermediaries, but DeFi balance sheets are relying on a new array of advisors, digital private banks, and related service providers to help manage their treasuries.”

To meet this need, MembersCap is building an ecosystem of financial institutions, technology partners, and distribution platforms that can handle the specific structural, custodial, and jurisdictional needs of each client segment.

“Our goal is to increase access to reinsurance as an investment in general and continue to build on our leadership role in bringing its attributes to digital finance.”

Educating a New Class of Investor

Reinsurance and blockchain might seem worlds apart, but MembersCap is intent on closing that gap through education and digital enablement.

“MembersCap has developed a thought-leadership role in the digital asset world, specifically with respect to the tokenisation of alternative classes of securities,” says Wahed. This means having a deep command of the regulatory, compliance, and operational nuances of digital asset securities and educating both intermediaries and end-clients through conferences and joint meetings.

“Digital onboarding is enabling automation of a very time-consuming process,” Wahed adds, citing improvements in AML/KYC as a key enabler of smoother client experiences.

Chasing the $10tn Opportunity

With the global insurance protection gap estimated at $10tn, MembersCap is targeting geographies where both reinsurance and digital assets already have strong foundations.

“We are finding a concentration of opportunities with investors in Switzerland and the United Kingdom,” Wahed notes, “but clearly, our longer-term growth opportunities are in Asia, the Middle East, and the USA.”

He points out that jurisdictions like Bermuda, London, and Zurich/Zug have become hubs for both reinsurance and tokenised finance, a convergence that MembersCap is uniquely positioned to capitalise on.

Tokenisation: Future Infrastructure, Present Access

While the benefits of tokenisation such as increased liquidity, cost reduction, and secondary market access may take time to fully materialise, Wahed sees today’s most compelling advantage in democratising access.

“In our view, the most important element of tokenisation as of today is unlocking access for the growing class of investors who would not otherwise be able to get exposure to reinsurance,” he says. That includes smaller institutions and DeFi-native players who are seeking scalable yield strategies without correlation to equities, bonds, or crypto.

Looking ahead five years, Wahed expects tokenisation to become a cornerstone of the asset management industry. “There is huge movement in the direction of tokenisation and blockchain infrastructure at the largest financial institutions and global financial intermediaries,” he says. “We believe there is a generational shift occurring amongst investors that demand more access, more transparency and more optionality.”

Wahed’s Cross-Disciplinary Approach

Wahed’s journey across executive search, fintech, and blockchain gives him a unique vantage point for building a company like MembersCap. “This is an undertaking that requires having a fundamental understanding of three completely different stakeholders: the reinsurance world, the traditional asset management world, and the crypto world,” he says.

He credits this multidisciplinary background and his co-founder Patrick Barrett’s complementary experience for helping the team navigate what they jokingly call the “Bermuda Triangle” of global finance.

Through his previous work at Mana Group and his podcast Searching for Mana, Wahed gained valuable insights into founders and financial innovators. “You start to see who’s building with real intent versus who’s chasing narrative,” he says. “And you learn that long-term value creation looks fairly consistent, regardless of the sector.”

TradFi vs. Crypto: Misunderstandings and Merging Paths

Wahed believes there are still blind spots between the traditional and crypto-native financial worlds.

“TradFi probably underestimates how fast the crypto-native world can build and iterate,” he says, “And crypto often underestimates how much trust, governance, and process matter at scale.” With MembersCap, he aims to take the best from both: “credible, regulated risk with more efficient and more widely accessible infrastructure.”

The Bigger Picture: Reinsurance in the Modern Portfolio

As institutional capital floods into digital assets, reinsurance-linked products could offer a valuable diversification tool in next-gen portfolios. “Both of these things are linked to a larger trend, which is toward greater access to a greater number of asset classes,” says Wahed. “Perhaps especially reinsurance because it is such a wonderful natural portfolio diversifier.”

He adds, “I want my daughter to grow up being able to manage a diversified personal portfolio that moves beyond a simple 60/40, but which doesn’t require a $100m check to get access.”

Macro Uncertainty, Micro Precision

With macroeconomic turbulence from inflation to geopolitical risks roiling global markets, uncorrelated assets like reinsurance have become more attractive than ever.

“In this environment, we would expect investors to seek shelter in assets with lower or no correlation to broader macro trends,” Wahed concludes. “Fundamentally, uncorrelated assets like reinsurance definitely become increasingly attractive, and so our mission is to provide investors that access.”