Ten dairy cows in Paraná, Brazil, served as collateral for nearly $20,000 in credit through tokenization on the B3 platform, their digital identities built from health, behavior and location data collected by Cowmed collars. This pilot proves that livestock can become a financial asset for farmers who lack the land titles banks require. The global gap between SME borrowing needs and actual access stands at $5.7 trillion, rising to $8 trillion when informal enterprises are included. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for roughly $331 billion of this gap, with the African Development Bank reporting credit access for smallholder farmers at just 6%. The success of this approach depends on connecting animal identity registries, insurance and creditor claims, with Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya and Pakistan already having some infrastructure in place but lacking integrated lending products.
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