BlackRock, with the recent launch of its USD Corporate Digital Liquidity Fund, now has over 1 billion dollars in U.S. Treasuries on Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, and other blockchain networks. BlackRock’s product, named BUIDL, was launched on Ethereum on March 20th and currently holds a market value of 244.8 million dollars.
U.S. Treasuries and Blockchain
According to Etherscan, four transactions totaling 95 million dollars over the week have supported the fund, making it the second-largest tokenized government securities fund. Data compiled by Dune Analytics dashboard from the parent company of 21Shares shows that BUIDL is currently only trailing behind Franklin Templeton’s 11-month-old Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX), which holds 360.2 million dollars in U.S. Treasuries. The dashboard currently indicates that 1.08 billion dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds have been tokenized across 17 products.
BlackRock’s fund received its latest 79.3 million dollar deposit from Ondo Finance, a real-world asset tokenization firm that will enable instant payments for its own U.S. Treasury-backed token, OUSG. According to Etherscan, the firm has deposited a total of 95 million dollars in four transactions.
Tom Wan, a research strategist at 21.co, stated in a March 27th post that Ondo Finance holds a 38% stake in BUIDL. The price of BUIDL is pegged at a 1:1 ratio with the U.S. dollar and pays out dividends that accrue daily directly to investors each month. This process was initiated on Ethereum through the Securitize protocol.
What’s Happening in the RWA Space?
Dune dashboard at 21.co described tokenized government treasuries as more attractive than stablecoin yields in terms of risk and return, considering the current high-interest-rate environment. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink recently mentioned that blockchain tokenization could make capital markets more efficient, which Boston Consulting Group predicts will become a 16 trillion dollar market by 2030.
U.S. Treasury bonds are just one slice of the pie, with stocks, real estate, and many other assets also being tokenized. Ethereum also accounts for 700 million dollars of all tokenized real-world assets (RWA). Franklin Templeton’s FOBXX has been tokenized on Stellar and Polygon, holding the second and third largest market shares in tokenized products, with 358 million dollars and 13 million dollars, respectively.
WisdomTree is another major asset management firm tokenizing RWAs, while Ondo Finance, Backed Finance, Matrixdock, Maple Finance, and Swarm are among the firms operating in this blockchain-specific field.
