BlackRock's BUIDL Fund Tops $500M as Tokenized Treasury Market Soars

Global asset manager BlackRock's BUIDL token, issued in partnership Securitize and backed by U.S. Treasuries, has surpassed $500 million market value on Monday, Ethereum blockchain data by Etherscan shows.

It's the first tokenized treasury product to achieve the milestone, taking only four months since its debut in March.

The growth for BlackRock's tokenized product has been fueled by other decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols such as Ondo Finance and Mountain Protocol using BUIDL as a backing asset for their own yield-products. Digital asset brokers such as FalconX and, most recently, Hidden Road, also added the token to collateral assets for their institutional investor clients across their networks.

"BUIDL continues to become the base tokenized asset for many other innovative RWA products to be built on," Carlos Domingo, CEO of Securitize, told CoinDesk in an email.

U.S. Treasuries are at the forefront of tokenization of real-world asset, as digital asset firms and global financial heavyweights race to put traditional instruments such as government bonds, private credit and funds on blockchain rails, aiming to achieve faster settlements and operational efficiencies.

Read more: McKinsey Sees Just $2T of Tokenized RWAs by 2030 in Base Case, With Broad Adoption 'Still Far Away'

Many digital asset companies, investors seek these Treasury-backed offerings as a low-risk instrument where they can park their blockchain-based cash and earn a stable yield without leaving the blockchain ecosystem.

The overall tokenized treasury market, including BUIDL, has more than doubled this year, growing to $1.8 billion as of June 7 from $780 million in January, according to data provider rwa.xyz shows.

BlackRock's offering is leading among the tokenized products, claiming roughly 27% market share. Some major players also enjoyed significant inflows over the past month, rwa.xyz shows. Franklin Templeton's offering welled 16% to $400 million, while Hashnote's and OpenEden's product grew 40% and 89%, respectively.