When we covered the BlackRock announcement last week of their new tokenized treasuries fund I thought it was a big deal.
One week in, this new investment vehicle (ticker symbol BUIDL) is proving to be quite popular. On-chain data shows that $245 million worth of BUIDL shares are now held in seven different wallets. That is the beauty of blockchain data, everything is transparent.
The tokenized fund was deployed on Ethereum last week with an initial investment of $5 million. The fund holds U.S. Treasuries and repurchase agreements with shareholders earning yield in the form of BUIDL shares. The price of BUIDL is pegged at $1, like a typical money market fund.
With BlackRock now involved, 2024 could be a breakout year for the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA). HSBC has launched a tokenized gold product in Hong Kong and there are many other projects around the world coming online.
Tokenization of RWA has had slow adoption since it was first imagined several years ago. But now that some of the biggest financial institutions on the planet are actively involved, there is serious momentum in this sub-niche of blockchain technology.
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