BUIDL and UNI purchases are being implemented in parallel, expanding on-chain trading of institutional tokenized securities.
);)
BlackRock announced today that it is introducing its USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, BUIDL, to the Uniswap decentralized exchange. This will allow institutional investors to trade tokenized government bond-based securities on-chain. This move marks the first time a major Wall Street asset manager has directly leveraged DeFi infrastructure.
As part of this collaboration, BlackRock also announced the acquisition of Uniswap's governance token, UNI, for an undisclosed amount. The collaboration was led by tokenization specialist Securitize. Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo stated, "This partnership will enable institutions and whitelisted investors to trade tokenized real assets like BUIDL in a self-custody manner through a leading DeFi protocol."
According to reports, initial trading will be limited to qualified institutional investors and select market makers, with gradual expansion planned. BUIDL is the largest tokenized money market fund, with total assets exceeding $2.18 billion, according to RWA.xyz. The fund will be issued on multiple blockchains, including Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), BNBchain, Aptos, and Avalanche.
BUIDL surpassed $100 million in cumulative government bond allocations in December of last year. Through this, BlackRock clearly demonstrated its strategy to accelerate the on-chain transfer of traditional financial assets and expand access to DeFi for institutional investors.
Wall Street's growing trend toward tokenization continues. Goldman Sachs and the Bank of New York (BNY) are collaborating to expand institutional access to tokenized money market products. Last year, JPMorgan strategist Teresa Ho analyzed that tokenization could partially offset the liquidity shifts associated with the growth of stablecoins by enabling money market fund holdings to be used as collateral.
Markets predict that if the GENIUS Act promotes stablecoin adoption, it could also accelerate the growth of tokenized real-world asset RWA. Solomon Tesfaye, Chief Business Officer of Aptos Labs, stated that clear stablecoin rules could expand the adoption of on-chain finance.
Even as the cryptocurrency market recently undergoes a correction, Wall Street's experiments with on-chain asset tokenization are gaining momentum. It remains to be seen whether the influx of institutional capital into DeFi can drive structural change, independent of short-term price volatility.
Reporter Jeong Ha-yeon yomwork8824@blockstreet.co.kr
