BlackRock’s BUIDL Expands Across Major Blockchains—Is Tokenized Finance the Future?

BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund Expands Across Multiple Blockchains: A New Era for Tokenized Finance

BlackRock Takes BUIDL Multichain

Global asset manager BlackRock has announced the expansion of its tokenized money market fund, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), across nearly half a dozen blockchain networks. Initially launched on Ethereum, BUIDL will soon be accessible on Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, and Polygon, broadening its reach to a diverse range of decentralized financial ecosystems. Tokenized by Securitize, BUIDL is designed to provide low-risk, interest-bearing returns by investing in short-dated U.S. Treasury bills and other stable securities.

Carlos Domingo, CEO of Securitize, highlighted the advantages of expanding BUIDL to multiple chains, saying,

“With these new chains, we’ll start to see more investors looking to leverage the underlying technology to increase efficiencies on all the things that until now have been hard to do.”

The Demand for Tokenized Real-World Assets (RWAs)

Investor interest in tokenized real-world assets, particularly low-risk yields from U.S. Treasury bills, is growing rapidly. According to RWA.xyz, tokenized U.S. Treasury debt had accumulated a total value locked (TVL) of approximately $2.3 billion as of Nov. 13. BUIDL leads this trend as the largest tokenized treasury fund by assets under management (AUM), followed closely by Franklin Templeton’s OnChain US Government Money Fund, with AUMs of $510 million and $450 million, respectively.

Multichain Expansion: A Game-Changer for Financial Infrastructure

BlackRock’s multichain approach aims to embed BUIDL within leading blockchain-based financial products, offering unique on-chain features like 24/7 peer-to-peer transfers, real-time dividend distribution, and flexible custody options.

“Each new blockchain enables the ecosystem of applications and users to natively interact with BUIDL,” BlackRock said in its announcement, emphasizing the potential for greater on-chain liquidity and transaction efficiency.

A $30-Trillion Tokenized Market Opportunity

Tokenized RWAs are predicted to open a vast $30-trillion market opportunity globally, encompassing everything from Treasury bills to art. Colin Butler, Polygon’s global head of institutional capital, suggested that tokenization can enhance liquidity in treasury trading by reducing traditional settlement frictions.

The United States Treasury’s Q4 2024 report supports these views, stating that distributed ledger technology (DLT) and smart contracts could enhance transparency and efficiency.

“Immutable ledgers could allow for greater transparency in Treasury market operations, reducing opacity, and providing regulators, issuers, and investors with more real-time insight into trading activities,” the report noted.

Franklin Templeton and More Join the Tokenization Trend

The tokenized finance sector is booming, with players like Franklin Templeton, Liberara, and FundBridge Capital also moving into this space. Franklin Templeton announced it would launch its own tokenized fund on Base, Coinbase’s layer 2 network, while Liberara and FundBridge are introducing a tokenized U.S. Treasury bill fund on Avalanche.

As BlackRock and other major financial institutions continue to advance in blockchain-based finance, the potential of tokenized assets to reshape the financial landscape becomes ever clearer.