BlackRock’s digital asset experiment is crushing it. The finance giant’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) has exploded in popularity, surging 50% in value over just six days. Not bad for a fund that launched only in March 2024. The Ethereum-based fund recently crossed the $1 billion mark in assets under management—a milestone that proves traditional finance is getting comfortable with blockchain.
BlackRock’s BUIDL fund is skyrocketing—up 50% in less than a week and surpassing $1 billion in assets just months after launch.
The fund’s growth trajectory has been nothing short of remarkable. Starting with $245 million in its first week, BUIDL hit $502.8 million by July. Now it’s doubled that. How? Well, crypto protocol Ethena just dropped a casual $200 million into the fund, pushing it over the billion-dollar threshold. That’s what friends are for.
BUIDL isn’t your typical crypto project. It’s backed by actual stuff—U.S. Treasury bills and repo agreements. The fund provides investors with stable and predictable income while maintaining blockchain efficiency. The fund’s architecture is designed to provide instantaneous settlement of transactions, as highlighted by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. The price stays pegged to $1, and holders get yield from these underlying assets. It’s like boring traditional finance, but make it blockchain.
Originally launched on Ethereum, BUIDL has now expanded to five additional blockchains: Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, and Polygon. Thanks to Wormhole’s cross-chain tech, tokens can move seamlessly between networks. Like many DeFi projects, it offers users complete control over their digital assets without intermediaries. Convenient, right?
The fund offers features that make institutional investors salivate: flexible custody options, daily dividends, and near real-time transfers that work 24/7/365. No wonder it’s become a go-to reserve asset for yield-generating products.
BUIDL’s success isn’t happening in isolation. The entire tokenized Treasury market has grown nine-fold since early 2023. It’s increasingly used as collateral on trading platforms, showing that big institutions are finally warming up to the whole tokenization thing.
BlackRock CEO sees this as a technological transformation for financial assets. Looking ahead, BUIDL is expected to expand to even more blockchain ecosystems as tokenization of real-world assets gains momentum. The future of finance? It might just be on-chain.
