BlackRock’s Tokenised Fund Hits $100M in Dividends, Signalling Institutional Onchain Shift

BlackRock’s tokenised money market fund has distributed US$100 million (AU$153 million) in dividends since launching in March 2024, a sign that blockchain-based versions of traditional funds are being used beyond pilots.

The BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, known as BUIDL, issues tokens that are pegged to the US dollar. Holders receive dividend payments onchain, based on income from the fund’s underlying portfolio of short-term, US dollar assets such as US Treasury bills, repurchase agreements and cash equivalents.

Read more: Canton Network Trial Proves Real-Time Collateral Reuse for Tokenised Treasuries

The payout total reflects lifetime distributions generated from Treasury-linked yields and delivered through token ownership, matching the core mechanics of a standard money market-style product while using blockchain rails for issuance, record-keeping and automated distributions.

Securitize, which handles token issuance and investor onboarding for the product, announced the cumulative dividend figure on Monday. BUIDL was first issued on Ethereum and has since expanded to six additional blockchains, including Solana, Aptos, Avalanche and Optimism.

Industry Leaders Divided on Role of Tokenisation

Interestingly enough, Securitize’s CEO, Carlos Domingo, has a very straightforward stance when it comes to tokenised assets, stating that putting assets on the blockchain doesn’t magically make them easier to sell. In other words, it doesn’t change their basic market profile. “An illiquid asset is illiquid whether you tokenize it or not”, he said.

Others, particularly Wall Street and crypto leaders, are divided on how the SEC should regulate tokenisation, with executives at Citadel demanding the regulator to force DeFi protocols to identify all intermediaries in trades of tokenised US equities, which sparked outrage from the crypto community.

Related: Amundi Launches First Tokenised Money Market Fund Share Class on Ethereum

Overall, tokenised US Treasuries are becoming one of the fastest-growing sectors, to the point that Canton Network is now hosting a trial for a pilot project using them as collateral for transactions.

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