$1B Floods Into Tokenized Treasuries as TradFi Sleepwalks Into Crypto

Wall Street’s ’safe’ bonds go blockchain—proving even risk-averse money can’t resist DeFi’s siren call.

April’s $1B surge in tokenized treasury products exposes the open secret: institutions want yield, just without the paperwork. Who needs a 60-year-old custodian when a smart contract does it better?

Bonus jab: Meanwhile, legacy finance still charges 2% fees for the privilege of holding your T-bills hostage.

BUIDL’s dominance grows

The dominance of BlackRock’s BUIDL fund continues to grow, driving 64% of inflows over the past 30 days with $621.7 million, according to rwa.xyz. BUIDL now boasts a TVL of nearly $2.56 billion and accounts for 41.5% of the sector’s combined TVL.

BUIDL’s TVL is up 303% from $635.7 million on January 22, while its dominance over the sector has more than doubled from 18.3% over the same period.

Despite BUIDL expanding onto new chains in recent months, Ethereum accounts for more than 95% of the fund’s TVL with almost $2.44 billion. BUIDL went live on Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, OP Mainnet, and Polygon on November 17 and deployed on Solana on March 25. Each alternative chain hosts between $20 million and $55 million in TVL.

While Larry Fink, BlackRock’s CEO, praised tokenization as a vehicle for democratization in his annual letter to shareholders published on March 31, only four wallets hold nearly 80% of BUIDL’s assets.

Superstate’s USTB emerges among leading tokenized treasuries funds

Superstate’s USTB fund continues to climb the tokenized treasuries rankings. The fund now boasts a TVL of $652.6 million after growing by $292 million or 81% in 30 days. USTB’s TVL is also up 182% since the start of the year.

USTB is rapidly closing in on Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund, which ranks as the sector’s second-largest product with $707.8 million. BENJI’s TVL has trended sideways since March, growing by just 4.39% in the past six weeks.

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