On March 25, Ethena Labs acquired an additional $225 million of BUIDL tokens from BlackRock, as reported by Arkham Intelligence.
This latest acquisition means that Ethena (ENA) now possesses a total of $1.29 billion in BUIDL tokens. This increase has strengthened Ethena’s foothold in the growing market for tokenized U.S. Treasuries. At the center of its approach is USDtb, Ethena’s synthetic dollar designed for yield generation.
USDtb offers investors a way to benefit from Treasury yields while ensuring accessibility on-chain. Currently, the token is backed by $1.4 billion in assets, 90% of which consist of BUIDL tokens, alongside Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), according to information from the platform’s official site.
With an average yield of 4.34%, the market for tokenized U.S. Treasuries has expanded to $5.2 billion, based on data from RWA.xyz. This sector is increasingly drawing in institutional investors, thanks in part to blockchain technology enhancing settlement speeds and market efficiency.
Formally known as the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, BUIDL is a tokenized money market fund introduced in March 2024 in collaboration with Securitize. It offers U.S. dollar yields through investments in cash, Treasury bills, and repurchase agreements.
BUIDL has seen rapid growth, exceeding $1.9 billion in assets under management and capturing a 37% share of the tokenized U.S. Treasuries market. This growth has outstripped competitors such as Franklin Templeton’s On-Chain U.S. Government Money Fund ($692 million) and Hashnote’s Short Duration Yield Coin ($751 million).
On March 25, the expansion of BUIDL to Solana (SOL) was announced by BlackRock and Securitize, broadening its availability to seven blockchains including Ethereum (ETH), Aptos (APT), and Arbitrum (ARB). BUIDL is also emerging as a significant reserve asset for decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms like Sky (previously MakerDAO).
At the same time, Fidelity Investments is preparing to launch its own tokenized U.S. money market fund and a proprietary stablecoin. These advancements reflect the increasing interest in merging traditional financial systems with blockchain-based assets.