The USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) made headlines in March with a remarkable distribution of $4.17 million in dividends, representing the largest monthly payout seen in a tokenized Treasury fund.
As detailed in a report from its creator, this unprecedented distribution elevates BUIDL’s total dividend payouts to $25.4 million since its launch, highlighting a growing institutional appetite for on-chain access to traditional financial instruments.
Furthermore, the report indicates that the March distribution is approximately double the previous high of $2.1 million recorded in July 2024.
The fund employs a tokenized money market strategy focused on US Treasuries and cash equivalents, allowing for daily dividend disbursements from Monday to Friday. This enables investors to accrue yields in near real-time directly on-chain.
Tokenized US Treasury funds are establishing themselves as a core component of on-chain finance, providing verifiable, yield-generating support and serving as an alternative to crypto-native stablecoins. This sector has grown to become the second largest in tokenization, with a nearly $5 billion market size.
$1.9 Billion Market Cap Driven by DeFi
As of March 27, BUIDL’s assets under management (AUM) reached an all-time peak of $1.93 billion, just a few weeks after surpassing the $1 billion mark.
According to data from rwa.xyz, this rapid growth positions it among the largest products involving real-world assets (RWAs) on public blockchains, trailing only four stablecoins in terms of market capitalization.
A significant contributor to the growth of BUIDL’s AUM is Ethena Labs’ synthetic dollar, USDtb, which utilizes the fund for 90% of its backing. As per the latest information provided by Ethena Labs, USDtb has $1.29 billion tied up in BUIDL, representing 67% of the fund’s overall market value.
USDtb is designed to maintain price stability through a delta-neutral strategy, channeling reserve capital into BUIDL to earn yields from US Treasury investments. This framework has made BUIDL a vital element in Ethena’s stablecoin strategy, effectively linking conventional fixed-income assets to crypto-native technologies.
Additionally, MakerDAO’s Spark is set to vote on April 3 regarding the protocol’s proposal to invest $500 million in BUIDL.
Should this move be approved, it would further enhance the fund’s market size, with investments from DeFi protocols potentially constituting 74% of current figures.
Multi-Chain Fund, Yet Ethereum Leads the Way
BUIDL is actively broadening its presence across various blockchains. Following its initial launch on Ethereum, the fund has expanded to include Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, Avalanche, Aptos, and most recently, Solana.
This multi-chain rollout aligns with the strategy to make institutional-grade financial products readily available across decentralized environments, streamlining integration with protocols and wallets across different ecosystems.
Nevertheless, $1.72 billion worth of BUIDL shares are currently issued on the Ethereum blockchain, accounting for nearly 90% of the fund’s total size.
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