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- Ethena Labs acquires $225M in BUIDL tokens, boosting its holdings to $1.29B in tokenized U.S. Treasuries.
- USDtb, backed by $1.4B in assets, enables exposure to Treasury yields while staying on-chain.
- BUIDL expands to Solana, solidifying its 37% market share in tokenized U.S. Treasuries.
Ethena Labs chose to expand its hold in BlackRock’s BUIDL tokens on the 25th of March in a major acquisition costing $225 million, according to Arkham Intelligence. This brings Ethena’s total market value to $1.29 billion, which becomes a boost for Ethena in the emerging market of tokenized US Treasuries.
This is a part of Ethena’s strategy with the help of a USDtb, a synthetic dollar token. Through USDtb, investors get exposure to the Treasury yields effectively while the fund remains fully implemented on the blockchain. USDtb now has $1.4 billion of assets, of which 90% consists of BUIDL tokens, as per data from the platform website.
Rising Market for Tokenized Treasuries
The interest in Tokenized U.S. Treasuries has followed the upward trend with an average yield of 4.34%. Continued growth has resulted in this market reaching $5.2 billion, as per data from RWA.xyz. There is still an influx of institutional investors. Tokenization of Treasuries is attracting investors through enhanced speeds in the market due to blockchain technology.
The BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, or BUIDL, was launched in March 2024 with partner company Securitization. The money market fund is tokenized and provides U.S. dollar returns on money invested in Treasury bills, cash, and repurchase agreements. BUIDL has attracted more than $1.9 billion in assets under management.
Ethena Labs’ Strategic Growth
BUIDL is now serving as the 37% market maker of the tokenized U.S. Treasuries market. It has seen a market share growth greater than its competitors, such as Franklin Templeton’s On-Chain U.S. Government Money Fund portfolio, worth $692 million. Other competitors, as Hashnote’s Short Duration Yield Coin, have a market cap of $751 million.
On March 25, BlackRock and Securitize said that BUIDL would extend to Solana. This expansion allows BUIDL to be used on seven blockchains, namely Ethereum, Aptos, and Arbitrum (ARB). BUIDL is also becoming a reserve asset for DeFi programs such as Sky, which is formerly known as MakerDAO.
The Fidelity Investments company has declared plans to issue its tokenized money market fund based on the US dollar. The firm is also seeking to create its own stablecoin. These trends show a rising interest in the integration of traditional finance with blockchain assets.
Tokenization is on the rise, and the latest example is the acquisition of Ethana Labs, which belongs to this sphere. Since the rise of blockchain in the financial markets, more organizations such as Ethena Labs are set to emerge.
