BlackRock’s BUIDL surged 200% in weeks — but it has fewer than 11 holders
After a flying start, inflows into BlackRock’s Ethereum-based tokenised fund are leveling out.
BUIDL began with $100 million in funding, and attracted another $160 million in the week after its March 20 launch.
That leap was largely accounted for by buy-in from tokenisation firm Ondo Finance, which told CoinDesk in March it was moving $95 million of assets to the fund to settle its own Treasury-backed token.
Ondo said in a blog post it was using BUIDL to speed settlement times for its customers.
Since Ondo’s investment, BUIDL’s growth has eased, with the fund at $297 million in assets under management on Thursday.
Onchain analysis shows that only 11 wallets have acquired tokens from the fund.
About 90% of the supply is concentrated among five of them.
Apart from the wallet that belongs to Ondo, three exhibit similar transaction activity, which suggests they may belong to the same entity.
BlackRock didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Asked if growth appeared somewhat slow and concentrated, Securitize founder Carlos Domingo told DL News, “In a few weeks, BUIDL has become the fastest-growing tokenised fund in history.”
Securitize Markets worked with BlackRock to act as the platform and placement agent for BUIDL.
Ondo didn’t respond to a request for comment.
‘Next evolution of financial markets’
BUIDL, or the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, holds a mix of cash, short-term debt agreements, and US Treasury bonds.
A tokenised fund is a fund whose shares, or units, trade on a blockchain. At its March 20 launch, BUIDL was billed as BlackRock’s first tokenised fund issued on a public blockchain.
It promised investors the opportunity to earn US dollar yields by subscribing through Securitize.
The move was greeted with excitement by financial analysts. Research firm Bernstein called it “the next evolution of financial markets, similar to the ETF wave of the last two decades.”
It’s significant that BlackRock — by far the world’s biggest asset manager — is throwing its weight behind tokenisation.
CEO Larry Fink has touted tokenisation of all financial assets as the “ultimate goal” of digital asset technologies in financial markets.
The fund — which has a minimum buy-in of $5 million and is available to qualified investors only — is aimed at institutions looking to perform functions with digital cash.
Its partners include the uber-traditional global custodian BNY Mellon, to safeguard the T-bills, as well as Coinbase and Fireblocks, which hold users’ tokens.
On April 11, stablecoin issuer Circle announced a smart contract service it said would provide BUIDL users with a near-instant conversion from the BUIDL token to USDC.
Joanna Wright and Tom Carreras write about markets for DL News. Reach out to them at [email protected] or [email protected].
