BlackRock BUIDL tops $2 billion

BlackRock’s BUIDL fund crossing the $2 billion mark is a scale story first and a crypto story second. The product is BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, a tokenized fund launched in March 2024 on Ethereum with Securitize as transfer agent and tokenization platform. BlackRock said at launch that the fund invests 100% of its assets in cash, U.S. Treasury bills and repurchase agreements, while issuing blockchain-based ownership interests to qualified investors. ### What exactly is BUIDL? BlackRock described BUIDL at launch as its first tokenized fund issued on a public blockchain. The structure is straightforward: investors subscribe to the fund through Securitize Markets, and the fund then holds short-dated, low-risk assets rather than crypto tokens or venture-style positions. BlackRock said the fund seeks a stable value of $1 per token and pays daily accrued dividends to investors’ wallets as new tokens each month. (businesswire.com) The underlying portfolio matters here. BlackRock said the fund invests entirely in cash, U.S. Treasury bills and repurchase agreements, which places it closer to a digital money-market style product than to a speculative crypto vehicle. BNY Mellon serves as custodian of the fund’s assets and administrator, BlackRock said. (businesswire.com) ### Why does the $2 billion figure matter? RWA.xyz, a market tracker for tokenized real-world assets, showed BUIDL at $2.54 billion in total asset value on May 22, with a $1.00 net asset value and 105 holders. That makes the fund one of the largest tokenized Treasury products tracked on public blockchains. Forbes reported on May 21 that the fund had surpassed $2 billion across multiple blockchain networks and feeder funds. (businesswire.com) Securitize had previously announced on March 13, 2025, that BUIDL had crossed $1 billion in assets under management. In that release, Securitize chief executive Carlos Domingo said the milestone showed tokenized securities were “not just a concept,” while BlackRock executive Joseph Chalom said BUIDL demonstrated the viability of real-world assets on-chain. (app.rwa.xyz) ### How is this different from buying a Treasury ETF? BUIDL is built as an on-chain fund token rather than a conventional exchange-traded fund share. BlackRock said tokenization allows issuance and trading of ownership on a blockchain, with transfers available 24/7/365 between pre-approved investors and settlement designed to be faster and more transparent. (prnewswire.com) That does not mean it is open to everyone. BlackRock and Securitize said the product is for qualified or eligible investors, with access routed through regulated market infrastructure rather than open retail trading. The fund’s use case, as described by Securitize, has included treasury management, stablecoin backing, DeFi access and trading collateral. (businesswire.com) ### Where is the fund actually running? Securitize said in March 2025 that BUIDL had expanded beyond Ethereum to Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism and Polygon, with cross-chain interoperability enabled by Wormhole. RWA.xyz now lists supply across multiple networks including Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Aptos, Optimism, Arbitrum, Avalanche and Polygon. (businesswire.com) The multi-chain footprint helps explain how the fund kept growing after launch. BlackRock’s original March 2024 announcement named Anchorage Digital, BitGo, Coinbase and Fireblocks among the initial ecosystem participants supporting custody and infrastructure around the product. (prnewswire.com) ### Why are Securitize and KKR part of this story? Securitize is central because it handles tokenization and transfer-agent functions for BUIDL, according to BlackRock and Securitize. BlackRock also led a $47 million strategic funding round in Securitize in 2024, a deal Securitize linked to BlackRock’s selection of the firm for its first tokenized fund on a public blockchain. (businesswire.com) KKR appears in the story as another large asset manager using Securitize’s tokenization rails. KKR said a Securitize-managed fund offered tokenized exposure to KKR’s Health Care Strategic Growth Fund II, which KKR described as the first time exposure to one of its alternative investment strategies had been offered in digital format in the United States. (securitize.io) ### What comes next for BUIDL? BlackRock and Securitize have already signaled further expansion. Securitize said in its March 2025 release that BUIDL would continue expanding to new blockchain ecosystems and new use cases, and RWA.xyz’s May 22 data shows the fund still growing above the $2 billion threshold cited a day earlier. (prnewswire.com) (media.kkr.com)