BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said on Wednesday it will make shares of its tokenized U.S. treasury fund, BUIDL, tradable on Uniswap, marking the asset manager’s first step into decentralized finance (DeFi).
As part of the move, BlackRock also revealed a strategic investment in Uniswap, buying an undisclosed amount of UNI, Uniswap’s governance token, which jumped 25% on the news and is now trading at $4.11.
BUIDL, which launched in 2024, is the largest tokenized US treasury fund on the market with nearly $2.2 billion in total value locked, according to data from rwa.xyz. It is a blockchain-based fund backed 100% by US Treasuries and cash, offering on-chain returns.
Its arrival on Uniswap – one of the largest decentralized exchanges – means that investors can now trade the tokenized fund in a peer-to-peer setting without a traditional intermediary.
To make this work, BlackRock partnered with Uniswap Labs and Securitize, a company that handles the regulatory and compliance work of real-world asset tokenization. BUIDL shares will be available through UniswapX, a trading system that sources quotes from approved market makers and settles trades on the blockchain. All users must be pre-qualified and whitelisted through Securitize, which will facilitate transactions.
“This collaboration with Uniswap Labs, along with Securitize, is a remarkable step in the convergence of tokenized assets with decentralized finance,” Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s global head of digital assets, said in a statement. “The integration of BUIDL into UniswapX marks a major leap forward in the interoperability of tokenized USD mutual funds with stablecoins.”
DeFi platforms like Uniswap allow users to trade assets, borrow or earn returns without relying on centralized financial institutions. Instead, they run on smart contracts – self-executing code stored on public blockchains.
Notably, Uniswap is the largest decentralized exchange on Ethereum . It lets users exchange tokens directly from their wallets, often within seconds. By enabling trading of BUIDL, Uniswap expands beyond crypto-native assets into the world of tokenized government bonds.
The integration allows qualified investors to trade BUIDL 24/7 with approved market makers using stablecoins.
