Daily News 19

Tag: BlackRock BUIDL

  • BlackRock’s BUIDL Outpaces Circle’s USYC as Tokenized Treasury Race Heats Up

    BlackRock’s BUIDL Outpaces Circle’s USYC as Tokenized Treasury Race Heats Up

    BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) has narrowly overtaken Circle’s USYC to become the second-largest tokenized U.S. Treasury fund, highlighting the accelerating competition in the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market.

    BUIDL and USYC compete for market share

    According to Token Terminal data, the total tokenized U.S. Treasury market is worth approximately $15.1 billion. BUIDL accounts for about $2.8 billion, giving it an estimated 18.5% market share. Nearly one-fifth of all tokenized Treasury assets are therefore held through BlackRock’s fund.

    USYC also recorded rapid growth in 2025, rising from roughly $600 million to nearly $3 billion. By late August 2026, the fund had reached approximately $2.9 billion, slightly above BUIDL’s estimated $2.7 billion at that point.

    In a separate market snapshot, Sky’s uSDS ranked first with a value of $4.4 billion, followed by BUIDL at $2.28 billion. Tether’s XAUT ranked third at $2.8 billion, while Circle’s USYC was listed fourth at $2.28 billion.

    However, XAUT is classified as a tokenized commodity rather than a tokenized fund. Excluding uSDS and XAUT, BUIDL and USYC remain closely matched, meaning new institutional inflows or withdrawals could quickly change their rankings.

    BlackRock’s position may also shift rapidly because the asset manager frequently records significant inflows and outflows across its Bitcoin [BTC] and Ethereum [$ETH] exchange-traded funds (ETFs), affecting their cumulative flow totals.

    BlackRock expands its tokenized fund offering

    The competition comes as BlackRock recently launched BSTBL on Ethereum and BRSRV on Solana [$SOL]. The tokenized money market funds are designed to serve as reserve assets for stablecoins.

    The development is significant because stablecoins now represent approximately $305 billion and have become a major source of on-chain liquidity. By offering similar institutional products on both Ethereum and Solana, BlackRock is providing capital access to both ecosystems while reinforcing the competition between $ETH and $SOL for liquidity.

    By late August, USYC had reached approximately $2.9 billion, slightly above BUIDL’s estimated $2.7 billion. BUIDL has since narrowly overtaken USYC, underscoring the growing competition among tokenized Treasury funds and the broader expansion of institutional RWAs.

  • Tokenized Assets Are More Active Than the Data Shows

    Tokenized Assets Are More Active Than the Data Shows

    Estimates of how much tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) are actually being used in decentralized finance (DeFi) range from less than 1% to 7%, 11.7% and nearly 20%. All of these figures were published this year, and each can be defended. The problem is that they do not measure the same thing.

    The lowest estimate receives the most attention. Of the roughly $51 billion in tokenized real-world assets on public blockchains, it suggests that only a single-digit percentage is actively used. The figure is often cited as evidence that onchain finance remains a toy: a great deal of tokenized “value,” but very little of it operating in public markets.

    That criticism is not without merit. An asset that moves onchain, incurs transaction fees and gains no additional utility is a worse product than the traditional asset it replicates. However, the statistic used to support that criticism is nearly meaningless—not because the percentage is too low, but because both sides of the calculation are misleading.

    Where tokenized RWA utilization figures come from

    The sub-1% estimate covers only three tokenized money market funds, rather than the broader market. BlackRock’s BUIDL, Circle’s USYC and Franklin Templeton’s iBENJI hold a combined $7.2 billion and have approximately $50 million deployed.

    Expanding the sample produces a utilization rate of 11.7% according to DeFiLlama. Using CoinShares’ $7.4 billion second-quarter estimate against RWA.xyz’s $38 billion total produces a figure of about 19%. The resulting 20-fold gap reflects the lack of agreement over what should be measured, not necessarily a change in the underlying market.

    Why the denominator distorts the calculation

    According to Bernstein research, private credit accounts for approximately 47% of the $51 billion in tokenized real-world assets onchain. Private credit also tends to move infrequently in traditional finance. Tokenization does not change its redemption schedule or its holder base.

    Including private credit in the denominator of a metric intended to measure composability is therefore a category error rather than evidence of disappointing adoption. A meaningful assessment of DeFi usage must distinguish between assets designed for frequent onchain activity and assets whose underlying structure makes limited movement normal.