BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) made headlines in March with its record-breaking monthly dividend distribution of $4.17 million, marking a significant milestone in the tokenized Treasury fund space. Since its inception, BUIDL has paid out a total of $25.4 million in dividends, showcasing growing institutional interest in on-chain exposure to traditional financial products.
Securitize, the issuer of BUIDL, reported that the fund’s March dividend payout was double the previous peak of $2.1 million in July 2024. The fund’s strategy, which tokenizes a money market comprised of US Treasuries and cash equivalents, offers daily dividend payouts Monday through Friday, providing investors with near real-time yield accruals directly on-chain.
The emergence of tokenized US Treasury funds as a foundational layer in on-chain finance is gaining traction, offering verifiable, yield-bearing backing as an alternative to crypto-native stablecoins. This sector is the second-largest in tokenization, with a size of nearly $5 billion, showcasing the potential for traditional financial products in the decentralized space.
BUIDL’s assets under management (AUM) hit an all-time high of $1.93 billion in March, fueled by the growth of Ethena Labs’ synthetic dollar, USDtb. USDtb utilizes BUIDL for 90% of its backing, with $1.29 billion in exposure to the fund, highlighting the significance of traditional fixed-income instruments in supporting crypto-native applications.
Ethereum remains dominant in the multi-chain deployment of BUIDL, with $1.72 billion of BUIDL shares issued on the blockchain, accounting for nearly 90% of the fund’s size. However, the fund has expanded to other blockchains such as Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, Avalanche, Aptos, and Solana, aligning with Securitize’s strategy to make institutional-grade financial products accessible across decentralized environments.
Looking ahead, MakerDAO’s Spark is set to vote on whether to invest $500 million in BUIDL, which would further boost the fund’s market size. With participation in investments by DeFi protocols already representing 74% of current numbers, BUIDL is poised for continued growth and success in the tokenized Treasury fund space.
