BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said on Wednesday that it will make shares of its tokenized US 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 and purchased an undisclosed amount of UNI, Uniswap’s governance token, which rose 25% following 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 cash and US Treasury bills, offering on-chain performance.
Its arrival on Uniswap, one of the largest decentralized exchanges, means that investors can now trade the tokenized fund in a peer-to-peer environment 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 tokenizing real-world assets. 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 make transactions easier.
“This collaboration with Uniswap Labs alongside Securitize is a notable step in the convergence of tokenized assets with decentralized finance,” Robert Mitchnick, global head of digital assets at BlackRock, said in a statement. “The integration of BUIDL into UniswapX marks a major step forward in the interoperability of USD tokenized performance funds with stablecoins.”
DeFi platforms like Uniswap allow users to trade assets, borrow, or earn returns without relying on centralized financial institutions. Instead, they are run with smart contracts: self-executing code stored on public blockchains.
Uniswap, in particular, is the largest decentralized exchange on Ethereum . It allows users to exchange tokens directly from their wallets, often in seconds. By enabling BUIDL trading, 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.
